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 Preston’s Mother, Father, Deaf (1994), about the experiences of hearing children of deaf parents, Meadow-Orlans, Mertens, and Sass-Lehrer’s 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 (2001) and Deaf Adolescents: Inner Lives and Lifeworld Development (2008), which are phenomenological explorations of the perceptions of deaf children and adolescents into their developmental lifeworlds. Together, these and other works (e.g. Spencer, Erting and Marschark, 2000) are contributing to a fuller, more holistic understanding of the individual and family contexts and experiences of deaf-member families.
Students in education, social work, psychology, counseling, interpreting, deaf studies, audiology, family studies, infant and toddler programs and health care professions will all appreciate, enjoy, and learn from the stories and insights shared in this book. They will be inspired and equipped to bring a fresh approach to their professional relationships. On a more personal level, parents, deaf adults, grandparents, adult siblings and extended family members will find the book especially enlightening as they seek to know and understand themselves and their unique family paintings. Discussion questions at the end of the book aid us in continuing the conversations that Berkowitz and Jonas begin.
This pioneering work allows us to see beyond the surface of a painted canvas. It takes us into the depths of the multiple meanings of the participants’ renditions of deaf-hearing sibling relations and, consequently, enhances our understanding of entire family systems.
Dr. Martha Sheridan is a professor of social work at Gallaudet University and the author of two texts: Inner Lives of Deaf Children: Interviews and Analysis (2001) and Deaf Adolescents: Inner Lives and Lifeworld Development (2008).