Just Deaf

"Meeting deaf adults gave our parents a positive attitude towards deaf children."

Martine and Roos Wattel

"Five days after his birth he was already getting hearing tests done."

"My parents were fine with my deafness because of our Islamic faith."

"Society makes us handicapped."

"My third child was hearing, which was new to me."

"The youngest is now two years old, I don't know if they're gonna use a hearing aid."

"My parents could ask our deaf babysitter all kinds of questions about deaf people."

"Will he be able to enjoy music?"

"A CI can be useful if you get it when you're still young, but it's no use to me."

"As a child I didn't know putting something down on a table made a sound."

"We can tell friends and family something about his development, but his ears won't change."

"His hearing loss quickly became less important."

"Some deaf children think it's something to grow out of."

"It wasn't until later that we realized: not being able to hear, that's actually kind of complicated."

"We've never decided not to do something because they're deaf. The audiologist told us: you can grow up to be old and happy with it."

"Deafness used to not be quite as well known, my mother would explain what it was to the other children."

"If you can't hear, you're deaf. I think 'very severely hearing impaired' is very weird."

"I have felt like we were missing help from within the deaf community. You mostly see hearing professionals."

"I really wonder how he's going to experience it later on."

"People looked at me funny when I said I didn't think it was sad to be deaf at all."