One thing I want for my daughter...longish

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My sweet baby girl, I look at you now and I see you strong and tall for your age. Speaking articulately for a three-year-old. You have always been big, always been outgoing. One look at your brown ringlets, chocolate eyes and easy smile and I know you are going to be a leader, if you can control some of your bossiness :slight_smile:

I want so much for you it hurts my heart to think about all of it. Happiness. That goes without saying. As little pain as possible. That too, of course. More than that. I want for you to do no pain to others, or as little as possible.

I don’t mean broken hearts. I realize that happens when you are finding your happiness. I mean the other.

My sweet girl, I am going to tell you about a girl I went to school with. Her name was Allison. I was new to the school when I met her. She had been the first one to come up and introduce herself. I should’ve seen the look of hope in the teacher’s eyes when I didn’t immediately turn away. Or the quiet desperate loneliness in hers. Maybe I would’ve done something differently. Maybe not. I was new, trying so hard to fit in with all of these kids that had been together since kindergarten. I was new, painfully new and at first I returned her smile. Maybe she would be a friend.

By lunch I had been taught more than the average grade four curriculums. I had been taught about Allison. And what an education. I didn’t know the meaning of the word outcast then, but I know it now and Allison was an outcast. She was teased and picked on constantly. Her shy offer of friendship was turned down as I made other friends. I had never seen a whole school come together in their mocking of another human being before. It felt dirty and evil to me, but I was so scared at being new I didn’t know what to do about it. I refused to participate, but I also didn’t take the stand I knew I should.

I watched for the next two years as people constantly tore her down. Touching her meant you would be infected with her “germs” and everything she did was scrutinized and made fun of. Her day to day life was an experience in horror. What strength she had, looking back at it now, what spirit, just to survive everyday.

I once said to my small circle of friends that I was going to find out why Allison was such a pariah. I asked her myself. She told me back in grade one she was friends with Megan, one of the popular girls and they were playing Barbie’s. Allison had broken one of the Barbie’s. The next day no one would talk to her. I walked around the schoolyard, trying to reason with people, telling them the reason why. No one would listen.

A few of us went to a sleepover at her house. Probably the first one she ever had. It was nice. I just didn’t have the maturity or courage to maintain the friendship. I still carry this guilt.

In grade six things got worse. Projects she worked on were destroyed. A terrarium she made wouldn’t grow, the teacher didn’t know some boys were pouring Coke in it. Everything they could do to hurt her, they did. I did nothing to stop it.

In grade seven word had already spread to the older kids and they joined in, by the end of the year her parents moved to another province. I thanked God for this mercy, please let her have all the successes and blessings she earned in spades.
This isn’t the end of the story my dear. I always wondered about Allison, and hoped that she had found happiness. One day fate intervened and I was able to get her phone number. I thought about calling her for a long time before I got up the courage to make the call. She answered the phone. Her voice was similar to how I remembered, soft and shy sounding. I blurted out who I was, almost as if by saying it fast I could keep the words from having impact.
She quietly explained that she had blocked out a lot of things that happened to her when she was in grade school. I replied that I could understand, that the memories would be very painful. Then I went on to say that I remembered that I would never forget how we all tried to destroy her. I told her that I was sorry, so very sorry. Finally I told her reason for the call.

I told her she had done nothing to deserve any of it. I told her she had been a sweet, kind person and we had abused her, for no good reason. I wished her all the happiness life could offer and hoped someday she may be able to forgive me for my part in it - for not being strong enough to fight for her, or for what I knew was right. We chatted some more, she told me about her new life, her job, school, friends and boyfriend. I hung up the phone still amazed at her courage. She hadn’t gotten angry or voiced any insults or accusations. She had been courteous and polite. The way she always had.

My baby girl, I wish for you that strength. That awesome spirit of survival and enduring sweetness. I hope you will have that power to be able to hold on even if the whole world is against you. But I also pray you will never have call to use it. I wouldn’t wish Allison’s pain on anyone, let alone my own child.

I look at you and think that you may be popular, you will be strong, and tall for your age. You are outgoing and funny, even now at your tender age. Sweetie, I hope that you will have the courage to not only not tease and bully when the pack does, but that you stand against it. That you can see that maybe one good and loyal friend is worth trading off the jackals.

