SuperNanny–The Aftermath
SuperNanny just finished airing on television and I am so awash with emotions in my gut about the episode. First, let me say the “good” part of the show, if we can even call it that…
Today’s episode centered on the life of two Deaf parents, an 18 year old daughter, and 3 younger daughters aged 5 thorough 8. The father was actually a step-father to the elder daughter. All children were hearing and only the 18 year old daughter knew any decent level of American Sign Language, enough to communicate on a rather rudimentary level.
Because the older daughter, Melissa, was the only one who could communicate to both sides of the family, she became the de facto parent in that household. The younger children refused to listen to their parents and only obeyed orders when Melissa came into the room. These children were disrespectful of their Deaf parents and would do things like cover thier mouths while talking to their parents.
Sadly, the parents had long-since given up.and given all responsibility over to Melissa who was holding down two jobs while still going to school. Clearly this woman/child was at her wits end and the parents were completely disassociative to the problems around them.
Jo, the SuperNanny, was clearly a godsend arriving at the scene to help piece the family dynamic back together into a more cohesive environment. I cheered and had tears in my eyes to see the victimized Melissa finally get her due and be validated for the terrible burden her parents relinquished onto her.
However, while I cheered for this family to get better, I have great disdain for the producers of SuperNanny for having aired this show in its format without providing the due diligence required to present an episode with a unique focus. From the outset, I was aghast to realize that the simplicity of the viewing public could contribute to a potential stereotypical view that Deaf parents are unfit to be parents, especially of hearing children.
At no point did SuperNanny make a reasonable effort to inform its viewers that this episode is about a particular and specific family with typical problems that many parents face, regardless of their hearing ability. The only informative statement they made was that “90% of Deaf parents have hearing children.” That’s it!
Oh what a prized piece of ammunition the supporters of Alexander Graham Bell, who advocated sterilization of Deaf people, must think they have in their possession now. In their constant propaganda efforts to showcase why Deafness must be cured, you can be sure those AgBELLites are recording and copying this episode like mad to show to people they preach to.
SuperNanny had a wonderful idea. Include Deaf parents in their programming. Broaden the perspective of the show and make people aware that its not only hearing people who have this problem. But they failed in their endeavors. When you decide to go “outside the box” on a program that reaches millions, you carry with you a responsibility to ensure that the viewers have a fuller undersanding of the situation.
I abhor what these parents did to Melissa. They were stupid, idiotic parents. But while SuperNanny did much to improve the situation for Melissa by ensuring she had validation, SuperNanny chose to completely ignore obvious signs of a need for validation for the Deaf parents. Here’s an example:
Towards the end of the show, while everyone had learned their lessons, the parents were seen sitting at a table with other Deaf people, discussing plans for a cruise. That resulted in a blowup and a need to tend to Melissa’s fears of being dumped on again. But at the same time, the viewers must have though, “How odd? These parents were discussing a cruise just days after being told to stick to a routine with their children??”
SuperNanny should have explored this. Why did the parents feel the need to go on this cruise? I’ll bet you 10-1 this was likely a discussion of a Deaf Cruise. There’s a particular reason why Deaf people go on Deaf Cruises. Why? Because it is a week-long event where you don’t have to deal with hearing people. For a whole week, you are “normal” and everywhere you go, you communicate in ASL. For a whole week, you don’t wake up thinking “Okay, how do I face the world and deal with the communication barriers?” For one week, they can escape that.
Now, I’m not saying I agree these parents should have gone on the cruise. Far from that. But, what I am saying is that SuperNanny chose to ignore this and thus failed to validate the world that every Deaf person experiences. SuperNanny chose to scold the parents as children and comfort the hearing person. SuperNanny ignored the Deafness of the family.
You and I, we’re fortunate. We are a part of the Deaf Community and we were able to view and understand the true dynamics of this family. But a hearing person who may never have been exposed to Deafness probably walked away thinking “How idiotic are Deaf people? Deaf people should never be parents. They are incapable of any logic.”
Could it have hurt SuperNanny to simply insert a 5-minute segment discussing the challenges that Deaf families face? Educate its viewers that not all Deaf families are like this? Educate the viewers that in many cases, there are strong bonds and relationships in Deaf families out there?
I’m grateful that SuperNanny came along and “saved” this family. I hope the lessons this family learned last a lifetime for them. They came out the winners. But the Deaf Community came out the losers in this episode.
