Were you bullied as a kid? Or did you do the bullying?
I was a skinny, shy, book-loving loner that lived in fear every morning at 7.30 am. This is when I left the house, ran across our big yard and got in the school bus. I always had a pattern that I thought worked. I would go up the three rubber-backed stairs, head down, slink left around the pole and sit in the first available hard plastic-green seat, my backpack held in front of me as a shield as I scooted over against the window, where I would look up finally, and then out determinedly, ignoring the other people in the bus – until I could get off and run into the safety of the school.
It never worked, although I did it every day. Why? The group that sat at the back of the bus.
I know you had them too probably. The little rat pack that included all the troublemakers that lived outside town – the slightly floozy older girls, looking like they’d be more at home on the street as a hooker than in a schoolroom; the evil, evil boys that were probably abused at home, popular, handsome, but with a soul as black as soot. There was the one that made my life hell; his name was Justin but might as well been Satan, honestly.
Looking back at it now, I know they did it to hide their own insecurities. Hide their home lives, of which could NOT have been much or happy. The me that is here now can feel pity for their mocking “Baboon with bassoon”, “Hey ugly” comments, the hateful pig sounds, the rude laughter. I now know their parents were as sick and hateful as they were, and that they were simply doing what their parents gave as an example.
But that still doesn’t stop my toes curling in remembered shock and horror when I think back about that time of my life. My raging anger at them, the urge to kill them or make them hurt as much as me, the bus driver that refused to do anything, my parents who didn’t want to rock the boat (as in SO many other things) by talking to this trashs’ parents or the school, they didn’t even want to talk about it with me…I was just a little kid, but had grown-up pain and stifled emotions. No outlet except my horse and dog, no one that understood.
My gramma gave me advice – the only one who cared – “Don’t let them see you hurting. Hide it from them, or they’ll use it as ammo, kid. Keep your chin up, fight back by doing nothing, and they’ll stop.” Well, it took them about eight years, but they stopped. From as far back as I can remember – easy third grade, up until 10th, where I was able to drive and could free myself.
I think about this now because of one thing. This. A girl of 13 killed herself because a person on My Space – it turns out, a parent of a girl at school she had fallen out with – pretended she was a boy that was interested in this girl and then was hateful and dropped her, promptly causing the girl to loose her shizz and go upstairs and successfully hang herself. A parent did this. A parent.
It makes me sick. What did this girl learn from her mother? That it was okay to lie, and forge, be hateful and deceitful, and just get off, because the police can’t book her! She is getting away, literally, with murder. This parent knew this kid was emotionally unstable, she picked on this poor girl’s flaws, and caused her to drop low enough to kill herself. Why? In the police report, it said “she set up the my space page because she wanted to know what [the girl] was saying about her daughter”.
Is this a legitimate reason? Um, pardon my French, but f*ck no.
I only know my, and my friends’, bullying. But is it prevalent? Is this really such a rite of passage for kids? Were you able to talk with your parents – and did they do something? I can’t think that this is such a rite of passage, but I honestly don’t know. Is it better in public or private school? Is it simply you cannot avoid it, no matter how hard you try?
Sooner or later we’re gonna have a kid. And I am going to try my damndest to make sure my kid feels comfortable enough to tell me if kids are picking on him or her at school. I am *not* going to sit passively by, and let this happen, but I figure a little of it is good for the character. And we will have to look at TV and computer time – i.e., no unsupervised surfing, ever.
How do you handle your kids like this? You got any feelings about this sort of thing, even if you don’t have kids? Because of my past experiences, I am really sensitive to this, and the thought that this parent could do this to a kid just takes my flipping breath away.
