Lynne Farley: Parenting When You Can’t Hear ****

When you first leave the hospital as a new parent, it is a surreal experience. A tiny scrap of life drowned in too-big clothes; swamped in the bottom of a car seat that takes you two hours to fit in securely, glaring at anyone who dares to breathe near your precious bundle.

You arrive home 45 minutes after what should have been a mere five minute journey when it suddenly hits you that you are solely responsible for this minuscule dot of a being.

No book, no instructions. What are you meant to do when you need the loo? Is the room too hot/cold? The list of questions is longer than a line of women at an Olly Murs Concert.

Fast forward a few sleepless nights, throw in some tantrums, strops, door slams, grazed knees and bumped heads for good measure, then mix in some moderate to severe hearing loss, and well, you get where I’m coming from right about now.

Let me first assure you that I am most certainly not in any way, shape or form an expert in parenting. Sure,  there are some days when I have my sh*t together and I feel like a bona fide Jo Frost-Mary Poppins Hybrid, and then the other days…  I’m really just pretty much winging it,  holding on by my fingertips to the ever widening cracks in my sanity and balancing on my last nerve.

Everyone knows children are inherently loud, and my hearing, or lack thereof, most definitely does not protect me from the glass-shattering shrieks that erupt from my daughter – who appears to morph into a banshee the instant she feels unfairly treated.

Nor does it lessen the never ending monotony of children’s shows… I rely on subtitles for my own TV programmes, but you can bet your bottom dollar I will hear that bossy pig and her little brother jumping in muddy puddles just fine!

But however bad that noise seems, the feeling of fear when a child suddenly becomes unusually quiet is something that all parents can relate to, and when your hearing isn’t good, this multiplies exponentially.

The simple reason being that silence usually means they are absolutely doing something that they should absolutely not be doing. And hearing problems (along with sods’ law) usually means you are without a doubt, absolutely 100% less likely to find said child whilst they are doing whatever it is they shouldn’t. Hey, at least if they are noisy you know where they are and (usually) what they are up to… right??

Mornings are a real struggle in my house. I don’t usually hear my alarm, so I tend to have to rely on the teenager making enough noise to wake the dead along with us, or the small ones demanding nourishment and hydration.

However, since the discovery of certain games on iPad and PS4, the sneaky little buggers will be as quiet as they can so as not to wake me since they know I wont wake up – which is kiiind of an issue on a school day, and never fails to put me in a really foul mood.

Soft play. The Marmite of parenting. Love them or hate them, the likelihood is that you will find yourself attending at least once before your little ones fly the nest.

Here is where I have a lot of issues.

I overlook the unidentifiable stains, ignore the small shoes and clothes garments randomly scattered. I choose not to acknowledge the brightly coloured balls that periodically exit the structure at high velocity; most definitely not containing numerous strains of unidentified micro organisms.

I accept these. What I cannot deal with is the noise. Hearing aids? No way. I either hear nothing but indistinguishable noise, or I can hear every single other child in the place other than my own, or whoever I am trying to talk to. Neither option is of any use, and so I usually end up removing them, attempting to concentrate on lipreading whilst having to keep one eye on random sticky little inquisitive fingers and the aerobatic displays of my small people from within the safety nets.

It doesn’t get any easier as they get older either. Harry Enfield was quite correct with the Kevin and Perry phenomenon, and those teenage grunts and mumbles are hard to catch at the best of times let alone with a hearing loss. It is extremely frustrating when you can’t quite hear what was muttered by your offspring under their breath as they slink off for yet another sulking session, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do because you didn’t quite hear it and cant be 100% sure!

When they argue among themselves it’s equally as hard because when you haven’t heard or seen what was going on – which lets face it, is most of the time – it literally comes down to a case of ‘he said’ ‘she said’  (and between you and me, although I would never let on,  I honestly can’t tell which of my little poker faced angels is telling the truth!)

I am pretty certain as they grow and evolve into adulthood there will still be many issues. Things will change, and granted, the issues won’t be the same as they are at this moment in time when they are small, but I hope my children adapt with me and my hearing loss; they themselves will certainly change, and I will have to learn to adapt, which I know will mean letting them spread their wings along the way.

But there is one thing which will stand the test of time and will always remain the same for all parents in every walk of life, whether hearing or deaf, whatever colour or race we are, whatever our parenting struggles, styles, values or beliefs.

We may not always spend two hours strapping our children safely in, but, spend that time we all most certainly will. It will be spent Worrying. Planning. Thinking. Wondering.

Because in all our eyes, no matter who we are. No matter how old they are.  To us they will always be that tiny scrap,  scrawny flailing arms and legs, with no instruction manual.

Drowned in too-big clothes, and swamped in the bottom of a huge car seat.

Lynne blogs at Three Kids and a Campervan – check it out here.

Lynne Farley has moderate – severe hearing loss and wears bilateral phonak aids (with pink and purple moulds!). She’s a busy single mum of three – and lives at home with her three kids cat and dog in Norfolk. When not at home she likes to be in their vw van somewhere in a field round a firepit! She can sign to level 2.