Hungry2Live
Hungry2Live
Hungry2Live Episode #5 Living in Two Worlds : CODA, Reality TV, Parenting and Teachable Moments with Jerry Ferris - Season 3 The Bachelorette, CODA, Advocate and Podcaster
On today’s episode, Rachel speaks with Jerry Ferris. Jerry Ferris was the winner of Bachelorette season three. What sparked interest in his story happened during the hometown episode when the world and Jerry learned that he was a Child of Deaf Adults (CODA) for the first time.
Jerry has used sign language to communicate for and with his parents his entire life. He is a huge advocate in the Deaf community. He has worked in many settings such as the prison system and other local communities and camps throughout the United States. Jerry is now a parent himself, and is a forever learner.
@jerryferris
No, I don't care, but they say I came here to stay
Speaker 2:Through the days. The must. It wasn't easy. Again. He never gave up cuz I, God, God had Through the darkness, through the tears, turn the lights off, never give a OSA hell
Speaker 3:Hello and welcome to another episode of hungry to live. I'm Rachel and I'm here with Jerry, but before we get into Jerry's story, I'm wanna recap mine a little bit. As you know, I have this story of recovery. I'm a teacher and being a teacher is kind of where your story plays in a little bit. We'll get into that when we talk about what it is to be Coda. Okay. Um, but coming from a story of recovery, I'm always just, you know, just living my life towards fullest because I never know what's gonna happen. I'm healthy now, which is amazing. Yeah. And being healthy helps me open up to all new people and all kinds of people. And you are one of those amazing people who have come into my life literally like six weeks ago. And this is so
Speaker 4:Believe, right?
Speaker 3:This is my first time seeing you in the flesh. Correct. And I, I don't even know what to do with myself. The first time we talked, we talked for two hours. Yeah. And I was like, uh, Jerry, Jerry, and my computer completely died.
Speaker 4:I do ramble a little bit. You're gonna have to ask him to stop. We need a safe word.
Speaker 3:So, um, say just yell my name, Rachel, I'll be right here. But anyway, so again, this is hungry to live. I'm here with Jerry Ferris. Some of you may know Jerry because he was part of bachelor nation years ago, but we're also really here to talk about his story, growing up, being a code of a, a child of death adults, what that means, what that means for his community, what that means as being an advocate, just like I am a child advocate as a special education teacher. And he's also a father like this man is amazing. So without further ado here is Jerry Ferris. I would love for you to start from the beginning and welcome.
Speaker 4:Well, first of all, Rachel, thank you for having me in your cool studio. This is great. I've never been in front of a glowing mic before. Um, like you said, I, I think I'm, I'm dad first I'm husband. I'm uh, a very proud Coda. Both my parents are deaf and um, and a podcaster, you know, it's like, like you, this has been a fun journey for me to connect with people and uh, use this platform to hear other people's stories, to enrich my own life. And like you mentioned, it brought us together somehow. So I'm, I'm very grateful.
Speaker 3:Amazing. So speaking of platforms briefly, I just want to talk about how in the past life you were on the bachelor, the bachelorette. Sure. Yeah. And, um, how was it being balancing two different worlds because you had come from this world of kind of knowing who you were, knowing where you came from conversing and communicating for yourself and your family, but now being in this reality and reality TV world where things were being manipulated a little bit, maybe, maybe not, but having, how, how did you find a balance in that com communication style given your background?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's an interesting question. You know, I, I, first of all, the bachelorette or being on the show, um, taught me to say yes to the moment because I had actually first said no to doing the show. I thought that who that's, whoever do a reality show, this is crazy. And a friend of mine had asked me, he said, why are you saying no, you don't even know what you're saying no to. So he, he encouraged me to go do it. And I did, I, it was one interview after the other. And then it was next thing, you know, and I'm, I'm flying back to New York to shoot the show. And, um, it felt very, uh, God, it was, it was, it was, it was kind of like fate because I had not been back to Manhattan since I left after nine 11. And, um, it kind of forced me to go back to where I was from. So I I've never been to the mansion before I missed that whole experience. We've shot in lower Manhattan, but it was cool. And, um, and I did not know what I was saying no to, because as you pointed out in the past life, yes, I did do the show, but that show ironically introduced me to being a Coda. I didn't even know what that meant. It was the hometown date when I introduced my mom to Jen and to America at that time where I, I started to get letters from kids who had deaf parents or, or parents who had deaf kids. And there was so proud that I shared my family on television and I didn't even know what that meant. I did not, I, I didn't realize the impact that it would have on people. And there was a great camp for kids who have deaf parents called Coda west. And they had reached out to me to see if I would come to speak. And I said, yeah, but what's a Coda. And they said, you're a Coda. And, and, um, and that's when I found out that I was a child of death adults. Now that's something I had known my whole life, but I had never been labeled that before. So took me to be on a reality show. And, uh, 30 years old before I found out that I was actually a Coda, but I was glad I found out. And it just really connected me to a whole community that I didn't even know existed. And, uh, I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 3:All right. Well, so for those listeners or the listener who isn't sure, as Jerry said, he's a Coda, a child of a death adult or a child of death adults, both of his parents are deaf, correct? Yeah. All right. And so how was it as a child communicating for yourself and communicating for the adults in your life?