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Bryen,
With due respect, I have completely DIFFERENT reaction to Supernanny show, and it is FOUR STARS in my perspective!
They place American Sign Language in a positive light, and Jo Frost mentioned the word ASL over 20 times and they emphasizes the importance of communication and language in the family.
I see this differently, and it is the best show. Jo Frost does respect Deaf family, and tried to tell them not to use deafness as an excuse to give up! She made the point that learning ASL and encouraging the parents to take up the role to communicate is so important.
She made several comments that should be applied to hearing parents of deaf child(ren)!
I watched the show with four other deaf people (two parents, two teachers and all of us are professionals) and we are extremely pleased with this show.
Amy Cohen Efron
blog.deafread.com/abcohende
Check my blog/vlog about Supernanny.
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Amy Cohen Efron - October 10th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Amy,
What does being a professional have to do with this? Let alone 4 professionals? Are you saying you have more credibility and validity to determine whether the show was constructive or not?
I would have to side with the blogger on this one. It was great that ASL was being exposed as an incredible resource of communication between family members. However, there were many transparencies with ASL between the mother/father and the children. For example, Melissa finger spelled “acknowledge” and the mother responded with a sign “action” to indicate that it was the correct sign for “acknowledge.” I have noticed this and this is a poor and dangerous way to incorporate ASL into their conversation.
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a - October 10th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I can assure you that regular viewers of that show will acknowledge that that family is no different than many other familes that appeared on Nanny. Here’s the typical traits I see in deaf parent/hearing children family dynamics. They are: Kids thinking they can get away with anything because their parents are deaf. Many kids hearing or deaf will test their parents. And, communication issues. You’ll find that in many families. But, these are the two that is common in deaf parent/hearing children families. Parents just needs to be assertive and not a pushover and that applies to all families.
I thought it was a typical Nanny show which showed that even deaf people are not much different than anyone else.
[Reply]
Candy - October 10th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Bryen,
I was watching this show with a group and I didn’t mean to imply about credibility and validity to determine this way. We did spend about one hour discussing this show, the pros and the cons.
What you have said on your blog, we did discuss that. We did notice something that it quite rare to see the *emphasis* of American Sign Language in a national primetime TV show.
I did have some doubts before watching the show about the perception of deaf people cannot raise a family. I realized that Supernanny has chosen all of the dysfunctional families in every episode, and for this time, I am expecting something worse.
Somehow, I ended up feeling more pleased how Jo Frost, the producers and ABC network decided to emphasize ASL as a vital part of language and communication in a family, to help to be more cohesive in a healthy way.
Bryen, I respected your thoughts on your blog and I do have a different perspectives and that perspective is not mine alone. I appreciate you siding that with me.
I do have apprehension of the perception, and knowing this show, they did have a reputation of picking families that are significantly dysfunctional.
Perhaps, we can go together and check the community forum on ABC.com?
Thanks for this dialogue!
Amy Cohen Efron
P.S. - I am seeing this as a bigger picture, and its okay for you to see for the details that are important to notice too.
The bigger picture is for the hearing people to hear American Sign Language (A.S.L.) over and over again throughout the show. That is the best free publicity for ASL ever!
[Reply]
Amy Cohen Efron - October 10th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Amy,
You have proven my point. You are a Deaf person with experience in this area. If this show was aired only to the Deaf Community, then I would not have found any fault in this episode. But, that is not the case. Instead it was aired nationwide and it only served to reinforce the perception out there by people who have never been exposed to Deaf that we’re dim-witted and incapable of being decent parents.
The fact is, this show exploited us for ratings. It zeroed in on two parents who happen to be not the greatest parents ever and are Deaf, yet did not emphasize that these parents were not representative of the full demographic.
If you were never exposed to Deaf, this is your first and only impression of what a Deaf parent must be like.
[Reply]
Bryen - October 10th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Bryen,
This is a wonderful dialogue, and we both do raise important points in a different perspectives. I completely understand where you are coming from by using a different ‘lenses’ to see a negative protrayal of deaf family and how this can be stereotyped by people who never met a deaf person or family.
Bryen, perhaps we can look at the larger picture or a full demographic of deaf parents with hearing children - what is the ‘representative’?
Let us visit ABC.com community forum and see how many comments posted about this show? I’ll be hopping over there.
