Posted on 09/28/2003 12:01:06 PM PDT by Theodore R.
Deaf pair fight for custody
By Juliette Rule rep9@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
CHEYENNE - Matthew Neuman's mom and dad have never heard their little boy's laugh or heard him sing. But they know he does those things.
He is a normal 4-year-old boy, they say, and his name brings bright smiles to their faces.
But Vicki and Eric Neuman aren't like the parents of Matthew's friends. They are deaf and use sign language to communicate with Matthew and their friends in Cheyenne's small deaf community.
It is that support they have come to rely on in recent weeks as they have become embroiled in a custody dispute over their son, who with each passing day of separation, they say, loses some of his signing skill.
Some members of Vicki's family in Hastings, Neb., have resisted returning the boy to his parents. They say in court documents that the Neumans live well below the standard of care parents are obligated to provide.
The Neumans are contesting the affidavit presented to an Adams County, Neb., court and are working through Cheyenne attorney Don Cole to have the case moved to Laramie County District Court. They argue that the temporary custody order they signed isn't a legal document because it wasn't notarized.
They also say Vicki's family is working to distort the truth, using the couple's perceived disability as fuel for the fire.
The Neumans' situation is unusual, considering most custody disputes are part of divorce proceedings. But the couple says they're happily married.
Separation started trouble
A few months ago, the stressors of married life had taken their toll on Eric, 38, and Vicki, 44. They needed a break from each other, so Vicki decided to spend time with family in Nebraska.
Eric drove his wife and son to North Platte. From there, they rode with family to Hastings, a town just south of Grand Island with a population of about 24,000. Once there, she moved into a rented home and set up phone service.
That was in May, and by July, Vicki and Eric had patched things up, they say, deciding their marriage of 14 years was worth saving. They made arrangements to reunite their family. In doing so, they agreed to leave Matthew with his aunt and uncle, Vicki's brother.
The stress, they agreed, came from money issues they still struggle with but now count on resolving together.
Ron and Dena Hohlen have contested Cole's motion to move jurisdiction here, where Matthew has lived since he was 3 months old.
"We want to bring Matthew home," Eric wrote in a typed statement provided during an interview. "We have only one child. We can't live without him."
The Neumans never counted on being in court to plead for custody, and they never dreamed it would be so much trouble to cancel the legal separation they never wanted anyway.
The separation proceedings and the custody dispute are the result of coercive tactics used by family members who degrade Vicki's abilities and never approved of Eric, Leslie Shelton says. She is volunteering to help the Neumans, but she also advocates for Safehouse, the local domestic violence shelter.
She and a corps of volunteers are helping the Neumans through the complex legal language and hope to secure Matthew's return.
Eric, who unlike his wife isn't shy, does most of the talking. He said they don't understand why any of this is going on.
Shelton said they agreed with Vicki's family in the beginning because they didn't expect to be taken advantage of by relatives.
"They are easily guilted," she said. "I think this has been a real learning experience for them."
Two sides to every story
In the meantime, Vicki's sister-in-law, Dena Hohlen, said the story is far more complex than the Neumans believe.
"There's more to this than you can even imagine," she said. "It's unbelievable the things that go on and the things that are said that just aren't true."
Although she didn't agree to an interview, Hohlen expressed concern that the Neumans might be trying to exploit their son and use him to their best advantage. She didn't comment on how or why Matthew would be better off with her.
But she has expressed her concerns in court documents, and it might have been on the basis of her statements that an Adams County Court judge agreed to leave Matthew with the Hohlens.
In an affidavit, Hohlen said the Laramie Street mobile home in which the Neumans have been raising Matthew is filthy and presents hazards.
The Neumans and their advocates dispute those allegations.
"There are people out there who believe that just because they're deaf, they don't know anything," advocate Barbara Baumgardner said.
As a member of Cheyenne's deaf community and a retired professor of deaf culture at the University of Wyoming, that's something she knows about
As a 1978 graduate of the Nebraska School for the Deaf, Vicki is educated and knows what to do, Baumgardner said.
And as the parent of four hearing children herself, she added that she cannot find fault with how the Neumans have been raising their son. He will possess the gift of two languages, thanks to his unique life, she said.
Eric also has a high school diploma and has done some college work at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.
"They are good parents," Baumgardner said, adding that she has spent much time with them in social settings, including each other's homes.
Conflicting views of home
The allegations from Nebraska family members might have first cast a shadow of doubt over the couple, who experienced a surprise visit from Laramie County sheriff's deputies and officials from the state Department of Family Services.
Neither agency found a reason to be concerned during that early August visit.
Both Safehouse and the Cheyenne Police Department reported that Family Services has no open cases of abuse or neglect on the Neuman family, according to a Laramie County Sheriff's Office report on the investigation.
But Hohlen's sworn affidavit filed July 22 in Adams County Court paints a different picture.
She writes of the family sleeping in one bedroom and said all shared a mattress on the floor. That's something she said she witnessed during a weekend visit to help Vicki pack more belongings earlier this summer. She spotted syringes in plain view in the bathroom, she wrote.
