Deaf Hearing Boy Sparknotes

The book “Deaf Hearing Boy” is way more than just a story about a hearing boy. It has a really big and important meaning to it about how deaf people used to be treated, but also how they still are treated. This book is a story about R. H. Miller’s life story and the complications he had to face being one of the four brothers all whom were hearing and his parents being deaf. His parents had a hard life to try and make it through. They loved the urban life. They felt as if the deaf community was way stronger in the city than it was in the rural areas. His parents had a very strong bond between the two of them and loved each other just as much as anyone else. They got married when they were very young on July 31st 1936. The two of them met at …show more content…
However they both dropped out of school, and rode on a train to Indiana and decided that is where they were going to make their lives at. They often based their lives around god, and one of their favorite quotes that they taught their boys was luke 2:23, “every male child that openeth the womb shall be holy to the lord.” They were always open and loving with their boys. They tried to protect their boys from getting to close to the deaf community because they feared that if they got to close that they would not find their place in the hearing world. Therefore they did not teach them a lot about the deaf community and let the boys figure it out on their own. When his parents went to school they were not taught ASL originally. They were taught speechreading. Then, as they got older and went to the deaf school in Defiance Ohio they learned ASL. Neither one of them could really read because neither one of them was really taught how to read, but along with that neither one of them really tried to learn how to read either. They both could use their voices though! However like most deaf people nowadays as well are not confident in their voices so they did not voice very often. Neither one of their …show more content…
Her mother blamed not being able to sign on her arthritis but, her favorite thing to do was hand stitch and hand sewing, so she never could wrap her head around that. She was the second deaf daughter out of four daughters. Therefore when she had her own children she knew that she never wanted to act like that. She often acted with her heart over her head a lot to her boys. However, she did have a very bad temper, and knew how to get control over the boys.
His father on the other hand was kind of distant with the boys which was normal during this time. His father also lived a very hard life. Since he was “handicapped” for being deaf he was exempted from the military, and he and his mother had to wait until they were twenty-one to get their driver's license which often made things difficult. He was very kind and caring, but R.H. was always puzzled by his dad, and could just never quite figure him