Who is May?
May is a quirky and smart preschooler. She is our oldest child and was born hearing. She is a four year old who sometimes chooses to be a little baby and at other times wants to be an adult. With her we learnt all our firsts of parenting and are still figuring things out together as we move along.
How did Shrey’s birth change things for May?
May was 2 years and 3 months old when Shrey was born. One of my early worries when we found out that Shrey was deaf was how he will bond with his hearing sister and how that will affect the life of my hearing child. That she will miss out on a typical sibling experience. There was one pivotal discussion which changed everything and I never went back to worrying about this again. My husband said if anything May’s experience will be richer than the typical sibling experience. She will grow up in a more inclusive environment, surrounded by more diverse people than she typically would have if he didn’t have a deaf sibling.
Back in undergrad, I had read ‘the deep end of the ocean’ and the book stayed with me for a very long time. There is a part where the son says that while his mother had lost one son, she had in the process lost the other son too, who remained with her physically but she ceased to see him through her grief and suffering. I wanted to make sure that these life events will not make a dent in the care and attention for May. I wanted to ensure that she felt included in our lives whichever way it was transforming. In the first year of her sibling’s life, May picked up a lot of signs. She loved spending time with Shrey and being a part of all his routines like a typical older sibling. She wanted her own hearing aids and processors. Her soft toys would have them too.
How have the past 2 years been for May?
May has definitely enjoyed having her little brother in her life except for some occasions when she would like to return him to where he came from. She has always been a part of all the experiences involving Shrey such as his speech therapy exercises. In fact on occasions we have told the SLPs to have reasonable expectations in terms of the routines they wanted given that we had an older sibling who had to be integrated in the process and will not necessarily be good at abiding by the rules. As May has grown older she is not very keen to sign. We never force her either because we don’t want her to become resentful about it. However she is exposed to ASL fluent deaf adults and can still get by with them.
How is May’s bonding with Shrey? How different are their personalities?
We have taught May from the very beginning that Shrey is deaf and she is hearing. She wants to visit his schools and know about his friends. She very happily introduces him as her little brother to her friends and teachers. They both are already partners in crime. While May as a baby was always safety conscious and easy, Shrey is daring and adventurous. Now of course they both want to copy each other and blend their differences.