Speaker 4:You know, my, my mom just called me last week to remind me, or to ask me if I remembered a loan that she had applied for. And, and I, I said, mom, cause I was involved with everything. I was part of every parent teacher conference. Right. So I was the star student every time there was no one interpreting. So there was, there was no miscommunicating, but I was part of like every, like whenever my parents, um, headed or like they wanted to order a pizza or, um, you know, if there was important, like, uh, you know, if there was a death in the family or anything. So I was all, always the interpreter, but she called me to ask me about the loan and I vaguely remember the loan, but she said, Jerry, do you re I wanna tell you that it was a 30 year loan and not a 15 year loan. And she goes, I finally paid that off. Thanks to you. And I'm like, I was not the guy. Like I was just in the middle of this, the, the whole facilitating the conversation. So I, I, I, I, I'd always, I'd always been the communicator for the family always.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Did you feel extra pressure when things like the loan or other putting yourself in positions, adult sized opportunities and decisions as a child, how did that affect you as you started to mature? Like, did you realize the, not only the impact you had on your family, but how did that change, how you viewed who you were as a person? Cause I could only imagine at a young age taking in all of that was probably a ton of pressure on you.
Speaker 4:You know, I, I, I was really lucky and I'm not saying that this is every kid's experience, but for me, I was really lucky. My parents were very independent. Um, my dad was the coolest guy. He wrote a Harley, you know, and he, and he, and he worked at Kodak and he had tattoos and, and he was just a badass and mom was full of love. So, you know, I, I only, I liken, uh, my deaf culture to any other culture know and, and, and I was very lucky cuz I had a very full culture. You know, my deaf community was, it was made up of different color skin and different sizes and shapes and different, uh, subcultures. But like for me, I had a community that was built around language and um, a common bond and, and so, you know, it would be like going to someone's house whose family only spoke Italian and um, and learning about that. So that's what it was like for me. But there was sometimes there was pressure, you know, um, you do find yourself being in tough positions when you have to be the first one in the room to know, uh, the diagnosis of something. And you have to quickly process that and communicate that. And uh, often to times, uh, you're 10, 12 years old and you're telling somebody that you love that something bad is going on. So, um, there was definitely situations like that.
Speaker 3:I can't, I, I can't even imagine what that would be like, um, to have to process that, that information and then talk through it, but like talk yourself through it before you sign it. Cuz that's a whole other, like, there's just, you must have like most people have one hamster reel, you probably have two. Oh
Speaker 4:There's there's
Speaker 3:And they going separate separate ways. Sure. Um, so you talk about this idea of being labeled and you didn't realize you were labeled until you realized you were being labeled. And I know this is an ongoing being a father. How does this coincide with raising a son and him coming home with certain questions about other people or other students? And if there's talk about how a child is performing versus how a child, how another child might be playing in a sport like this whole idea of labeling around being a child is how can you speak to that?
Speaker 4:You know, it, it's, it's a tricky thing. Cause I feel like I always say to my wife that inevitably we're screwing it up, right. We're just doing the best that we can, but you know, he's eight years, he's eight years old now and I couldn't be more proud of him. Like we hit a home run with this kid, but we, it, we had some challenges getting here. Um, and he is at that age where he's describing things differently or people, you know, he's learning from what he hears around him. And, and, and so, you know, he he's, he definitely has questions. Um, but when, when it comes to labeling things, it's, it's interesting. Uh, you know, we, um, as much as, um, I am proud to be a Coda and, and um, plenty capable of facilitating communication and being an advocate, I, I help start a language interpreting service, uh, to provide interpreters at hospitals and um, at, uh, in, in our prison system. And, you know, we did a lot of work and fast forward to the newborn, um, hearing screening after my son was born, he did not pass his tests, uh, not once not to what I spent three times. And when they confirmed that my son had hearing loss, I was filled with such like such mixed emotions because I, I never thought how I would deal with it. Normally it was easy for me to be an advocate for something else because it was a little bit distant, but now it was my own son. And the irony was we, it was confirmed that he had hearing, um, moments before my mom arrived. And it was the first time that we actually had a really heavy conversation about her deafness and how she feels about it and how she felt about it. And, uh, fast forward to now, he's, he's a kid who has a hearing aid in his left ear. Um, it's kind of something that's really special. We did a, um, we did a show and tell at school he wanted to do, uh, the letter was H for him. So it was H for hearing aid. And, uh, we did a whole presentation and I was really proud of him. And, uh, a few days later I started getting several phone calls from parents asking me what a hearing aid was because their kids wanted one. So it was like, it was cool. He kind of removed the stigma from it. So it's, I think it's like that with anything, if you could kind of just instill in them to be proud of whatever it is that they they're dealing with, uh, whatever challenges that they have, and they can articulate that and they're comfortable in their own skin. Um, they could handle, you know, any type of diversity.
