CODA Childhood Holds Its Own Identity
Sometimes I wonder what my children will remember when they think about growing up in a Deaf family.
Not only the moments when communication mattered.
Not only the times when other people noticed that their parents were Deaf.
But the ordinary things that became part of their childhood without needing explanation.
They are hearing children.
They are also growing up with BSL, Deaf family life, different ways of communicating, and an awareness of access that has always been around them.
Those things belong to their story too.
I sometimes notice how easily CODA childhood can be described through the Deaf parent.
What the child did for us.
What they understood.
What they noticed.
What they had to navigate.
But I do not want their childhood to be understood only through what happened around my Deafness.
They have their own relationships with language.
Their own feelings about belonging.
Their own memories of family life.
Their own ways of making sense of being hearing in a family where Deafness is ordinary.
Some of those experiences may feel important to them one day.
Others may simply feel like home.
And I cannot decide which will be which.
As their parent, I can recognise the different worlds they move through without deciding what those worlds mean for them.
I can notice what has shaped their childhood without turning it into a fixed story.
Because their connection to Deafness is not simply an extension of mine.
It is part of a childhood that belongs to them.
And perhaps that is something I need to keep making room for.
Not an identity I define for them.
But an identity they are allowed to understand in their own way, over time.
