Bullying in the News
Two weeks ago, a couple of people on Facebook posted Ellen's video about the recent spate of bullying-related suicides. It made me cry. I wanted to repost it, but I didn't know what to say, and I didn't know if I wanted to say it on Facebook, for a lot of reasons.
I tend to lose all sense of rationality on the subject of bullying.
I don't know how much my mom knows about what junior high was like for me (to clarify: I wasn't bullied because I was a lesbian; I was bullied because I was the smart, opinionated fat girl, and all the bullying was verbal), and I don't really want to talk to her about it, which I know posting on Facebook would probably lead to. I'm also Facebook friends with a lot of people from junior high and high school, and I don't want to hurt them by talking about it and I don't want them to hurt me by looking back and saying, "that's not the way it was."
I'm not doing anything about it in the world, and I'm not sure just talking about it is going to help.
I also tend to lose all hope on the subject of bullying.
And so the only two somewhat rational things I have to say are also severely lacking in cheerfulness:
I can't join in with all the people who are grimly pleased about the media attention. This time it's bullying of lgbt teens, last time it was cyberbullying, before that was queen bees and wannabes, and before that it was Columbine. Has each iteration made things better for bullied kids, or is it just this month's sensational news story?
I find it almost unbearably sad that the best we can do for bullied kids is tell them, "It gets better," and hope they don't read the statistics on workplace bullying. I wish we lived in a world where we could tell them, "It's not okay. You don't have to live with it. Adults will help you," and mean it.
I tend to lose all sense of rationality on the subject of bullying.
I don't know how much my mom knows about what junior high was like for me (to clarify: I wasn't bullied because I was a lesbian; I was bullied because I was the smart, opinionated fat girl, and all the bullying was verbal), and I don't really want to talk to her about it, which I know posting on Facebook would probably lead to. I'm also Facebook friends with a lot of people from junior high and high school, and I don't want to hurt them by talking about it and I don't want them to hurt me by looking back and saying, "that's not the way it was."
I'm not doing anything about it in the world, and I'm not sure just talking about it is going to help.
I also tend to lose all hope on the subject of bullying.
And so the only two somewhat rational things I have to say are also severely lacking in cheerfulness:
I can't join in with all the people who are grimly pleased about the media attention. This time it's bullying of lgbt teens, last time it was cyberbullying, before that was queen bees and wannabes, and before that it was Columbine. Has each iteration made things better for bullied kids, or is it just this month's sensational news story?
I find it almost unbearably sad that the best we can do for bullied kids is tell them, "It gets better," and hope they don't read the statistics on workplace bullying. I wish we lived in a world where we could tell them, "It's not okay. You don't have to live with it. Adults will help you," and mean it.