Now I finally understand what she was up to in her thinking! Her greatest phobia was being socially incorrect! It explains why she got so angry at him for staying in his grass-green stained sneakers (from mowing the lawn with a push mower) and summer shorts when greeting his guests coming to stay at his place. She also got rather perturbed when he would share his WWII stories with them as they lounged around the pool while he’d be either backwashing the filter or cleaning the water.
I’m sure her deaf girl didn’t like being sent to a school for the deaf that discouraged the use of sign language and encouraged the students’ parents to make everyone in the family refuse to learn sign language so that the deaf children had to depend solely on lip reading in order to understand what was being said. I wonder what her mother would think now if she knew her hearing enabled NT granddaughter (that her youngest daughter — hearing enabled, but with Aspergers — gave birth to) is an interpreter for the deaf? Her granddaughter chose to learn signing to encourage communication with her children at an earlier age; plus, she simply was curious to learn more about it for her own knowledge. Her choice of education had nothing to do with having a deaf aunt.
No wonder the little ‘ol lady was angry that the miracle faith healers she brought her ‘broken’ daughter to didn’t ‘fix’ her ears! It explains why she was most comfortable with her oldest daughter. The oldest was born without any defects like deafness or Aspergers syndrome. The oldest performs best at knowing how to be socially correct. Why not? She’s about as neurotypical as they come. Her statement made many years ago now makes sense → “Everyone wears masks.” she said. That’s usually a stumper for awhile to an Aspie since an Aspie tends to take things that are said quite literally.
When an Aspie hears, “I’m going to go run to the store.” The first thought that processes into the imagination of an AS mind is cognitively visualizing the speaker literally running behind cars in traffic. You can call it a gift of ‘built in humor’ in the form of live cartoons.
Back to the siblings — the NT hearing woman and her NT deaf sister most likely believed their AS semi-sibling was doomed to forever being gullible. It also makes sense why these two NTs got along much better with each other than with their AS relative. The deaf one could ‘read’ her older sister’s body language and facial expressions because they both share neurotypical brainsets that speak the same language! An Aspie’s body language and facial expressions can really challenge a deaf person (unless that deaf person is also an Aspie).
There is one common ground though between the Aspie culture and deaf culture → both speak ‘direct.’ Small talk is a waste of time and boring not only to Aspergians, but also to deaf people. Those who are born deaf, actually prefer to have deaf children for this reason. Aspies understand their Aspie children more than their NT ones. Having an NT child does have its advantages though for an Aspie. NT children can share so much about the NT culture with their AS parents when they share a close relationship with one another. NTs growing up with an Aspie parent have a rare quality since they can somewhat ‘get’ how an Aspie mind works.
NTs can think adult Aspies can eventually ‘get it.’ The question though is if they’re in agreement as to what that means. Most NTs aren’t going to understand Aspies unless they have one at home to practice sociallizing with.
What a culture deems as being socially acceptable behavior gets shoved down everyone’s throat, but not everyone is of the same culture. That’s then why it’s probably the greatest contributor to causing dysfunction in families, schools, work environments, and and just about anywhere else that people gather.
