Every day since the day Lil Mootz was born it’s hard to not look at him and watch him and wonder, “What will you be when you grow up?”
Will you be a soldier, like your daddy? Or a sailor, like your great-pappy?
Will you be a zookeeper or a veterinarian?
Maybe you’ll be a professional baseball player? Or perhaps you’ll coach your son’s little league team?
Will you play football for Penn State? Or will you graduate from an Ivy league school?
Will you
Will you fly to the moon or Mars?
Maybe you’ll be a cowboy on a dude ranch?
Or a superhero who saves the world?
Will you be a candy maker?
Or an adventurer and travel the world?
Every day Lil Mootz changes. He learns something new or he discovers a new activity. Every day I wonder what the future holds for him. Most days I’m excited for him. He lives in a time when anything is possible. The sky is not even a limit anymore because we have found ways to go beyond that.
Other days, I am scared for him. I’m a mother. I worry. What if the future does not hold a good adventure for him?
Do all parents wonder this at times?
What if he falls in with the wrong crowd? Will he be a “bad kid”? Will he hit and fight? What if he starts the fight? Will he be a bully?
Will he be the victim?
I don’t think many, if any, parents wonder, Will he live? Will I have to bury my child? Will another child help kill mine?
Did you know that in 2000 it was estimated that 4,080,879 students between the ages of 5 and 18 were victims of bullying in their schools? (Bully Police USA)
Did you know that its estimated 500,000 teenagers try to kill themselves every year and about 5000 of them succeed? (Brenda High)
And did you know that here’s a new term sweeping our country: Bullycide, a suicide caused from the effects of bullying.
Not every child who attempts suicide is a victim of bullying, but why is there even 1 child who is more afraid of going to school than of dying?
We worry about terrorists coming into our country and doing us harm. A victim of bullying walks into their school each day knowing their terrorist could strike any moment and destroy their wounded spirit again, and again.
~Brenda High – Bullycide In America: Moms Speak Out
There is a problem in our schools and among our children. It did not start today and it will not, unfortunately, end tomorrow.
But we can start fixing the problem now. Please visit Bully Police USA to find out how you can be the hero to a victim of bullying.
To read more about the children featured in the video, please visit Bullycide In America: Moms Speak Out.
This post is part of a series of posts I will be writing this week. Please look for Part 2 on Thursday and an exciting announcement in Part 3 on Saturday.
Also, please keep in mind that any comments that are insensitive or mean-spirited will be deleted immediately.
9 comments:
I was a chosen victim of a vicious bully for years and years. I lacked support: from home, from teachers, even from people who should have stood up for me, my childhood friends.
As a teen and a young adult, I tried a very slow method of killing myself, long-term bulimia. Lucky me, a realist and survivor, I was always on the lookout for help and, after experiencing some really scary psychiatrists and treatment programs, and after many breaks between them, I found an amazing psychologist, and a couple of other amazing women who mentored me through and out the other side. I always knew that what I needed was not drugs, therapeutic or otherwise, but to work out my daemons. I went to therapy the way my friends went to university.
Sadly, my friends tell me my bully is not so lucky. She has suffered from severe bouts of depression and has been suicidal, her children are not okay -- one too has attempted suicide on more than one occasion, her marriage and relationships have failed, and she continues to lack insight of her own participation in her life's misery. An intervention might have saved her too.
Bullies need to be viewed as damaged individuals as well, or they continue to wreak havoc on the people around them. If they are the bully's children, they might hurt your children or mine.
I feel bad for the woman who was once my bully. I came out okay, stronger, whole. The same cannot be said for her.
I also was bullied for 2 years in high school. There was a girl who literally pushed and hit me in class in front of the teacher for absolutely no reason. After a week of her doing this I was getting physically ill from the idea of having to go to school. If she was at someone's house with me, she'd fight me. If she saw me at a restaurant she'd taunt me and call me names till I left.
It was awful. I didn't get depressed and try to kill myself because I had good support in friends and my mom, but I hated that nothing was ever done in my school to prevent that. The teachers turned a blind eye every time and I resent them for that.
I was bullied in middle school. This group of girls was SO mean to me! I worry about this happening to Cookie. I can't bear the thought of someone hurting my baby.
Bullying is so scary. I was bullied when I was in the 7th grade. It was horrible. When I became a teacher, I stopped bullying whenever I could.
Mary
I can see your concerns. I think you just have to be as supportive as possible and hope for the best.
love the pics of lil mootz in all his professions :D
I can understand your concerns, people can do so mean definitely when it comes to kids in school. Hopefully, lil M will always make the right decisions and you'll always be there to guide him.
It's all so true. We all have such high hopes for our children, and we incourage them to be themselves, to be unique, to be individual's....but when they are "who they are", others might not like that, and are threatened by that. I was one of those kids growing up. It is so sad, I am raise my kids and teach them that is is NOT okay to bully someone because they are different. That different is a GOOD thing, it makes that person who they are.
Anyways....this subject matter could go on and on and on.
Great post! How long did it take for you to drum up all those pics of your yummy looking son?
My eldest (girl) is 7, and I've just picked up copies of two books, one by Barbara Coloroso, I think called The Bully, The Bullied and the Bystander (I could have that wrong ...) and the other called "Queen Bees and Wannabes".
I bought them to prepare for my kids coming into the ages of bullies and bullying, not so much to be ready for what they will experience, but to work out more of my own stuff so that I might be able to think more clearly, and separate my issues from theirs.
I know that one of the byproducts of having kids is that when they arrive at ages that dark things happened in your life, no matter whether or not you have worked through your stuff, you still can have big emotions as if you are reliving stuff. So I figure I will prepare myself as best as possible ...
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