I came across a post this morning, The Shame of Wearing Hearing Aids and it brought back memories. I was one of those kids who hid a hearing aid under long hair. It wasn’t until I was in college that I finally wore my hair up and my hearing aid perched for all to see. Kinda sad, eh? All those years spent trying to hide something that was basically a part of me– except I didn’t want any part of it.
I decided to raise my kids with a different attitude about their hearing aids. From the start, we went with brightly-colored earmolds with swirls and glitter. I even joined my daughter in getting matching glitter earmolds. I’m pretty sure I saw my audiologist hold back a gulp when I asked for the blue with glitter when she squeezed the earmold goop into my ear.
So far, no one has had the guts to tell me that I look foolish sporting glitter at my age.
Despite my years of preaching about being proud of those two pieces of technology on their ears, my kids had minds of their own– each of them have made decisions about color vs. minimal color. My 12-year-old recently decided that he had enough of the wild colors and chose clear earmolds at the last fitting. After years of wearing boring beige hearing aids, the oldest went for a slick black pair with clear earmolds. It was now my daughter’s turn for new hearing aids and we sat down to go over the colors for a new pair of hearing aids. Staring at the hearing aid website, I was floored at the color choices. When I was growing up, it was pretty much beige and black as the choices.
I was pretty sure she was going to pick out something cool.
“Look, there’s zebra and giraffe patterns!” I exclaimed. “And look at this cool blue and whoa– that purple! Oh and look–they have this cool see-through hearing aid!”
She picked beige.
Yes, boring, typical, oh-so-ordinary… beige.
“Mom, I’m going to be wearing these hearing aids for a couple of years, maybe even into adulthood,” she said. “Do you really think I want to go to prom with a giraffe pattern or purple– what if it doesn’t match my dress? Besides, I can change my earmold colors anytime I want.”
Yeah, she’s got a point there. Earmolds are $125 a pop. Hearing aids are nearly five grand.
“The beige looks nice,” I said.