Hands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love

My first impression upon finishing this book was, wow, we as deaf people have really come a long way since Myron Uhlberg grew up as a hearing son of deaf parents who used American Sign Language. Mr. Uhlberg grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in the 1930s and 1940s-- long before technology, ADA

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(Americans with Disabilities Act), and more awareness of deafness and deaf culture all have made life different--and in many ways, easier-- for deaf people today. I think deaf parents today rely less on their children to get through life, because so much has changed over the years (even in the last 20 years!).

Mr. Uhlberg's parents were very dependent on him (especially since he was the first-born) to assist in communication and interpreting out in the community. Then, after the birth of his younger brother who was 4 years younger, they would depend on him to let them know when his little brother woke up in the middle of the night crying. Not only that, his younger brother developed epilepsy and therefore even more of a burden was placed on Mr. Uhlberg--having to interpret during emergency room visits or taking care of his brother while he was undergoing a seizure.

In spite of the responsibilities placed on Mr. Uhlberg as he was growing up--and he admits that he often felt overwhelmed by them-- the tone of the book does not take on a "poor me" tone. He has much love and respect for his parents and understands that they managed to overcome many obstacles that came their way through their lives. His father was a printer and had this job during the Great Depression and the rest of his life. The fact that his father had a job during the depression actually was what enabled him to win over the family of the young lady that became his future wife.

Not only is this a story about what it was like to grow up with deaf parents, I also got a taste of what it was like to grow up in Brooklyn back then. Mr. Uhlberg writes about times at Coney Island, interpreting for his father when the radio covers the Joe Louis versus Max Schmeling boxing bout, a trip with his father to see Jackie Robinson play for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

I enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it. I would have liked a brief epilogue or afterword (mainly for the benefit of hearing readers who don't know much about deaf culture) that covers what is available to deaf people today--such as videophones and TTYs and the relay services that can be used through either technology. The Uhlberg family had no telephone (basically useless for the parents) and in emergencies had to rely on neighbors. It's not like that today, at least here in America.

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I enjoy memoirs, especially when they provide a view into a world I can never know. Myron Uhlberg's childhood in the early 20th century was typical of many children, except that he had the added challenge of navigating the world on behalf of his deaf parents. He writes without self-pity and with

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empathy about his adventures, his parents, and his younger brother who suffered from severe epilepsy. I will keep this book and encourage my family members to read it.

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I love a book that is immersing, that pulls me in completely. Double so if the book describes an unfamiliar environment in a way that brings it to life for me. Myron Uhlberg has done exactly that with his brief memoir, Hands of My Father. Myron grew up in the 1930s, the hearing son of two deaf

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parents. From a very early age, Myron became the link between his parents and the rest of the world, translating for shopkeepers, teachers, doctors. He also took on huge responsibility for his younger brother, who was plagued as a young boy by night time seizures his parents couldn't hear to help with.

Two things are most striking about Myron's story. First is how loving and genuine the interactions between parents and children seem to be. Both of Myron's parents were raised by hearing parents who could barely interact with and rarely understand their children. The Ulbergs worked hard to make sure both boys were happy, safe, and most importantly, knew how much they were loved.

The other stand out is how poorly deaf people were treated in the first half of the 20th century. In these days of inclusion and political correctness, it is particularly galling to discover neighbors calling Myron's parents "the deafies" or coworkers assuming Myron's father is an idiot because he cannot speak. Despite these obvious social injustices, the Uhlberg family triumphed, an inspiration to all who read the book, without being overly treacly.

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This is a memoir of Myron Uhlberg, a popular children's writer, born to two deaf parents. As a hearing child he is forced to grow up too quickly as he serves to interpret the hearing world for his deaf parents. He feels jilted of a childhood but gradually comes to terms with it and learns to

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appreciate all that he learned through communication of his 'Father's Hands.' This book is highly recommended!

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This book didn't take me long to read, which is unusual. It's great to read a book by someone with such a unique perspective.The author was raised by two deaf parents, and his first language was sign. Since he could hear, his parents often depended upon to be their translator. While he was growing

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up, he constantly had to explain things about the deaf world to the hearing and he had to explain sound to his father. This book brings these explanations together in the form of a memoir.

