Bullying then, and now…

While reading an article in the Huffington Post regarding the various initiatives about anti- bullying it sparked a bit of a frustration in me. It stayed with me throughout the night and into today. My mind was racing with thoughts and feelings of this issue and I asked myself if there was anything that I could do to correct this problem. I wondered if there was anything that any of us could do.

Anti- bullying is huge today; and it should be. But is it really worse today than ever? I don’t believe that it is. Today the wide spread knowledge of bullying is because of the use of social media. Quite frankly there are just new ways to do it. I went to elementary school in the 70’s and continued my high school years into the early 80’s and can tell you  that bullying was alive and well back then, we just didn’t have a screen in front of us to talk about it, or to make it worse.  In school yards we were teased and picked on, the bus rides home were no different than they are today. Fat kids, ugly kids, poor kids, and the rest of us were still pushed to the back of the bus, tripped, teased and had food thrown at us. Walking home sometimes meant taking an alternative route because someone wanted to beat the piss out of you. 

Our lunches were stolen, we were not chosen for “the team” in gym classes and in some cases even our teachers picked on us.  You only have to ask a good friend of mine about Teachers (Ms. Renaud, Mr. Cecile no names right….lol) that abused the trust in the classroom. Ear twisting, desk toss, desk dumps, being smacked upside the head, and name calling…..  it all happened!

Do you not think that the same has happened throughout all of humanity? Bullying or being an asshole has always been prevalent in society. The difference today is that people can be less courageous about how they bully. They sit behind a screen void of having to see their victim in person and say whatever they want. When I was in high school I remember a girl named Jodi, she went through a period of time where she was  “the girl” that a group of senior boys and girls decided to pick on. I recall once at a party a group of guys helped get her intoxicated and pretended to befriend her, only to take her for a ride and leave her in a ditch. The talk at school come Monday was incredible, by first period everyone knew about it. That week in our school newspaper under the classified ads.. an invitation for her to join the swim team by an anonymous contributor. Now if that happened today it would have ended up on youtube, facebook and CTV news. There would be public outcry for this. Why now? Why not then? The fact that there would be a public outcry today does not mean that society is getting better about the inhumane ways we treat each other, it simply means the same number of people that would be outraged are the same number that would have always been outraged. That percentage of people now have an opportunity to be heard. And …. A video of this type of act just makes for a good news story. There are countless stories that I could use as examples….. I bet you if I asked my mother about bullying when she attended school, she could recall situations as well. I would even gather to say her mother could tell stories as well, and her mother , and her mother…..

I never had a yearbook when I was in high school, as we were required to pay for them outside of our registration fees it is something I have regretted. Recently my daughter told me that my high school had several copies in the library that could be purchased. I bought all 4 years. I was so excited to crawl into bed with a hot cup of coffee and view them. I sat for hours searching for people and laughing. After I had finished I truthfully felt depressed, I never realized how much I hated high school until I viewed the people in my year books. Many of the students I went to school with were not nice people. All that did for me was remind me that we were a cruel group of citizens even back then.

In elementary school we had a resource room, it was differently laid out then today but still had the same framework as today. A student requiring assistance would go and meet with a “Special Ed Teacher”. We also had children that were not integrated into regular classrooms because of the severity of their exceptionality. They were teased. And 35 years later they are still teased. Is it OK? Absolutely not…but it still happens, despite the anti-bullying laws. Yes we are fighting for equality and acceptance, but are things really changing? 

As a parent; I dealt with these kinds of issues and very rarely got the outcome I desired.  There were days that I myself wanted to go onto the school yard and handle the kids. Oh the thoughts of what I would have done to the little kids that thought they were so cool by degrading others. Trust me I wanted to. It enrages me thinking of the power others have on our children. 

I always wonder what possesses a person to be cruel, mean and void of compassion. I believe we all have the common traits of a bully but have the common sense or ability to choose to behave that way or not. Just like I believe that each of us has good within. We only require a spark to ignite either good or evil. It is like “Mob mentality”; even the best of people fall victim to behaving in irrational manners because of the influence of others.

I keep seeing these photos on facebook and on news sites of parents shaming their children for bullying by requiring them to carry a sign that indicates they were a bully, and it makes me sick. I do not agree with humiliating or shaming a child for their behaviours. Punishment and an apology yes, but not a viral picture of your kid holding a sign. Yes we need a public awareness campaign to address the issues of Bullying, but guess what folks it is not a new issue. How do you stop it from happening? You can’t; not really. People bully for many reasons, and to pin point exactly what causes it will for ever be impossible to know. We are a damaged species; always were and always will be. The line between good and evil is simply too thin. 

Bullying is never going to go away it has just changed its’ form of how we see it. I do applaud the efforts and the new directives that schools are taking to tackle the issue but I think it really starts at home. What we say and how we behave directly impacts the morals and ethics our children have.  Talking to your kids about the internet and what they put out there is a valuable conversation to have. Amanda Todd and her video was powerful and I was so saddened; just like everyone else, to think about this girl taking her own life because of being bullied.  How long has suicide been a factor in bullying, peer comparing self- esteem/worth issues? Is this new? No….

Is putting a naked picture of yourself in a text or email a good idea? What kind of response do you think will happen? I am certain that in 1984 if there was a girl that had a naked photo “out there”, it would have been distributed in the form of whatever media was the form of the day. The senior boys and girls at my school would have photocopied it and taped it all around the school, which is equivalent to sharing on facebook or twitter today. Maybe, since we all know how cruel life and people can be, maybe instead of anti-bullying messages  we should start a campaign of protecting our own privacy, and learning how to make better choices of what we want others to have control of. Maybe, we need to teach our children how to protect themselves from others or learn how NOT to be “that” victim. 

Bullying is not OK. Bottom Line. Being mean, hateful, vindictive and revengeful is wrong. Sadly that is the other side of the world we live in. Not everything is chocolate covered.  What we see in our children today is a mirror of what society is. I am not saying that we are all evil and that life is all bad…..I am just simply pointing out what we already know and see. Life is a balance, a struggle if you will between good and evil. It has been since the history of time.

I wish I had a solution to this problem. I wish I could change the face of our school yards and make a better society for all of us. Hopefully our children and our children’s children will find an answer to this.

~Christine~