Best,
Amy
[Reply]
Amy Cohen Efron - October 10th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
In my view, the parents (as is on every show) were portrayed negatively in the beginning, but at the end, the parents seemed so eager and I think they were shown more in a positive light. I wonder how hearing viewers viewed this.
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Rox - October 10th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I think it’s pretty much a given that not all parents are not like the parents on SuperNanny. Not all black parents are like the black parents on that show, etc etc. So I would not worry too much about that.
And if people do not have the common sense to recognize that, then that says more about themselves than it does about us. I would laugh my rear off if AGB went around saying, “See. This is why your child has to speak and hear! Look at SuperNanny! You don’t want your child to end up like these adults!”
That is blatant scaremongering and promoting bigotry/discrimination. In fact, when I think about it some more, I would *love* to see them do that, because that would expose AGB for who they really are.
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A Deaf Pundit - October 11th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Hi, I watched with a great interest as I am a Deaf mom to two hearing children — of course iit was great that Jo emphasized heavily on ASL for the family for thei rprimary communication method. I applaud this move.
One thing I agree with you Bryen, is that Jo felt a lot of empathy toward Melissa and you could sense that Jo had some concerns with her deaf parents. Of course Melissa felt that she had to “take care” of the family, some hearing children from hearnig families face the same problems. Look at Duggar Family, they have 17 children and the 18th baby is on its way, they expect the siblings to take care of the younger ones, clean the house, cook and many things. I s it morally wrong? I am not sure. however, one could sense that Melissa and her parents had poor communication, is it because he r parents refused to acknowledge her feelings or simply because she is a teenager and thinks that she knows better than her parents? One would have to examine it more closer and see where the conflicts are coming from. As for the cruise, I agree it should have been expaneded into more details about why they were talking about it and why Melissa got emotionally upset. I wonder when the parents came home from the cruiise, did Melissa express her concerns and disappointment to them? however, they need more communication, teamwork, agreement and some compromising there.
there were some dynamics going on between deaf and hearing, often times, hearing people will think that the deaf person is often wrong and isn’t geniunely believed. This is often a big problem and it is a very oppressive action placed by the hearing person. We need to educate hearing people that we are intelligent, we know what we are doing, we are confident and need to be respected. Often times, hearing people (not all of them) don’t have much respect and are often overbearing to deaf people, thinknig that they cannot do anythnig. It is rather unfortunate. I wonder if Melissa picked up from her family relatives or whoever and she needs to change her attitudes toward deaf people and that they are geninuely good people.
I
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Mac reply on October 11th, 2008:
Interesting questions about Melissa. My take on it is that she has some anger due to not feeling connected enough with her mother (and maybe her birth father, who knows what happened with him). Her mother remarried and Melissa did not bond easily with the new husband. But maybe the bigger issue is that Melissa does not sign well and mom is not always understanding her. Melissa is not always respecting mom, and mom is not always having patience for Melissa. Communication problems lead to a loss of intimacy and I think Melissa (and maybe mom too) have problems between them even though Melissa signs more than her little sisters. I don’t think the dynamics were unclear though. For example the time mom disciplined her daughter and put her in the chair, Melissa came in and told the sister to come and eat. Jo pointed out that Melissa had undermined her mom’s authority.
I did feel like the deaf people were being blamed for their kids not having learned ASL. I had mixed feelings about this. I suspect the parents had some negative feelings about ASL which led them not to use it with their children? Or why didn’t they? Do you think Melissa undermined their effort to do that by speaking with the young children from a young age? I think maybe Melissa should have been included in the family ASL lessons? I did totally love that Jo emphasized their needing to use ASL.
[Reply]
deafmom - October 11th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Byren,
I am so glad that I am not the only person who thought that way until I found your blog. I have to say that I agree with your points on the problems of the show portraying that Deaf parents are unfit parents.
My folks and I (we are not professionals, just a regular blue collared deaf family) grimaced when we saw the embarrassing parts of the show.
One thing that I am glad is that Jo emphasized on American Sign Language instead of just “sign language” or another method of communications.
Kudos to Bryen!
Lausawfish
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Lausawfish - October 11th, 2008 at 11:53 am
I have a different perspective. This program is all about a nanny helping parents learn new tools in raising their children appropriately. Having an episode with Deaf parents having trouble with their kids show that even Deaf parents have the same problems like their peers. It doesn’t mean that ALL deaf parents have these problems, just like not ALL hearing parents have these problems.
The core of the problem is lack of respect to parents due to language differences. This can easily apply to immigrant parents with different language.
