Liveblogging Deaf Supernanny

9:57:  Jo's final words of wisdom and farewell.  Tears everywhere.  "Bye Loveys!"  God, I love her accent.  I'd totally ask her out.

9:55: Moment of truth -- Melissa confronts them about going on their cruise and abandoning her with the kids.  Her signing is painful.  And she's been their terp? POOR WOMAN.  I want to cuddle her and tell her it's okay and stuff her throat with comfort food.  Seriously.  I have some Ben n Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch ice cream downstairs that I NEVER share... but I'd share with her.  Mom and Dad finally seem to listen.  At last.  Took 'em what, 18 years?  I'm having a hard time feeling bad for them.

9:53: The section showed in Bill Creswell's preview clip is playing now.  Dad's face has been frozen in place.  People, Botox is not deaf-friendly.  *waggling finger* Uh-uh.

9:48: Melissa freaks out seeing her parents talk to friends about possibly going on a cruise.  She says her parents abandoned the four kids while they went on a cruise before.  Mom says no way, but I sympathize with Melissa.  Even if grandpa was babysitting, I'm sure Melissa still felt obliged.  Funny how Melissa's grammar goes to shit when she's sim-comming.  Hello, world?  Sim-com sucks.  Only when you're perfectly proficient in both and only for communication purposes BOTH should you even attempt it. 

9:44  They see the video of how they've done while Jo's been gone for three days.  Kip plays ASL games, they "read" them books, put them to bed.  These people need ASL classes. I can only see word salad. 

9:38: Mom is excited 'cause it took less than three hours to get the kids to bed.  If it takes me less than 20 minutes I'm ready to call the cops on the kid.  Guess they win the prize for patience.  They're gifted new baby video monitors.  I'm still amazed at the lack of parenting skills.  Where were THEIR parents?

9:36: One of the kids just got a "speaking indistinctly."  Snorfle.  Mom is so cute following Jo's instructions.  Jo's actually leading her by the hand, teaching her to put the kids to bed.

9:34: Melissa and Kip hug.  Aww.  But I've just realized... How do they even communicate anyway?  They're signing like crazy.  She can't even sign "I love you."

9:32: Melissa comes back ONLY if she can talk to Mom without stepdad Kip around.  "You don't treat me with respect" takes thirty seconds to sign.  Sigh.  Mom says in commentary, "Well, gee, I wish she told me long time ago."  Where's my can of whoopass?  I need to open it.

9:28: Melissa runs out when her mom doesn't get why she's so frustrated.  Jo's doing a good job of TRYING.  I'd be going in there with boxing gloves, beating up those parents.  An 18-year-old is still a baby, hello?!  I'm 27 and I'M STILL A BABY!

9:26: Leah screws up her face at their sign for "flower."  It looks like they're blessing both nostrils with holy water.  Uh-oh.  Now we need to explain regional signs to her.  ASL 101, kiddie-style.

9:24: Jo has a sign for Behavior Rules with the actual sign for behavior on top of it.  Dang, that girl did her homework.  One of the kids says, in a most dolorous tone, "we never, ever had rules."  Wow.

9:22: Mom says, "The kids listen to Melissa more.  She's hearing." I feel like slapping her.  But then Jo rips her a new one: "You're the parents!  That doesn't make you any less a parent because you're deaf!"  Dad doesn't get it... he says he wants Melissa to chill out and help clean the house and take care of the kids.  I am in awe.  I thought deaf people everywhere were against using hearing kids as terps.  Apparently not.  Hello, stone age.  But they seem more willing to work and to listen to Jo than other parents on the show in the past -- by far.  I guess they're used to not being in charge anyway.

9:17: End of observation day.  So far Melissa has overridden Mom's orders in the time-out chair, kids have refused to go to bed, kids have never signed one word, and Dad is just shoving them around, grunting, "go, go, go."  Methinks this is more than just about being deaf.  This is about disrespect and victim mentality.

9:16: Kip gets slapped with another "speaking indistinctly."

9:12: Dad Kip is a choppy signer.  The terp is understanding him better than me.  Jo's face looks like she smells a fart.  I agree.

9:11: Commercial break.  Leah's all excited because the people on TV are signing.  That and because Colin is in the backyard taking a shit and she can see him and yell down at him with Daddy.

9:09: Melissa breaks into tears after explaining she's been a third parent and not the oldest kid.  I almost feel bad for bashing her at the beginning for being a lousy signer.

9:06: First time Mom is captioned as "speaking indistinctly," the catchall caption for deaf voices. Right afterwards, she yells at her kids, "Stop making fun of me."

9:04: Jo says, "The parents are not even teaching their kids American Sign Language.  So how can they communicate?"  Wow.  A clueless hearing woman is already a better deaf parent than actual deaf parents.

