What are you teaching your children?

My oldest daughter is home sick today so my husband took Tess to school (or the Island of the Lord of the Flies as we now call it). Here's his observation of what happened:

... Most of her KTech class were sitting on a couple benches while an aide read to them. There was no room on a bench to sit so she went to sit by herself on the floor. As Tess entered the circle one boy said, "Here's comes a baby!" and the other kids laughed and a couple kids made a few similar comments. Tess made a forced laugh too. The aide did not think it was funny. She was very angry with the kids. She made the boy sit right at her feet, and the other kids immediate started saying to the boy that he was a baby and he would cry. Other kids, girls and boys, started making jokes about being a fat baby, and one boy said something about him being a girl and having "boobs". The aide grew even angrier and scolded the boy strongly, saying "we don't say that kind of thing to our friends", and made him sit at her feet as well. Meanwhile a couple of other kids repeated the word "boobs" and the others laughed.

All this happened within about 60 seconds. The first minute of Tess's day ... and she had been needled and seen other kids needled and heard at least half a dozen hurtful remarks from her peers and seen everyone else laughing at them.

On the plus side, I am glad to see that the aide recognized that the tone the group took with one other was essentially one of harassment and took steps within her power to quell it. And I suppose I can take cold comfort in the fact that Tess is not the only kid being bullied... On the down side, I was sad to see that the kids in my child's class treat each other this way, and I fear that Tess will learn to bully in order to fit in and deflect harassment.

Needless to say, we're pulling her out of that school just as soon as we can get her enrolled elsewhere. We have an appointment at a Catholic school on Tuesday. But I'm torn about taking her out and leaving those other kids in an environment that has let this type of behavior develop. Part of me feels like I need to stick it out and make sure the school develops strong anti-bullying policies and programs. But I have to put my advocate hat aside and take care of my daughter's needs first.

Because this is a private school, I have very little hope that any action on my part would have a significant impact. I talked to another mother who's daughter was bullied there last year. That mother went all the way to the head of the company. Nothing was done and so she pulled her daughter from the school.

I think we need a national effort to teach our children respect - respect for themselves and respect for others. Children who respect themselves are less likely to be bullies and less likely to be bullied by others. I'm realistic. Children will be children and children can be cruel. But we, as adults, should make sure that cruelty is not the accepted norm in our schools.

We can begin by treating each other with a little more respect and serve as examples for our children. I'm not naive. I don't expect us all to just get along. We have different beliefs, backgrounds, etc. We don't have to agree about politics or religion. We don't even have to like each other. But we should treat each other with respect. We should lead by example.

This goes far beyond free speech, religion, politics, or bullying - it's an issue of basic human rights and dignity.

Bullies suck.

Last week I posted about the tragic deaths of three young men as the result of bullying in their schools. They were being bullied for their sexual orientation. I was outraged and saddened but in a distant sort of liberal pinko peacenik sort of way.

Now it's personal. My baby came home from kindergarden yesterday in tears. The reason - bullying. Pint sized bullying. For no particular reason, two little girls in her class have decided that it'll be fun to pick on my daughter. Look at this face - why would you want to make this beautiful face cry?

It started with my daughter being the only girl in her class (there are only 4 girls in her class) not invited to a sleep over. Then it was was the giggling and making faces at her when she walked into the building. Then it was calling her yucky and disgusting and ridiculing everything she says and does. They have figured out that this sweet little girl is a bit on the sensitive side and it's easy to make her miserable and bonus! it's fun.

I've spoken with the teacher who was blissfully unaware that it was going on. When I asked to have a conference with the parents of the other girls I was told it was against school policy and that they would talk to the children and their parents. Not good enough. They need more than a note home. I want these parents to see how their children's behavior is impacting my child. I want to hear from these parents what their plans are for addressing this behavior.

When talking to another mom about this, she shared that her daughter (I'll call her Suzie) was bullied for a good part of last year when she was in kindergarden - so much so that she refuses to take the bus this year. Yes, kids will be kids, but the bullying - especially with girls, seems to be starting earlier and earlier.

We need to start holding our children - even our youngest children, accountable for their words and actions. Bullying, even pint-sized bullying cannot be tolerated. We also need to give our children the skills they need to counter bullying.

And we need to start holding parents, teachers, and administrators accountable as well. If this kind of bullying is tolerated in kindergarden and first grade, just image what terrors these little girls will be by the time they get to high school.