Speaker 3:It's like parenting the child, you have not the child you want, or the child you anticipated.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. Or yourself. Right. Like exactly. Trying to like correct. Or project your own feelings onto your kid. It's, it's a hard thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So you speak about this community and advocating for, and the death, anding, death and heart of hearing community. And there is this amazing movie out now called Coda. So how does having a movie that embraces your culture, your community? The first of its kind, I mean, I've never seen a movie before that is almost 95% in sign. There are subtitles and it's up for an Oscar. Like what, like I saw it and I was blown away and being a special ed teacher. Like it hit me on a different level because I'm just surrounded by these different challenges within learned itself and different communities and different learning styles. And then I was like, wow, this is mainstream. Like it's made it mainstream. So being someone in that community, what is it like?
Speaker 4:I look, I, I, people look like me on TV, right? Growing up. I, I, I see myself in TV commercials and I see myself on television shows the movies. Um, but then when I saw myself, when I saw my community represented in a way that was very genuine and honest, it moved me in such a powerful way. I had to judge Coda in so many different levels. I was like, was it really as good of a film as I thought was my totally biased. But to see my family like to see, we all can relate to those stories. And, and, um, it's loud around the house and, and it's, it's, uh, full of passion and emotion. And, and it was really incredible to see a family be a family, not like this is a film about the token death person. It was actually like you, you had some insight into this beautiful world and the challenges that they face and the, and the prejudice and the, um, and the obstacles and how they can overcome that stuff. And, and then you take away this, this, this language, but like more importantly, like you can see love that they all have for each other. And, and I, I, I've known Troy for a long time and to see him, um, go from sleeping in cars and couch surfing, standing up there, accepting awards on behalf of an entire community is makes me so proud. It's, it's the coolest thing. And it's a good film. It's like, it's like a, we can all get behind it. It's actually a pretty great film.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It is a great film. And for those who haven't seen it, the listener who is kind of like, what are they talking about? It's this amazing film about a family of four, three of the members of the family are heart of hearing. And the one member of the family who has, is able is hearing and is able to speak is also a lover of music. And she gets into a music program, but her whole entire family can't hear her sing. So it's just, it's moving on so many levels. And it goes to show how messy relationships and family life is. And that's kind of exactly what this podcast is, how messy life is the a stigma, the taboo talking about it. And just talking about it, period, whether that be talking, signing, writing about it all the different ways to communicate these feelings, because as human beings and a human connection, we are all connected. And it's how we find that connection to empower each other. So on that note, I, I wanted to say, or actually not say, I wanted to ask you what keeps you hungry to live?
