Hear Me Out: A Mother of a Deaf Child
Courtesy of Chabad Niagara
How far would you go for your children? Everyone who’s a mother—or who has a mother—knows a mom’s love is infinite. But some moms have found themselves doing things for their kids that are extraordinary. Here is a story of a special mom who went above and beyond the usual in helping her kids—and some of the life lessons she learned along the way.
Annette Rhodes was a typical Cleveland mom with four kids. Then her youngest son, Itamar, came down with meningitis. He recuperated, and as he was a happy baby, Annette and her husband, Michael, didn’t think there were any lasting effects. Several months later, when Michael banged a pot and ladle together for his young son, Itamar didn’t flinch. They realized something was wrong—the meningitis had left him profoundly deaf and cognitively impaired.
“I believe every mother is challenged to use her skills,” Annette says. “This is the hardest job in the world.” With this attitude, she set to work mothering Itamar, as well as her other hearing children.
“I treated Itamar like a normal person, to the best of his ability,” she recalls. That meant insisting he dressed nicely and that he learned good manners. The entire family learned sign language, and they encouraged Itamar to learn to speak vocally, as well. “I always insisted he behave well,” Annette says. “There was oneShabbat: we were sitting at the table, and Itamar wanted to go outside.” He got upset when his mom insisted he stay at the table like everyone else, and yelled “No!” “Wow, Itamar—that’s a great vocalized ‘No!’” Annette recalls saying. “But you still can’t go outside!”
Later, when Itamar wasbar mitzvahage, he told his mom he wanted a “normal” barmitzvah, like his brother’s. Annette and Michael had high expectations of him: They engaged tutors, and he was able to read a sentence from theTorahat his bar mitzvah.
“I’m a positive person,” Annette says. “I don’t frown much—I smile. Smiling is the best medicine. The Jewish sages say what you do externally, you become internally. [When parenting,] you don’t have to be the happiest person, but smile and look kids in the eye. They’re little people; they deserve a smile.”
Annette’s determined good humor got her and her family through some of their darkest periods. When Itamar was eleven, he was rushed to the hospital with a seizure. He was given incorrect medication, and was hospitalized for a month in terrible agony. “I stayed with him,” Annette recalls. “At one point, he asked, ‘Am I going to die?’ I said, ‘No, you’re going to fight—fight real hard.’ Then I went into the doctors’ lounge and cried for five minutes. Then I stopped, put my makeup back on again, and went back to him.”
When Itamar was eighteen and craved independence, his parents faced a new dilemma. An observant Jew, Itamar wanted to live in a Jewish environment, but there were no Jewish group homes for the hearing-impaired in Cleveland. The Rhodeses worked with various local agencies, and eventually Michael brought a lawsuit to their local Board of Mental Health to start a Jewish home for the deaf. “It was all a miracle,” Annette says. The funding came through, and since then, two group homes for Jewish hearing impaired residents have opened.
Today, Itamar is 40 years old. He still lives in the group home his parentshelped establish, and he has a job he loves packing machinery. He also paints, and has even sold some of his paintings professionally. Annette continues to work with deaf children and adults as a professional sign-language interpreter.
“I think every mother is special,” she says. “We’re given something important—a human being to raise—and this helps us feel a connection toG‑d. I think all mothers sense it. It’s really a miracle.”
When asked what life lessons she’s learned from her experience in parenting a special-needs child, Annette doesn’t hesitate. “You have to have a happy home. Addsimchah(joy). This doesn’t mean you’re always happy and laughing. It means you’re a happy person—that you take joy from your family, from your children and your husband. That’s the biggest thing."