That's not true, Shelton said.
"There was a box spring there, and Eric was waiting for a frame for it. Matthew had his own bed, and it, too, was in the room," she added
The plan was to move the bed into Matthew's room as his parents coaxed him into his own bed and then into sleeping in his own room. He had gotten into the habit of climbing into bed with them.
The single syringe in the bathroom didn't contain a needle. It was used to administer medicine to children, Shelton said.
If anything, the Neumans spoil their children, Baumgardner wrote in her statement to the court.
Hohlen wrote of other deplorable conditions, and in an instant message she voiced her concern over the carpet in the mobile home. She said that caused Matthew's asthma, and the boy had no trouble with his breathing in Nebraska.
The asthma only is a winter problem, Eric said, and they hope he will outgrow it.
Indeed, one of Matthew's teachers at the STRIDE Learning Center, a local developmental preschool, wrote in an affidavit the boy came to school clean and ready to learn. He is a loving child, the teacher wrote, and socializes eagerly with other children, though he is hesitant to approach adults.
And what the Hohlens and other members of Vicki's family regard as Eric's abusiveness is only ignorance about how the deaf communicate, they say.
Slamming fists on a table to get attention is common in deaf homes: The deaf rely on vibrations to get attention, Baumgardner said, noting in her time with Vicki and Eric that she only has seen a loving relationship.
That Vicki and Eric signed a temporary custody order is indicative of their lack of understanding about what they were signing, Shelton said.
Hearing set for Oct. 24
But on July 4, both Neumans signed the agreement.
That agreement, which wasn't notarized, provided that the Neumans could have Matthew back on Aug. 1 if they could secured adequate transportation, clothing, food and better housing.
Those all are things the Neumans already have, their advocates say.
They drive a 2001 truck. Their home is neat and clean, and food and clothing are abundant.
The heart of the issue, Shelton said, is that the Hohlens don't believe a hearing child should be raised by deaf parents.
That's a point that Vicki's mother, Colleen Hohlen, has quietly voiced to the couple, she said, adding that both Vicki's parents in Hastings and Eric's parents, who live in Greeley, are supportive of the couple.
Dena Hohlen wouldn't respond to that, except to caution there are two sides to the story.
But it's a believable story to Baumgardner, who says hearing people cannot understand what it means to be deaf and assume that because the deaf culture communicates differently, its members are judged as lesser intelligent.
And though many in Vicki's family know sign language, that's quite a bit different from being fluent in the language used by the deaf, she added.
Though the right to have an interpreter is supported by the Americans with Disabilities Act, Shelton said she has encountered resistance during Adams County Court hearings.
At the next hearing Oct. 24, where court jurisdiction will be determined, that won't be an issue, Adams County clerk magistrate Tom Hawes said.
"I've been asked to arrange for an interpreter, and I will do that," he said.
At that hearing, Nebraska's deaf community advocates say they will be there to support the Neumans and advocate on behalf of deaf parents.
Hearing, with deaf parents
Derek Baumgardner brings some perspective to the issue of deaf parenting. He was a hearing child raised with three sisters by his deaf parents in Wheatland and Cheyenne.
Barbara Baumgardner is his mother.
"Some things were different as far as pronouncing words and stuff like that," he said. "Basically, it was pretty much the same as a hearing family."
That is something from which the 48-year-old man recovered and now speaks with no sign of impairment.
One of his sisters is a registered nurse, and all the rest have found success in their own right.
"It just wasn't a big issue," he said. "We didn't have a phone until I was in high school. My parents didn't need one."
He still uses American Sign Language to communicate with his mom and sometimes during his workday at Discount Tire.
"Oh yeah, it's my first language," he said. "I know a lot of deaf people."
Many state supreme courts have addressed the issue of disabled parents' abilities to raise children, though Wyoming has not directly addressed the issue.
Those courts have ruled that deaf or deaf-muteness can't be an overriding factor in determining the fitness of parents, provided the child is well cared for.
"Vicki and I have suffered a lot without Matthew," Eric signed. "We are heartbroken. We are worried about him."
Without all these "deaf culture" advocates, these parents would probably permanently loose the custody of their child. Deaf people have the same rights of association the rest of us have to assemble and defend their interests. It's sad that you find this advocacy to be "distasteful"
Deafness was originally made an issue in this case by the people attempting to prevent the parents from regaining the custody of their child. The parents are probably very thankful for the support they are receiving from these "militant deaf culture" advocates (as you put it).
Also, your hyperbole in the use of the phrase "militant" is perhaps more distasteful than anything I have ever heard about what these advocates do. They have not armed. They have not threatened to use violence. They are not militant. Your libelous use of the term is the same underhanded "new speak" tactic often use by democrats in slandering their opponents. In these are times of terrorism and war, please watch you language better.
IMO, disability is in the eyes (or ears) of the beholder. I don't know how many times I have seen people with major physical ailments that just keep plugging away, while others with much less of a problem take advantage of it and sit on their butt feeling sorry for themselves. If the parents are able to take care of the child, I don't see why the kid should be taken away.
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