My dad is Deaf and has been since before he met my mother. He had multiple different devices to monitor my sisters and I growing up- including a noise detector that would vibrate the bed or the couch and say exactly which room the loud noise was being made in. As a child I remember understanding that he could not "hear" me if we weren't looking at each other, and that I had to speak clearly in order for him to understand. He tells me as a toddler I used to ask him to get on my level, put my hands on his face, and ask him if he could understand me- and only once he verified would I say or ask anything. He used to leave me a signed note every day before school when I was in high school, giving me a different blessing and a couple bucks to buy a snack.
But also- hearing children of deaf adults (CODAs) are often more empathetic, more accepting of others' differences and challenges, more emotionally mature and able to read others' body language and visual cues, with experiences more similar to bicultural and bilingual children of the same age, because being raised Deaf while hearing is a look into two very different worlds. Not that I think anyone should need to prove their worth, but the statistics show the exact opposite of these doctors' expectations of Deaf parents. Deaf adults more often than not raise intelligent and well-structured kids that connect more readily with others, there is no additional risk of neglect more than any hearing parent.
