Message #11317

[winkiebear]

Yank, I agree with some of what you said, just want to put another spin on it ... from experience.



When I was growing up, in a Catholic family of 6 kids, I went to school in another town ... had to ride the bus.  All my friends near my home went to the public school up the street, and I fit in fairly well ... mostly because I was a tomboy and most of the kids in the neighborhood were boys.



School was another whole universe from where I lived.  At school I was picked on, humiliated, and miserable.  When I came home crying, my mother didn't do anything ... I don't know if it was because she didn't know what to do or if it didn't matter to her.  See, adults have better reasoning power than children ... she was convinced that whatever was happening at school could not be that bad, because I maintained high grades.  But high grades was the only way I could think of to let those other kids know I was "better" than them.



Didn't work out too well, grades fell in high school, and I started to not care.  Still got made fun of daily, but it was now on a more broad scale because there were more kids in high school.



And now as an adult, I'm beginning to like who I am.  I'm a little more sure of myself ... I know that I don't have to "save" people from themselves, and I've given myself permission to be not liked.  And as a result, I've noticed that the "beautiful people" - that is, the people who, if they had known me in school, would have bullied me - these people now LIKE me.  You know the ones - the cheerleaders, the jocks, the sweethearts, the brains.  It's a hard situation to adjust to - people now like me for who I am, for what I have to say.  My intelligence isn't a punishment, it's a privelege.



But the point of what I should be trying to say is that, even though there were a LOT of people who didn't like me then, I never once would have thought to bring any kind of a weapon to school.  I would never have thought to translate my own pain into hurting someone else.  I revelled in my teenage angst - it was my own, it made me unique.  And it helped build the person I've become.



Maybe someday I'll share this with my own children.  Probably only if the situation warrants - if they begin to go through similar scenarios.  In the meantime, I have to trust that I'm doing the right thing in the way I raise my children ... that they will be trustworthy, honest, and kind adults.



Because, when you get down to it, isn't that all we can hope for?



Off the soapbox for now,

 winkiebear