I love you my baby.

Your mom.

2

Your post touched my heart.

3

That was beautiful. Kudos on your decision to call her, I bet it meant a lot to her.

I’m sure your little girl will grow up to be everything you wish for and more, because she seems to have a wonderful mother.

4

Kids always pick a pariah-- it just seems to be part of childhood. Kids are extremely concious of staus, and can be astonishingly cruel in their anxiety to keep their place or advance. Some people never grow out of it, either.

I was a pariah. I was the quiet girl who sat at the front of the bus and read all the time. One of my deepest shames is that a girl who was my friend somehow slipped lower on the totem pole than I, and I joined in on the cruelties. It haunts me still.

I carried enough anger with me from the way I was treated to extract a little revenge years later, when I re-met one of the cute cheerleaders who had tormented me. She was obese and missing teeth, working in a gas station, and I was nasty enough to rub it in her face a little that my life had turned out better than hers. I feel bad about that now, too.

I suppose the treatment I endured made me a stronger person. Now that I am mature, I can forgive. I’m glad I wasn’t one of the popular kids, for I doubt I would have acquired such a love of reading, or such an interest in the study of human nature.

5

I too was the pariah. The (possible) difference is that my parents left me there to rot when they could have moved me. By the time I left that school after 5 years of hell, the damage had been done and I could not reverse it.

6

I really don’t know what to say to Lissa and Quartz, except that I am sorry for what you have both suffered. I know from experience that what goes around does come around, but that is cold comfort when you have to face these bullies every day and you are a child.

I know I can say that at least some of those kids recognized it for what it was, bullying and abuse and wish they’d had the strength of character to stand up for you.

I hope you can continue to find the strength to rise above it and realize that it is not a flaw in you personally that caused it. Don’t internalize it and try to make it about something you did.

7

Your post really hit home. When I was in Grade 4 there was a girl in my class named Tammy. I didn’t realize then, but I do now, that she didn’t have a very good home life. She always wore old, dirty clothes, always looked unkempt. Her lunch often consisted of some stale, sometimes moldy bread, and a dill pickle. All these factors made her an instant target for abuse from the other kids. In the unwritten rankings of kids in that class, she was definitely the one on the bottom. I was only one step above her. I was tormented daily, but she got it worse. She never fought back. She was very quiet and polite, with piercing blue eyes and short, curly black hair. When she smiled, which was rare, it was a sweet and infectious smile.

One day she passed a note to me that read, “AFG I don’t have any friends would you please be my friend?” I felt really sorry for her, and wanted some friends myself, so I began to write back that I would. The teacher saw and took the note away, and read it to the class. I was mortified. I had to do something or the other kids would treat me even worse. So I ignored Tammy. I would occasionally sling a hurtful name her way. This spared me from being treated as badly as her, but to this day - 17 years later - I feel extreme guilt for turning on this girl who only wanted a friend. I still think about her, and wonder where she is, and hope her life is much better now than it was then. I tried to look her up once, but her last name is common and I got nowhere.

If I knew where she was, I would call her up too and apologize, and ask her if her offer of friendship was still good.

8

Just knowing what you know will help your daughter from growing up to be a bully. Having seen someone suffer makes a difference. One thing one of my cousins does ( I have no children) is every Feb. she asks her kids to go through their toys and pick out 5 they would like another child to have. (She goes through the toys in Jan. and takes out the outgrown, etc. toys. and also goes through clothes) The kids are asked to give up at least one toy they really like, but have played with and would like to give another kid a chance to play with. It works.

What is even more amazing - my cousin has adopted 3 Downs Syndrome children. With love and attention…

9

I was pariah. I always wondered if anyone imagined what it would be like on my side of events, or cared and thought it was cruel and wrong.

You know, I wasn’t always nice myself, I was very bitter and full of hate and desire for vengeance for some years there.

Mostly now it is nice to be so invulnerable from hurt from people disapproving of me. You find strength from within and, while it’s still nice to be warmed by other folks’ praise instead of hostility, you don’t need it, and the hostility doesn’t strike at you except in ways you’re accustomed to and know how to deal with, so the threat of it can’t turn you back from stuff.

