Recent news stories covering the deaths of children and young adults over this past week left me saddened but not speechless, appalled but not helpless and angry but not defeated. The following is my story. The only story that one truly knows.
It began in the 3rd grade and continued sporadically until I graduated high school. I like a large majority of American children was the target of childhood and teenage bullying. Sadly, I believed that it was a part of growing up and something that one must endure in order to obtain a “thicker skin.” Now viewing myself as a normal child and teenager I often ask myself this question, Why was I bullied? Hmmm… I had a different name, I was taller than most of the other girls, I didn’t dress in the latest fashions, I lived in a modest home where I was raised to have Christian values, I had a unique laugh, I had/have a big nose, I was in the eyes of my peers either too skinny or too fat… These are the critiques that I can remember. There are some that thankfully I have since forgotten. Another question that I ask myself is, if this happened to me what did my peers endure growing up? I know I am not the only one who was a victim and I know that there are stories far worse than my own. However, society tells us that this behavior is a rite of passage. We are not to talk about our hurts. To do so makes us both weak and vulnerable.
By the time I entered the 10th grade I absolutely had no self-esteem or self-worth. I had begun to believe all of the hurtful and mean things that had been said to me. I did not view myself as normal, rather I viewed myself as anything but. I was far from comfortable in my own skin. As a defense mechanism I made my world small and withdrew myself from anything that once gave me any sense of joy or pleasure. In the fall of 1993 I had few friends and absolutely hated school. Instead of talking to my parents about my troubles I will shamefully admit that I started acting out by cutting my own hair in peculiar ways, skipping school and failing virtually every class in the first nine weeks of my sophomore year. It was not that I could not talk to my parents. It was that I would not talk to my parents. I always wondered if they viewed me in this same way but loved me anyhow. I now know that they did not. They loved me, they accepted me just as I was. As a kid though, you think like a kid and it would be odd for anyone to expect that a child would have all the coping tools that one acquires through the adolescent years.
As my parents first child I am sure they felt that I was just experiencing “growing pains.” My younger sister did not have the same difficulties academically or socially and every child is different. Nonetheless this added to the guilt that I bore. Why did I have to be different?
Acting in my best interests and lovingly my parents removed me from the public school system and placed me in the only private high school in our city. This particular school was designated as “Christian” and naively my parents believed it to be so. In defense of my parents and in defense of the school the intent was good, however the acceptance process adopted by the establishment was lacking tremendously. Every social misfit within 60 miles attended, a long with a few who had been removed from the public school system for similar reasons as I, and a slight few who attended for a Christian education. Like the saying goes, One bad apple spoils the whole bunch…
Within the first month I had received an education alright. A social one. I had never known any one person my age, 15, who had smoked cigarettes or pot, drank, had sex, cursed like a sailor or acted out of complete defiance against any elder or authority. Now I knew several of them. Some of these kids had actually been sent to boarding and military schools. I personally thought these places were reserved for the wealthy and were only in the movies. No, they really existed. In summation, I was no longer bullied for being different in the ways I had been in the past, but now in new ways. In ways that I could rise against for a period of time and ones that adults finally found to be unacceptable.
Ones that adults finally found to be unacceptable… It is true. As adults we tell ourselves and teach our children by example that it is okay to ostracize another human being for their appearance, social standing, etc. Our actions and unwillingness to act convey that it is alright to be arrogant and harsh in our judgments of one another. We the adults perpetuate the meanness and we wonder why our children will not open up to us as their parents and turn to drugs, alcohol, unhealthy relationships and unfortunately sometimes the “S” word. The word that no one likes to speak, but the one that is becoming more prevalent than ever in our society as the numbers rise, suicide. In 2009 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 13.8% of students grades 9-12 seriously considered suicide within that year. Statistically 12.2% of all deaths in the 15-24 year old age range were the result of suicide. The Journal of Pediatrics acknowledges the significant connection between peer victimization and teen suicide and yet little is done. If suicide were a disease we would search frantically for an immunization to prevent it or a cure to end it. (http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/suicide/index.html)
I am not saying that suicide is the fault of the parents or even that it is society’s fault. What I am saying is that every mother and father are accountable for their own actions. We should be raising our children to be productive members of society and not products of our dysfunction. We are a part of the cure.
As a mother of two pre-teen children I am convicted and this is why I write. I am guilty of not engaging with my children as I should. I am guilty of not asking the right questions, but more often than not asking the wrong ones. I am guilty of being a bad example and in my own arrogance believing that I am a good mother because I check the appropriate boxes.
There is a complacency in accepting that we are raising up a society of violent boys and mean girls. It is time for accountability and it begins with individual, personal accountability. If we want change in society we must be the change. Otherwise we are leading our lambs to the slaughter.
No comments:
Post a Comment