Comments

[Carrie]

You know I've always loved your blogs but I think I've fallen in love alll over again!!

I think I need to hide for a while. Until they stop showing this as a re-run anyway.

[Carrie]

Re: Leah wrinkling her nose about the sign for "flower", I wrinkled mine up at their sign for "advantage". Is it me, or did that sign look a lot like "do"??

Where's the comment about the girls running around with massive croquet bats??? I half expected them to show brains leaking out somewhere!?

[Joshua]

I basically cringed watching this show....Now the hearing world is gonna pity every hearing children w/ deaf parents *groans*

[-ck]

My favorite commentary?

9:44pm.

[queenalpo]

@Carrie: Yes, only I thought "perform." And lady, liveblogging is a lot of work. I saw the credits rolling and hit that "publish" sucker. I deserve ice cream now.

So I didn't comment on the croquet mallets. You did. And that's going to be my happy moment for the day. Yep.

[sazzy]

Ok I'll be the positive one - I thought the ASL games were awesome. Those kids clearly needed to learn more ASL to communicate with their parents and those games were a hit. Makes me think of my Grandma who was hella creative. What kid is going to want to learn ASL when its not fun? KUDOS to the ASL games! It's never too late.

[sazzy]

btw loved your liveblogging!!!

[queenalpo]

@sazzy: LOL. I can always count on you to be the positive one. I'm worn out right now, but I've definitely got more to say tomorrow, especially since I got all the snark out of my system tonight. You're right, and I was so glad to see the kids actually signing. I just hope they stick with it.

[sazzy]

:) Me too, I hope the kids stick with it. But to be honest, I thought the kids learned/did a lot better than most kids on previous supernannies with HEARING parents. I've been watching this show sporadically for years now. SuperNanny is what it is - Jo Jo comes to teach parents who can't raise their kids right, deaf or not.

[Mary-Beth]

Wow, how the heck do you liveblog while paying attention to the show and capturing more detail than I saw?! Maybe I was too busy with my wine in the first place. ;) Kudos!

Even though I was simply annoyed by some of Kip's comments more than others, I moved past that and was excited when I saw his energy put towards the ASL games. I hope other deaf parents out there who feel the struggle in communicating with their kids picked up on this if they were even watching the show.

[mil]

I just don't get it. When Leah was born, her OAE testing in the hospital indicated she was a hearing baby, before learning otherwise, but you and Chris signed and spoke to her...ALL THE TIME!!! Why would Deaf parents NOT sign to their children, hearing or Deaf???
And I have to agree about the signing skills in this family. Even the oldest duaghter, Melissa, was fingerspelling most of the time. I know I'm not the best signer, but I could not understand the parents' signing at all. Yeah, WORD SALAD! I hate the image of deaf families this show sent to the rest of the hearing country.

[kim]

one perspective.

Don't agree with THIS, but....

http://blog.deafread.com/abcohende/2008/10/10/abcs-supernanny-baulisch-family-a-plus-four-stars/

Furthermore, did the youngest girls really improve their behavior that much? Methinks not. After all, the last 5 seconds of the show showed them trying to brain each other with croquet mallets and dumping shoes over the "cliff."

[sazzy]

kim, we don't know for sure if last 5 mins was after the fact or before. Kids will be kids. They were playing with eachother. However the main focus was communication. I think they fully understood better the need to communicate with their parents and i think that was jo's ultimate goal.

I do agree the signing sucked. Yes the parents should have signed to the kids from the start but they didn't and it's never too late. Moral of story.

[Josh]

Damn! I wish I knew about this live-blogging last night - I would've participated in the commentary!

I'm a FIRM believer that when deaf parents speak with their hearing children, that more often than not hinders the hearing children's signing skill.

So, in a word or three: shaddup and sign.

[A Deaf Pundit]

*laughs* Your commentary cracked me up! I think your liveblogging was more interesting than the show itself.

[Keri]

I know this is late but I wanted to agree with Josh's comment. I've seen a HUGE difference in the signing skills of CODAs whose parents used voice and sign and whose parents used only sign. That's why I INSISTED that my hubby turn off his voice when communicating with our son. It really works because his ASL is far better than my best friend's son because she's been speaking/signing with him since birth. =/ I'm not saying it's easy to turn off our voices especially when we are used to using it with family and friends. I do use my voice occasionally with my son (especially with discipline. The other key thing is to INSIST that the kids sign back to you even if you understand what they say. That helps them understand that they need to be signing to effectively communicate with their deaf parents.

BTW, I missed the show because it seems that it was on later...? Or on a different channel? I thought it was ABC at 8pm. Oh well.

[adam]

i loved your liveblog so much! i read this, then watched the show (as i'm on the west coast) then re-read your live blog. you could make a career out of this!

if i send you a tape of that MTV True Life with those two deaf dorks, will you liveblog it??