Recently my daughter came home from daycare and greeted me with a little sad pout. When I asked her what was wrong I watched her eyes swell as she explained, “Christina says that I’m not a princess. I told her that I am, but she says that no, I’m not.” With that her face contorted in pain as she covered her eyes with her little fists and burst out with jagged sobs that tore my heart in twain. She’s only four. I knew the day would come when a friend, whether done with intention or not, would hurt my little girl’s feelings. I just didn’t expect it to come so soon.
I wasn’t the most popular kid in school. I had friends, of course, but there were only a few individuals that I kept close to me. In actuality I detested school. So often I found people cruel and judgmental. At a young age I had found myself fiercely in love, and when that love ended in an inevitable heart break, I found the world around me all the more harrowing, so often mocking me in my pain.
Blah, blah, blah, right? So far my story is everything ordinary. All the painful rites of passage that one must experience throughout adolescence were present and accounted for throughout every dreadful year. Yet there was one fateful day that showed me cruelty at its worst. This is one of the most humiliating experiences of my childhood; I share it with you in hopes of provoking thought.
I recall it was a sunny day outside the walls of my classroom. I sat in the row closest to the windows paying little attention to the lecture going on before me. I recall that I was melancholy as I watched the trees swaying in the breeze. I cried softly while I stared out the window, doing my best to hide my face from my teacher. The timeline for me is a little skewed so I do not recall the source of my angst at that time, but chances are it was with regards to a certain boy. For me it was always about a certain boy.
I knew that there was snickering from the boys behind me, boys that I had been going to school with for over a decade. I paid them little attention until one of the voices was very close to my ear. “Jump”, he whispered. I turned my attention now to what he was saying and realized that he was speaking to me. “Go on, do it. Jump. You know you want to. Just get it over with and end it already.” The other boys laughed at the proposal of my suggested suicide. His taunting continued until the bell rang. I never once turned around; I never spoke to them. I just continued staring out the window, wishing I could disappear.
OK, for someone who was just having a bad day, negative remarks from a fool who was merely showing off to his friends is really not that big a deal. But for a teenager whose world was crushing around her at the time, it could have been fuel for the fire. Thankfully no, I had no desire to end my life that day. But there are all too real stories of kids out there who would find that kind of treatment as a last straw and see it through. That’s called bullying. It’s very real, and it happens everywhere.
When I first joined Facebook I was hesitant. I wasn’t all too sure I really wanted to reconnect with people from grade school. But I am such a different person now from who I was back then, and I was willing to bet that a lot of other people were changed as well. I came to enjoy reconnecting with so many people. There are some people I speak to more online now than I ever did in high school. That’s the good part of Facebook.
Here’s the bad: A few days ago I caught wind of an open group on FB that was started for the sole purpose of gathering people to vent and make negative comments about an individual who was our peer in school. They found this individual annoying for reasons such as putting too much personal information on their status or commenting too often. No matter how innocently funny some of the people who joined this group found the page to be, it’s a hate group. I repeat it is a Hate. Group. There is also another phrase for it, and it’s called cyber bullying. These are adults, not children. Never did I imagine I would see such a horrible thing among my own peers, twenty years after high school is over.
Naturally this person found out about it, as did this person’s family and friends. It appears as though this person is strong and while hurt by the things being said will get beyond it. But the pain, the humiliation…it breaks my heart.
The purpose of this was not to get all soap boxy, and I certainly don’t want to sensationalize it by calling personal attention to the group itself. I am intentionally not mentioning names and ask that anyone who knows personally what I am referring to refrain from commenting with specifics. To anyone thinking that this isn’t a big deal, this is my perspective:
If my children were older and I found out that one of them had created or joined a group as a forum for speaking ill things about another person, there is no depth to the level of disappointment I would have in my child. If one of my children was the subject of a group created as a forum for speaking ill things about him or her, there would be no depth to the level of rage I would have for those persons who hurt my child. I do not care how much you do not like a person. I do not care how much a person annoys you. It’s cruel.
I am not a religious person, but I am a spiritual person. I believe in a concept that is as old as man. All religions have a different take on it, but the basic premise is harm none, do what ye will. I try to live by that. Obviously I do not always succeed. I have been the cause of tears in others throughout the course of my life, and for that I have many regrets. But I try to be a good person. In general it is not a hard thing to do. I have long forgiven those boys who snickered at me in class. I do not believe they meant to cause me actual harm. The little girl that hurt my daughter, it was innocent. There was no intentional harm in her statement. There will be a day, however, when cruel words will be said to my child, and I will be waiting to comfort her just the same as I did for that minor offense.
While some did, I do not believe that many of the people who joined that group meant to cause harm. But they aren’t children anymore. These are adults setting an example for others, and in my opinion doing it poorly. This world with so many problems will only get better if each person does their part to make it a better place. It starts with simple acts of kindness. Let’s be excellent to each other, people. It’s easy if you try.
