‘I’m not just a dad, I’m also a dad who’s deaf’
JONNY COTSEN is lots of things – a dad, an actor, a football fan. He is also deaf – and decisions made by his parents meant he was brought up as if he wasn’t.
It meant he never learned sign language as a child and attended a private mainstream secondary school, rather than a specialist deaf school.
Jonny, who lives in Cardiff, features in a BBC Wales programme about what it’s like being deaf but being raised as part of the hearing world.
He says he wants to “make peace” with the decisions made for him and to see if he can be part of both the hearing and deaf worlds.
“Though I was born deaf, I was made to adapt to be part of the hearing world,” he said. “Every deaf person’s story is different. This is mine. I learnt to lip-read, it isn’t always easy. I wear hearing aids, they’re far from perfect. I learned to speak, which was tough. Sometimes people understand me perfectly but I know sometimes people can struggle with some words.
“Looking back, being brought up as if I could hear has caused problems my whole life. I had no deaf role models, no deaf identity, and I didn’t learn to sign. When I turned 40, I finally followed my passion and became an actor.
“It made me want to reclaim my deaf identity, I realised I was missing out on so much rich deaf culture and I finally started to learn sign language.”
In the show, he interviews his mum about why she raised him as if he was hearing.
She said: “I wanted Jonny to be the same as everybody else. I didn’t want him to be deaf and I wanted to make his life easier for him.”
It is the first time Jonny has asked his mother about how she found out he was deaf and the impact this had on her.
Jonny was the first deaf person that both his parents had ever met.
Jonny’s mum spoke about how she felt when she first found out he was deaf, she said: “I was devastated. I cried for days because I just didn’t know anybody else who was deaf. I didn’t even know what being deaf was about really.”
She also worried about Jonny’s future and what it would be like for him to grow up. She says she was given no advice about whether her son should be taught sign language and felt there was a big lacking of advice for parents of deaf children.
Jonny was most happy in school at primary school, at Coed Glas, a mainstream school in Cardiff with a deaf unit. He explained how seeing other deaf children at school helped him.
Jonny said, as a parent now himself, that he understands the decisions his mum made for him. While at private school Jonny had a radio mic that was connected to the teacher so he could them clearer.
Jonny also explained how aspects of school, like rugby where he took his hearing aids out, were not adapted for him, meaning he missed out.
He now enjoys open-water swimming with his coach Bryce, who has adapted signals that Jonny can understand.
Throughout his childhood, Jonny also had no lip-reading lessons and no sign language lessons but did have speech therapy classes. He has also worn hearing aids his entire life and described the speech therapy lessons as a “traumatising experience”.
Now in his adult life, Jonny is trying to connect to deaf culture and is learning sign language and working with deaf children.
He wants the children to have deaf role models they can look up to, which is something he never had. Jonny loves working with deaf children because it is everything he would have loved to have had while growing up.
At school Jonny was also told he should never, act, sing, or dance on stage but five years ago he decided to ignore his critics and now has his own show with a theatre company in Newport.
Together with the director Gareth, they wrote the story and developed the show which is called Louder Is Not Always Clearer and is about Jonny’s life and experiences.
His mum described going to see Jonny on stage as “incredible”, she said: “It did us as a family a lot of good because all of a sudden we had a deaf son who was working in the deaf world.”
Jonny lives with his partner Louise, daughter Tilly, about to be five when the show was shot, and Eli who is 22 months.
All three are hearing. He says it’s important to him for them to know who he is. “I’m not just a dad, I’m also a dad who’s deaf”.
He said he’s introduced them to deaf culture from a young age and is shown teaching Tilly sign language. He is clearly touched when he finds out his daughter has been teaching signs to her classmates and teacher.
Jonny is shown putting his hearing aids in, and the muffled sounds he hears, particularly of his kids. He hears lots of different sounds, that all become one muffled sound and he has to try and understand what people are saying from the muffled noise.
Jonny explained how when he takes his hearing aids off all he hears is complete silence. He said: “Over the last two years, I’ve realised how beautiful that silence is. It is a gift for me to have this silence because sometimes you just need it.”
He has now accepted and benefitted greatly from understanding that he is part of both the hearing and deaf world, giving himself a deaf identity that he never had while he was growing up.
Jonny said he is proud to be deaf, he said: “I’m much happier now, being part of both worlds.”
Our website WalesOnline is launching awards recognising people as inspirational as Jonny. If you know someone who should be nominated, visit walesonline.co.uk/all-about/walesonline-diversity-and-inclu-sion-awards
Born Deaf: Raised Hearing is on BBC Wales at 8pm tonight.