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Hands of My Father is a wonderful set of recollections about a man, a family, a love and a language. The sound of silence is portrayed so well, almost magically, and causes questions to arise such as, "What does wet sound like?" Softly and carefully, I was made to realize just how much I take for

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granted in this hearing world, how much responsibility I do not have. Young Myron was relied upon to translate an entire sense for his parents, and to navigate the streets of ignorance and miscommunication with skill most adults don't even have. In short, this was a magnificent story about the silent love between two people, and the power of communication beyond mere language.

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Uhlberg's book, Hands of My Father was an intriguing and beautiful story. I had never considered before reading this the everyday lives of those living in silence. Especially in a time when our world was less accepting of differences. What surprised me the most was the beauty of the sign language.

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Uhlberg's description of it made it alive, flowing. He also helped me understand the differences in sign between different individuals, much like accents.
The stories themselves also gave insight to the responsibilities and the joys of those that serve as a voice for the silent. This read as a whole was also educational about the time period in which he grew up. Overall I found this book to be interesting, educational, and very personal. It was a joy to read.

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Myron grows up with his parents and brother in New York City in the forties and fifties. However, there were a few things different about his family. Not only are both of his parents profoundly deaf, his younger brother suffers from epilepsy. As Myron is growing up, he is forced to take on many

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roles that are much too adult for his years - as the only child who is fluent both in American Sign Language and in English, he is required to work as his parents' translator in all public situations - hospitals, bargaining at stores, reporting on his (poor) progress at parent/teacher conference night. His father is adamant that he translate every word - every word -exactly as spoken, meaning he has an extensive vocabulary in adult conversation at a young age, and that he has translated really hurtful, prejudiced comments to his parents with no filter for their feelings. He is also responsible for his brothers seizures, with a rope tied between each of their arms at night so Myron can wake if a seizure occurs. Despite all this responsibility, Myron still has many typical "kid growing up in New York City" moments, almost all centering around his vibrant family life. The love they share exudes from every page.

I really enjoyed this memoir. It was a fast read, primarily because it was extremely interesting, with vivid characters and an interesting story. It was fascinating to read about deaf culture around World War II, when so much of why some children lost their hearing and some did not was still a mystery. Myron's father is worried that a hearing baby in a deaf household will loose the ability to distinguish sound through disuse, so he insists that a radio be on day and night, giving his child's ears constant exercise. The (hearing) in-laws come over once a week, stand behind the baby's crib, and bang on pots and pans furiously to make sure Myron's hearing has not disappeared in the last seven days. My only complaint is that the refrain "I was treated as too old for my age, I didn't get to have a normal childhood, too much responsibility was given to me too young" got tiring. In really good memoirs, there is no need to spell it all out for the reader all the time "my mom was insane," "my parents' religion was bizarre," "my father was a monster," the story tells it for the author so the reader can pick up on it by themselves. The unifying theme is very evident here, no need to explain it outside off the tales.

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Reading this book was like savoring an old-fashioned piece of candy I have not had in a decade. It is older people who have some of the greater tales to tell for they have been through generations of change and, for some, trying times.

It is a tale of a boy raised by two deaf parents and the

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profound love Myron's father felt for him and his family. The hardships they underwent discrimination-wise at a time when those with disabilities were cast aside by the hearing are sad, and you get a sense of just how hard it was, not just for the parents, but this little boy who, as well as having to help his younger brother during his consistent epileptic seizures, acted as a translator for his father and hearing people, who had no patience for a deaf person - a lot of pressure for a little boy. The cruelty of the verbal comments directed at his father saddens me. How hard could it be to learn a few signs here and there to try and communicate with an employee or customer? Instead, this little boy had to endure jeers and nasty comments about his father from a very young age because these people were too heartless to pass a pleasant word.

The chapter about the little boy who contracted polio and Myron's father's reaction gave me the strongest sense of just how it must feel for a deaf person in a hearing world, and left me with an overpowering urge to meet this man that was Myron's father and learn his language so he did not have to feel so deserted by the hearing.

Yet, despite everything, this little boy was truly loved and had a close relationship with the father who adored him, with some humorous feats along the way. I especially loved his relaying to his father of boxing matches where he played out the entire match from both sides of the ring, as well as his Spiderman antics, which had me laughing out loud as I pictured Mrs. Abromovitz' reaction.

Highly recommended. This story earns every one of its five stars. I sincerely hope the author is planning more books about his youth for he's left me with a longing now to hear more about this his tales growing up. Perhaps next time we'll be treated to a story about his mother or his brother.

