bullying – 70s v 10s

Playground bullying

This week is apparently Anti-Bullying Week so they said on BBC Breakfast, this morning.

Funny that, as I would’ve thought that every week should be – so perhaps they just mean it was ‘Bullying Awareness Week’ or something.  Anyway, whichever, it got me to thinking about how much bullying is given coverage these days.

Bullying is nothing new – OK, cyber-bullying is obviously new, but it’s just one form of it – the principal is the same.

I was bullied when I was a kid.  My mum was even bullied as a kid (which surprises me as she’s a tough old boot!).  Bullying has always existed – it’s always been traumatic, and to be honest, I think it’s always been a part of school life.  Anyone who is different for whatever reason, is a classroom / playground situation is bound to be singled out and mocked.

It’s human nature.

I grew up in Chigwell Row – a pretty small community, which was very very white and very very middle-class in the 70s.  And when my paremt’s divorced, my dad refused to allow me to drop his surname – so my parents decided that I would have BOTH of their surnames, and I was therefore double-barreled.  It wasn’t enough that my heritage (half-Tunisian, quarter German, eighth Scottish, eighth Spanish) made me look different to all the other kids at school, and that I had an unusual first name in a class of Richards, Jasons, Joanne’s and Kellys – oh no, I had to have a stupid long, weird-sounding double-barreled surname.  Thanks mum and dad.

I had no chance, LOL.

So I was taunted.  I was called ‘Paki’ for years, amongst many other things.  All through primary school.  It was only when I went to secondary school and we got a couple of (shock, horror) brown and black children that it seemed to gradually peter out.  I grew up fighting until I worked out that being a clown was easier on everyone.

But apparently kids aren’t allowed to do that any more.  If any child gets ‘bullied’, the parents have to be straight up the school and there are policies and procedures to deal with it.

I may be a bit controversial, but I don’t think that’s necessarily right.  I think it’s part of learning abotu society, and the fact that we may not agree with certain things, but they’re goign to exist whether you like it or not.  If you’re fat, ugly, thick, ginger even, you’re probably going to have a slightly different life-experience to someone who is beautiful, willowy, intelligent – blah blah blah.  and the most important thing *I* think (personally) is to deal with what you have, make the most of it, and use it to your advantage.

I think being wrapped in cotton wool and being told that you’re exactly the same as everyone else is avoiding the issue.  Just another part of modern life where everything is always someone else’s fault.  we’ve turned into a nation of mollycoddlers in a blame society.

But, of course, that’s just my opinion, and I’ll probably get shot down in flames for it!

just give me the hurt

All evil girls should be green, so they're easy to spot!

Is it wrong for a fully grown woman to want to punch a small girl hard in the face?

I’m not talking about my own girl of course, as she is my main source of entertainment, and as annoying as she can be occasionally, she’s generally just funny and pretty well-behaved….polite, well-mannered, witty and loving.

So, who, and why?

Well, there is this one girl in her class who is like the Queen Bee of all the girls – what she says goes.  All the girls have to play what she plays, do what she does and think what she thinks.  The majority of the girls in The Girl’s class do this – mainly due to fear…fear of this girl beating them up or just casting them out of ‘the crowd’.

The Girl is a little different however.  She is completely unbullyable!  Believe me, I’ve tried – I think I should be able to bully her.  She should be scared of me – *I* had the decency to be scared of my mum!

So this nasty evil little bitch of an eleven year old does everything she can to get to The Girl.  On friday, she came home from school and burst into tears because this bitch had told all of the girls in their class that she had some disease, and not to talk to her or they’d catch it too.  She also told The Girl’s best friend that she mustn’t play with her, or all the other girls would ignore her.  The Girl’s best friend doesn’t have a fraction of the confidence or personality of The Girl, and so just went along with what Queen Bitch said…which led to The Girl having no friends to play with at break time.

This has gone on for about 3 years now, since The Girl’s then best friend for 3 years (a fantastic little girl with pints of personality) left their school because her family moved.  It left The Girl in a bit of a difficult situation as she’d put all her eggs in one basket.

I know that in the long run, it is best that The Girl can’t be led astray, that she knows right from wrong and that noone will ever tell her how to live her life…but as a 10 year old girl, it’s devastating – and I really don’t know what to do about it.  I keep telling her that she’s only at that school til July, and that hopefully Queen Bitch wont be at her new school – and even if she is, she might not see much of her because high school is so much bigger.  I keep playing it down and telling her that there’s noone as cruel as little girls, and that if they were boys, they’d have a fight, and then make off and go off in a big group.

But I want to hurt her.  I want to see how she reacts to someone being so cruel.  Bitch.

Luckily, I’d booked tickets for me and The Girl to go and see The Princess & The Frog on Friday night, and she hadn’t known, so she got a great surprise.  And she got to stay round my parents on Saturday night while I went out boozing.  She hardly ever goes there, and she loves it.  And I took her for brekkie at the caff.  So all in all, she had a fab weekend, and went back to school yesterday and (as I predicted) the whole thing had been forgotten over the weekend.

Until the next time.  And there will be a next time.  And I dread it.