SuperNanny put a very positive spin on ASL and emphasize to the family that they need to use a language accessible to the parents. She also stresses the importance of the Deaf parents being treated with respect from their hearing children
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Mishkazena - October 11th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I didn’t watch it yesterday but I read your story about last nite’s show. I feel no excuse to those Deaf parents for not signing ASL to last 3 children. Wasted their time. I agree with you, Bryen - they are idiotic parents, period.
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smandreal - October 11th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
You’re missing the big picture really. So you’re afraid people will resort to stereotyping? People who do are dumb anyway. This is a show about out of control kids and stressed parents. Stressed parents can be from all class or SES. Let’s not get too political about a TV show for goodness sake. It is what it is but this time ASL is the main focus which is good.
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drmzz - October 11th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I (deaf) watched with my mom (hearing), and I shared with her before watching that I was nervous about how the Deaf parents would be portrayed on national TV (I know the general stereotypes about Deaf people include that Deaf people would not be as qualified to be parents). Watching this was interesting. I think that through Amy’s “lens” which is about promotion of ASL with children, it was actually an amazing show. Did it present a positive view of Deaf people as parents? Absolutely not. But I’m not sure that was the job of this show, since it routinely presents parents who are having difficulty and need help with parenting skills. And I think that Jo was able to help these parents.
I had fewer “cringe-worthy” moments than I anticipated, but I did have some. One was the parents’ discussing the cruise. I think it was true that they needed to be much more sensitive of Melissa’s feelings, but I absolutely agree with you that there was so much cultural meaning that was just overlooked. Another cringe was how poorly Melissa signed and how the communication was breaking down there (like when Melissa spelled “take advantage” and Mom showed her the sign “action”). Was communication happening? The nifty TV monitors were cool but sort of implied that Deaf parents without the gadgets could not be effective. Finally, I felt that there was an attitude of blaming the parents for not teaching/using ASL (I noticed both parents tended to speak with the kids). I guess it is their responsibility as the parents to set the model, and that was the point Jo made. Do you think if deaf people grow up with parents who don’t use ASL, but they learn ASL in school or with other deaf community, that they will be in turn less likely to use ASL with their hearing kids? I know very few deaf parents who DON’T speak with their hearing kids at all.
One thing mom & I thought was REALLY unfortunate was the ending clip. Most shows have an ending clip of a report from the family weeks later showing them smiling and unified. This one ended with 2 girls running unsupervised in the back yard, one chasing the other with a croquet mallet, throwing a toy at her sister, and throwing her sister’s shoes (I think) over the fence. UGH!
[Reply]
Mac - October 11th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
About the ending, Mac…that was interesting perspective. I wonder if it is because the show is out of time. With signs, the show probably couldn’t cut it any shorter to make room for the “report” that you described?
One thing to keep in mind. All reality shows will add or take something away just for viewership. We need to find out exactly what they were told to do. Let’s hear from the family first before anyone of us jump to any conclusion.
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Candy - October 12th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Candy, the ending was just as long as the typical “report” ending. It just showed the 2 girls acting up in the yard instead of the whole family smiling and saying thank you or what they’d learned, which is typical.
I said cynically to mom, “maybe they couldn’t get an interpreter for the later part.” But they were good about having an interpreter for the show, so I don’t want to make that assumption. I honestly don’t know why they ended it that way, but I think the ending is what leaves viewers with a “last word” of what to take from the show.
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Mac - October 12th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Mac–
I am not sure what the girls portrayed normally at the end of the show with or without interpreters. I assume they had to do what the producers had told them do so. I cannot predict what the producers did to the kids at the end.
I’ll have to say that I kind of agree with Bryen in this blog. I wanted to point it out is that there are other hearing parents with spanish-speaking dealing with the kids in the bilingual environments/atmospheres (Home, school, neighbors, etc.) that have faced and struggled the communication gap nowadays. So, I assume that the deaf parents in Super Nanny were not the only ones who struggled with the communication gap. However, the deaf parents from the Super Nanny were kind of “give-up” communicating with their daughters and decided to rely on their 18 years old daughter. I thought it was pretty inexcuse. For what my perspective, I honestly don’t think the deaf parents in the Super Nanny have not really doing the parental involvement with their girls very much. Again, I can’t say that if they really did doing the parental involvement or not.
[Reply]
White Ghost - October 12th, 2008 at 8:54 pm