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The Hands of My Father, by Myron Uhlberg is a reveiw of the authors life. He was a hearing boy with deaf parents that lived in Brooklyn, New York. He had to learn Sign and English in order to translate for his parents in the world of hearing, where only he could hear the insults thrown at them. his

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book tells about his most dreded and happy moments, his only friends, and his most remembered moments in his life. To read about his hard life, you have to read The Hands of My Father!

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This was a beautifully written memoir. Young Myron was a hearing child of deaf parents. As the older of two children, he was forced into the role of interpreter for his parents in the hearing world. It was a burden that at times was difficult to bear. At the heart of this book is Myron's love for

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his parents and their love for him. His father's hands taught him that love.

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I was initially apprehensive about this book, fearful that it would be either an extensive lament about how terrible it was to grow up with deaf parents, or a sugar-coated romanticised view of how "inspirational" the lives of deaf people are. It was, fortunately, neither. Mr. Uhlberg's family

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experienced both joy and sorrow, each of which were represented with tremendous attention to detail, warm but not overly sentimental. It was interesting to read about the Uhlbergs' progressive views of deaf people as a linguistic minority, as I was not previously aware that this view was present so far in the past. I did find it irritating that Uhlberg felt it necessary to remind the reader, frequently and explicitly, that his parents were deaf and could not hear the sounds of what was happening. It was patronizing and interrupted the flow of the narrative.

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Memoir of a boy growing up with deaf parents. This is a great eye-opener to not only what it is like to be the voice for deaf parents, but the prejudices and hardships all the family members face.

This was an Early Reviewers book - though I'm very late in actually reviewing it. This was actually two books, intermingled. One, though well-written, was really uninteresting to me. The other was fascinating, but there wasn't enough of it. The uninteresting one was Myron's memoirs. He just spent

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too much time telling us how put-upon he was, as the conduit between his parents and the 'hearing' world - his struggles to fulfill his father's needs, how much responsibility was put on him from a very early age, his embarrassment at people's reactions to his father (his parents, but he mostly talked about his father), how his parents never fit into their families. It read like a mainstream novel - hard things happening over and over to people who aren't very likeable. There's a reason I seldom read mainstream novels!
The second book was fascinating - an account of very early deaf culture in America, and specifically in New York. Myron's father was more trained than taught, and his schoolmates taught him sign - it was not only ignored but forbidden by the teachers. He found a good job, where his deafness was an asset, and kept it and supported his family through the Great Depression and the war years and beyond. Myron's mother was more-or-less forced, by her family, to choose a deaf man for a husband - whether her hearing boyfriend would ever have proposed or not, he was unacceptable to her family largely because he wasn't deaf. We also get glimpses, in scenes like the circle on the beach, of how the deaf people in New York connected and supported and interacted with one another. There's a great many mentions of signs, generally accepted or privately invented (and in some cases Myron details the latter, and in other he just skips over them, describing meaning but not gesture). I find this subject very interesting (I sign, a very little), but it was too often skimmed over in favor of another moan about how hard Myron's life was. I'm very glad I read the book, but I have no intention of ever rereading it.

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This was a really great read. It's about a hearing boy who grew up with a deaf mother and deaf father and hearing brother. He tells of his experiences and lots of stories about what life was like not only as the child of deaf parents but what life was like in Brooklyn in 1930's and on. He also

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touches on some of what life was like for deaf people in general in those times, the prejudices and stuff that they often experienced.

Overall, it was a very touching, heartwarming book and also very funny at times. I found myself laughing out loud for real several times, which doesn't happen often while reading. While I'd obviously recommend this book to anyone interested in Deaf issues, I also think it is an enjoyable book in it's own right. I am really glad I read it. I ended up buying it.

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Myron Uhlberg's memoir of his Brooklyn boyhood in the 30s and 40s differs from others by his memories of being the hearing son of deaf parents. His parents had to make a life for themselves before ADA and Deaf Culture and I was more interested in those aspects, which he unfortunately (like I)

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remained an outsider. He of course, was closer than others to knowing the slights and denials his parents endured. He also had to shoulder the responsibility for interpreting for them as well as helping care for his younger brother. Funny remembrances followed by heartbreakers carry you along. I can't call it "amazing" (5 stars), but I don't hesitate to recommend it.

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Enlightening and informative though often meandering.