There was a kid in junior high who had it even worse than I did and I didn’t stick up for him as much as I should have. I wish I had.

10

I, too, like many others, was a pariah. No, not the pariah, but I wasn’t very high on the totem pole. There were two girls “under” me, and they were best friends. They probably still are.

Since I wasn’t at rock bottom, I made fun of them, too, whenever anyone more popular than me was in earshot. The popular girls would usually just roll their eyes at me, though, and those two girls were never hurt by my words - they would laugh at me, then invite me to sit with them. Making sure no one was looking, I’d sneak around and hang out with them in the library or something. I was such a dork.

I became a very surly teenager; instead of smiling politely at the rude remarks, I would snarl and snap. I got beat up quite a few times because I couldn’t keep my damn trashmouth shut. Hey, what can I say, my comebacks were often pretty witty. They just weren’t appreciated. :frowning:

Things eventually got better the older we got. In high school I settled down quite a bit (I was never properly diagnosed until I was an adult, but part of my problem was a raging, untreated case of ADD). I couldn’t focus on anything, and so as I got older I got quieter and quieter. Inert. I never did my homework, so kids thought I was stupid (though I’d hand in test after test and final exams with scores of 100%, because I remembered everything). Naturally, the quieter I got, the less the other kids bothered me. By the time I graduated, I had a handful of very close friends, and most of the others thought I was “weird, but kind of sweet.”

Poysyn, if any of the girls who picked on me so much back in the day were to call me and say what you said to Allison, I think I would cry. It would be one of the nicest things anyone could ever do for me. Sadly, the few I still know today have not matured with age. Hell, one came to me a couple years ago trying to talk about drugs with me, and if I knew where to get some, since it was “well known” that I was a huge druggie. I told her it was news to me, and she was seriously shocked. Then she thought I was stupid for not doing them. I couldn’t win either way. :smack:

I bet you made Allison’s day, and I think that is wonderful. I don’t know if I deserve a call from my high school bullies to tell me they had a change of heart… but I can think of a couple of girls who were best friends, who always invited me to hang out with them after I’d slung a little mud their way, that might like to get a call from me. Just to see how they’re doing and all.

[sub]Sorry for rambling. Brought back some memories.[/sub]

11

I want to say “thank you.”

I, too, was a pariah. I was the cootie girl. Insults and isoation soon gave in to thrown rocks, soaked gym clothes, and depression. I used to come home sobbing every day, for first grade on, because I couldn’t understand how the world could be so cruel to me. Nobody can handle that and stay sane. Things that would destroy adults will also destroy children. They have no special resiliancy. No magic coping mechanism. It’s the exact same pain you’d feel if you walked in to work everyday and nobody talked to you except to insult you and occasionally throw a rock or steal something. Except you can’t change jobs. You can’t leave. You can’t fight back. You can do nothing but hurt for years.

And while all of this was happening, a whole chorus of adults- caretakers- watched on. They told me it would make me stronger. They told me I could ignore it. They told me that that was just how life is. That I was learning about the real world. The adult world. That everyone goes through this. That it really wasn’t so bad.

And it was that bad. It was just as bad then as if it had happened today. Just as bad as if I walked in to that at the office tommorow. In the end I discovered punk rock, started looking scary enough to keep people from bugging me, and developed some curves and a enough self confidence to make it through high school. I thank god every day for being an adult. Now people at least have to act civil. They can’t physically hurt you. They will get fired or worse if they try to pull that shit. And if anything happens now, I can leave. I can call the police. People will take me seriously.

Still today I’m nervous at parties, convinced that everyone is secretly wishing I wasn’t there. Just today I caught myself speaking in hushed tones to my boss. In college I was scared to death to see my teachers at office hours. I was nearly crying when one teacher required it to pass. I even have a hard time being emotionally honest with my mom. She did her best. But she left me there. She said it’d be okay. It wasn’t.

Anyway. Thank you for teaching your daughter that it’s not okay. This problem is caused precisely by parents and teachers standing by while kid’s lives get ruined, shaking their head and going “kids will be kids.” It can be stopped. It must be stopped. But too many parents/teachers are the ones that came out ahead in the game and still feel the small safety that being aligned with the bullies will bring you.