Jonas Judith A - Deaf and Hearing Siblings in Conversation

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

e-ISBN: 978-1-4766-1513-4

2014 Marla C. Berkowitz and Judith A. Jonas. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com

Each of us had a circle of people who have been there from the very beginning of the birth of our project many years ago. Theyve been bystanders but not without a significant purpose, whether they knew it or not. We are forever indebted for their confidence and trust in our journey.

To the siblings who let us do face-to-face interviews: Welcoming us to your homes, baring your sibling experiences without hesitation, and trusting us with your deepest thoughts is beyond gratitude. Without you this book would never have existed.

To the Lawrence W. Levine Foundation: We are extremely grateful for the extended financial support from Russell Kane, who had been a childhood friend of Marlas for more than forty years, for soliciting the funding on behalf of the foundation for the interviews, travel expenses, and other operational costs to complete the research study on sibling relationships.

To Dr. Brenda Brueggemann: You have been our ardent supporter and editor, boosting our confidence that studying deaf and hearing adult siblings was critical and timely. Your expertise in addressing the cohesiveness of our preliminary manuscript, complete with your warmth, wit and salient comments, steered us in the right direction.

From Marla Berkowitz:

To Charisse: Your love and encouragement never wavered, challenging me to write with clarity from our countless chats about my work on siblings.

To Hannah: Your everyday reminder to get up and take me out for our long walks is a lifesaver. Youve been the most patient and understanding canine ever!

To Mom, Dad and Arnold: What you have provided for me is never taken for granted. Your love and devotion were plentiful, especially with teaching me the determination to navigate efficiently in this world.

To Julie and Joseph: With gratitude, your frankness in sharing incredible perspectives, which shed light on my understanding you slightly better. It gives me hope that in the days ahead we can conquer the hurdles of our distant sibling relations.

To Danny, Benjamin, Mia, Ayla, Sophie and Danielle: My dearest nephews and nieces, watching you grow up to be as loving as you are, reminds me that being a sibling is to be cherished.

To Rich, Lisa, and Michelle: Even though you came into my family later through our parents marriage, I look forward to the days when I can get to know you and your children better.

To Judy: Our weekly and monthly sessions, and our years of work together remotely, were truly the best and most rewarding Ive ever experienced in ways youve never imagined. Thank you for being such a great role model, for being a friend, for sharing openly about your life confirming the joys of being a sibling.

And to those who have seen me working on this project nonstop, I offer my deepest gratitude for your inquisitiveness, rooting, and years of patience!

From Judy Jonas:

To my husband, Peter: Youre always there for me, supporting my many muses.

To my brother, Larry: Were simpatico. Weve never had a fight.

To my sister, Mary Ann: Unknowingly, you led the way.

To my daughter, Deborah: You guided us through our tangle of data and listened.

To my daughter, Wendy: Your support and faith in my work were constant.

To Ed and Joan, Arnie and Nina: As lifelong friends, your encouragement was invaluable, recognizing this was a huge undertaking.

To JoAnn: You see, were finally done.

To Eileen Forestal: You gently led me to the DEAF-WORLD.

To Marla Berkowitz, first my teacher, then a colleague, and now my friend who constantly challenged me to absorb and understand the depth and breadth of the DEAF-WORLD.

by Martha A. Sheridan

Most of us have drawn or painted family pictures and many of us have siblings who were depicted in these subjective works of art. No two paintings by siblings from a family will be the same because perception is in the eye of the beholder brought to view through the brushstrokes of our separate, yet connected minds and hearts. Rarely, if ever, do siblings have the chance to discuss their observations of these powerful reciprocal influences and outcomes and come to know each other and themselves through this personal reflection.

This book is not about just any ordinary relationship between brothers and sisters. Marla Berkowitz and Judy Jonas have begun an important and long overdue conversation about deaf and hearing sibling relations where we would assume that opportunities for shared communication and meanings are complicated by the lack of a common language or an imbalance in communication access. Relationship dynamics in families with deaf and hearing siblings have remained a mystery as researchers have historically focused their energies on the experiences of deaf children and those of their parents. Yet a whole image is made up of the sum of its parts, and to more fully understand the experiences and constructions of deaf-member families, we need to paint a complete landscape, including every part of the whole.

Co-researchers Marla Berkowitz, who is deaf with hearing siblings, and Judy Jonas, who is hearing with one deaf and one hearing sibling, have taken steps to complete this picture through phenomenological interviews with twenty-two deaf and hearing siblings. Inspired by their own personal experiences, the authors take us on an intimate and very personal journey through the lives and experiences of deaf and hearing siblings. The authors supplemented the narratives provided by their research participants with creative stories to highlight and give context to their findings. The stories shared by their study participants are sometimes joyful, sometimes painful, yet always insightful. Readers who are themselves members of deaf-hearing sibling dyads will see themselves mirrored in these powerful and deeply personal narratives. As a deaf person, in a family with deaf and hearing siblings, I felt a strong kinship with the storytellers in this book as I reflected on my own similar family encounters.

This is a groundbreaking work complementing the seminal qualitative work of Paul Prestons Mother, Father, Deaf (1994), about the experiences of hearing children of deaf parents, Meadow-Orlans, Mertens, and Sass-Lehrers Parents and Their Deaf Children: The Early Years (2002), a work about the experiences of parents of deaf children from birth through early elementary school, and my own Inner Lives of Deaf Children: Interviews and Analysis