Neener-Neener

Neener-Neener

Perhaps because our memory is kind to us, occasionally we’ll forget things.  The selectiveness of a memory block is difficult to explain.  Honestly, there doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason.  There are things I vividly remember that I would give anything to not.  Somewhere in the grey of my memory, preying like a tiger, are memories that merely need a trigger to remind.  Then there are the memories so deeply buried, hypnotherapy is the only potential way of unearthing.

Our subconscious has this magical ability to protect us.  An equal capacity to maim.  I’ve said many times how insane the human brain is.  I’ve always been nothing short of fascinated by psychology.  Why I haven’t spent more time in school to feed my interest, is too silly to answer.  It wasn’t until a conversation recently, I recalled a memory that I had buried.  For good reason.  But the relevance of the experience came up and I was brought to a new comprehension to a tone of discussion heavy around all of us.

I recently blogged about how ridiculous we girls are to each other.  In that blog, I shared a conversation my mother had with me, I passed along to my daughter.  Jealousy.  A few weeks ago, my daughter was talking to me about how thrilled she is to start high school.  I can remember vividly the excitement I had at her age.  But then she told me she was nervous.

I told her she’d get over the nerves fast.  All she needed to do was be patient and wait for familiarity to take over.  Then she corrected me.  It wasn’t fear of the school so much as it was fear of a girl.  Hmmm.  

Earlier this year, my daughter was nothing short of bullied.  We dealt with this girl to the best of our abilities, which is unfortunately waiting until something happened.  Which it never did.  We counseled her as to the most mature way to deal with a jerk and eventually the jerk got herself into enough trouble to get herself kicked out of the school.  

Now it seems, my daughter is terrified of seeing her at her new school next year.  She went on to say how uncomfortable she is with the idea of being anywhere without her parents.  There was a carnival in town recently and she had no desire to go with any of her friends for fear of running into this girl.  I felt terrible for her.  She kept this fear to herself until this conversation.  There was literally nothing I could do for her.  

The show, Glee, lately has become more or less a PSA.  I’ve talked more than once about how it isn’t entertaining anymore.  I found myself asking if things are really as bad as this show is portraying?  I’m not going to say I’m oblivious to the current tone of bullying, but I honestly never witnessed anything as severe as the show does in my own experiences.  I’m not so dumb to say, “I didn’t see it, so therefore it’s never happened.”  That’s ridiculous.  But it does drive a little wedge in my comprehension.

I’ve paid closer attention to messages in programs geared towards the adolescent to see if there’s a consistency.  There really isn’t any.  Glee really is a driving force of information.

Reevaluating this subject, I came across my own experiences of bullying.  I don’t recall ever being a bully.  If I have and you believe yourself to be a victim of my bullying, please accept my deepest apologies.  But I did have a few girls that gave me hell the first year of high school.  One experience in particular was catapulted from that grey area of my memory.  Talking about my opinion of Glee, snared that tiger.  I guess there was bullying when I was 14.  I just chose to put it away.  It was by no means a long term thing.  I wasn’t truly picked on for any significant period of time.  But the entire first semester of freshmen year, I dreaded going to gym because of one girl.  Eventually I stood up to her and put an end to the whole thing.  

It took a tremendous amount of courage to do that.  However, it empowered me and I grew from it.  I started to grow a spine and gain the self worth and confidence necessary to survive high school.

I realize finding that kind of strength amidst constant belittling is impossible.  One’s self worth becomes nothing.  Healing that kind of damage is so hard.  For a person to admit lacking self worth is a process in itself.  

My point?  I’m not really sure.  I wonder why things are the way they are all the time.  I watch the news and get enraged to hear what is happening.  Why?  Where have things gone so awry that the news has become so increasingly dire?  I have a few theories.  I have fingers pointed in very specific directions.    

Coming from a large family and having my own little family, I have learned so much about what directly contributes to making a person who they are.  I’d like to believe I’m fairly insightful in pegging things amiss.  When it comes to the subject of bullying, I find it to be an easier cure than anyone is even talking about.

Saying simply:  Be nice, is just not practical.  Do you remember being taught ‘hatred begets hatred.’  It’s learned.  These bullying kids are either being taught through example or not being corrected.  Ever.  I am telling my toddler all the time to ‘be nice.’  He is learning what that means when he’s petting a dog or cat.  He’s being shown to share and it’s consistent.  Somewhere along the line, we’re not teaching those principles anymore.  

It isn’t the responsibility of the school faculty to enforce good behavior.  They can only discipline the bad behavior.  It is our job as parents to teach our children the importance of being kind.  Not just saying to be kind.  We need to be actively teaching them what that means.  There’s so much negative reinforcement working against the parental unit.  It seems daunting to even try.  But we have to.  At some point the parents of the kids taking to their facebook pages to ridicule each other, have to step in and really teach them why it’s wrong.  If we don’t, they will more than likely learn it all the hardest way.  Via Karma.

As annoying as Glee has become for me, it has certainly brought to my attention something I didn’t really have a clear focus on.  So, I owe them a little apology for blasting their intent.  Obviously, the need is there.  Parents need to play a far more active role in their kids’ lives as they go through their teen years.  It’s awful.  It is our job to make sure they’re as safe as possible.  It is our job to know every little detail of their lives.  If we don’t know who all of their friends are, who all of their ‘enemies’ are, how they’re doing in each subject, who their teachers are, etc. we are failing as parents.  And we are therefore contributing to the demise of this future generation.