Speaker 4:Wow. Okay. I'm gonna buy myself some time here by, um, saying that, that, uh, I do wanna point out that, that it, the deaf community is very proud of, of, of being called deaf. And, um, it's, it's, it's not hearing impaired. So like, so as we move forward, it's, it's, you know, they're, they're deaf and, and hearing impairment has a real negative connotation. It's interesting. I have to learn that myself all the time. We can see it as an impairment, but it is, is not that way within the community. So it's like, okay, we're, we're deaf. Um,
Speaker 3:Can I just really quickly say thank you for correcting me because that's part of, that's part of also why I have this podcast, because while I'm interviewing somebody and hearing their story, I'm also learning, I'm learning so much. So being a special ed teacher, DHH, definitely a heart of hearing is actually what it's still labeled as, as an eligibility. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so it's interesting that something I do every day, it's not that label we were talking about that makes people feel comfortable within that community. So that's amazing. Thank you for letting me know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, I, I, I, I hear all the time and I see it and I'm like, oh man, that, so, and so just stepped in that one. It's like, no, no, there we're deaf and we're proud. And I actually think this is like the year of the death. I mean, we, we, when we go back just a little bit and eventually I'll answer your question, um, you know, it was, it was sound of metal. There's an incredible short film right now. That's up, um, for an academy award called feeling through, and it's, it's about a chance encounter with a deaf blind person. And, and that's an incredible story. And, and it's like, you know, what's nice about these films. Um, and audible, it was another great film about, um, an all deaf school and, uh, football team and, and it's like a insight into their lives. And it's, you start to realize, once you get past the deaf thing, that these are human interest stories, these are like, we can all connect and learn from these stories. So, and they just happen to be deaf. Um, the thing that, that, that, uh, to be hungry to live, um, it's an interesting thing for ask me that because, you know, um, we we've talked about this off, off, uh, uh, off air, I guess, but the, uh, um, I had lost my dad, uh, to a car accident when I was young and I was 15 and he was 39. I, I never planned on life after 39. I, I didn't know what that looked like, you know? And so, uh, you know, I'm 46 now. So for me, it's crazy to think that I've outlived my dad. Right. And, and so that's the hunger to live. Like for me, is to like, go see things that like, he wasn't able to see cuz my dad was always that fork in the road guy. He was like, the guy that always wanted to, like most people say go left, he would go. Right. And, um, it wasn't always right, but he would go and he would do it. And, and um, and so that, I think that's what it is is I, I, because of what I learned from that, and also my mom, you know, when, when my dad passed away, she never stopped. Like she actually doesn't, now that I think about it, she doesn't get the credit that she deserves. She, she charged on, right. She was raising us and, and this tragic, tragic moment happened. And, uh, she never look back. Like she loved us and she supported us and she worked hard and took us to all of our practices. And she was like the wrestling team's mom. She was my track team and football team's mom, my sister's basketball, team's mom, you know? Um, so it's also for her that, that I guess gives me the hunger to live.
Speaker 3:That's incredible. Cause not everyone can say that it's their parents that give them their hunger to live, let alone have a story like yours, where you were communicating for them. You were literally the right hand all the time. Yeah. Um, to pretty much to this day, I mean, considering their loan got paid off, that
Speaker 4:Was For very,
Speaker 5:Could have been my fault.
Speaker 4:I dunno. I was probably just trying to get home to go watch TV or something. It's like, yeah, she'll take it 27% interest. No problem.
Speaker 3:But there's this full connection throughout your entire family and your entire community that you bring with you in everything you do. And it's very apparent. And at this time I want you to share socials so everyone who's listening can find you,
Speaker 4:Oh, that's that's me. Uh, that be Jerry Ferris and Instagram. Like you could find me there. It's it's me on Facebook. It's it's me on, on the internet. You can, you can find me. And I have those places and I have a podcast we're doing a really cool reboot. Uh, it's called thirsty for knowledge pod podcast. And uh, like you, we, we explore human interest stories and we have a lot of fun doing it.
Speaker 3:As I said to Jerry, when I met him originally, I was like, oh, we can do something together. Thirsty for knowledge, hungry to live. I think,
Speaker 4:Yes, we need all the other senses. Right? We need a smell and a and a
Speaker 3:All right. So you can find me at on Instagram, hungry dot the number two.live or hungry to live.com. You can subscribe to my blog. You can subscribe to the podcast, subscribe like comments, review, do all the things for my podcast. I love that you're listening. If you are interested in being on my podcast as well, I would love to hear from you drop me a line on the website, again, hungry to live.com. And I end every show with a poem about my guest. So I have written something for you. Oh, on appended knee in season three Jerry's life was about to change dramatically. Not how viewers anticipated, but life can be complicated. Jerry's story began before bachelor nation. When he was literally a tool for translation using sign to communicate for his parents, a child of death adults provided him both negative and positive. He has view sign language to connect in so many ways like using it during podcasts. So the deaf know what people are saying. He provides support to a community. The general public cannot converse among living two worlds. Since he was young. Jerry is an inspiration leading viewers and listen and admiration. Wow. Thank you for listening to hung to live. I am Rachel, and this is Jerry.
Speaker 4:Thank you for having me. This is great. You here
Speaker 6:In the right place, in the wrong, down on my luck there, days had to switch it up, make it okay. So I gave up on the learn from a pastor. May days still got town never too late. No, I don't care
Speaker 1:What they say.
Speaker 6:I came
Speaker 1:Here to stay
Speaker 6:Through the days,
Speaker 2:The master days, what? He never gave up OSA Through the darkness, through the tears, turn the lights off face. The fear never gave up.