To the parents of these two little mean girls in training: Are you going to tell me you don't see these behaviors in your children? Come on. I can see it in the 5 minutes I spend with your daughters before and after school everyday. Do you think it's cute or cool? Or do you just think that my daughter needs to toughen up? Just wait until it's your child that is the victim of bullying.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Bullies aren't born, they're made. It's up to us to stop the cycle of bullying. We don't all have to be friends but we do need to learn to be respectful of each other.

It's about parking spaces, really!

I guess Brooklyn isn't far enough from Ground Zero for some people. On Sunday the Tea Party brought out their best vitriol to protest the building of an Islamic community center in Brooklyn, about 15 miles from Ground Zero. John Kenneth Press, President of the Brooklyn Tea Party stirred up 'patriotic' passions during his speech in which he framed the issue as not one of zoning but making America safe from democracy. These comments opened the door for hate-filled, racist shouts and chanting from the protesters.

Now John Kenneth Press is a nut job - even other Tea Party people think he's nuts. But it highlights the problem with the Tea Party movement. Too many nuts, not enough squirrels to bury them.

November is fast approaching and Tea Party candidates are flooding our airwaves. If you consider yourself a Tea Party supporter, it's on YOU to ask you candidates about what they believe. Are they couching racism and bigotry in terms of "culturalism"? Look past the easy rhetoric of lower taxes, smaller government, etc... and listen to what they are saying about immigration, Islam, and our own President who - just so we're clear on this - is an American, eligible to hold office, and a Christian (not that being a Christian should be a prerequisite for being President of the United States, IMHO).

This rally on Brooklyn should have been about zoning, traffic impact studies, and parking issues. To be fair, that's what the initial debate was all about. Some neighbors felt that the residential street won't be able to handle the additional traffic and parking needs of the community center. Hate should have been left out of it.

Let's do our part to make sure that this November's elections are about REAL issues and leave the politics of hate behind.

Sticks and Stones...

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me." It didn't matter how many times my mother told me to repeat those words when some bully was making my life miserable. They didn't work then and they don't work now. Because words hurt.

I haven't posted in awhile. School's back in session and between shuttling between schools, ballet, gymnastics, and tae kwon do, there's not been a lot of energy left over for social outrage. But I'm lucky. In fact, I'm blessed. My kids seem to be as well adjusted as a first grader and kindergartner can be. For now.

Other parents aren't so lucky. For the families of Asher Brown, Tyler Clementi, and Seth Walsh, this school year will not be marked by car pools, report cards, school plays, homecoming games, parent-teacher conferences, or tuition bills. As most of you know by now, these three bright young lives tragically ended in suicide in the past week as a result of bullying at the hands of their "peers." Their crime? Simply being what God made them. Gay.

There were bullies when I went to high school. There were also gay kids, nerds, and kids who just didn't fit in. I've been asking myself why my school didn't have a rash of suicides. I mean really, it was the 80s - even the most well adjusted kid would have considered the big sleep after listening to the Smiths' Hatful of Hollow and The Cure's Pornography a few hundred times.

Maybe it was my generation's faith in our savior, John Hughes, that kept us sane. In movies like Some Kind of Wonderful, Sixteen Candles, and Pretty in Pink he made us believe that it would all be ok. The the social outcast would end up with the popular girl or boy. [side note: Am I the only one who thought that Molly Ringwald was definitely NOT pretty in pink? That dress was hideous!] And in the Breakfast Club he even made us believe, if only for a few minutes, that we could transcend our prejudices and stereotypes and that things would get better.

But things don't get better, do they? Bullies still rule the hallways of our nations' schools. And when those bullies grow up, they go on to get their own radio talk shows. Their hatred and bigotry are cloaked in religion, patriotism, and free speech. It's ok to hate gays because the bible says that homosexuality is a sin. It's ok to hate Muslims because they are out to destroy our country. And it's ok to bully a kid to his death because we all have the right to free speech. Yeah right - free speech. Free for whom? The free speech of a few bigoted, hateful teens cost Asher Brown, Tyler Clementi, and Seth Walsh their lives.

Free speech has become the bully's get-out-of-jail-free card. After all, the Constitution give us all the right to say what we feel, right? Yes it does. But words matter and we should be held accountable for what we say.

For those of us who have children, it is up to us to set the example. Kids aren't born bullies. Bullies are made. Listen to yourself when you start talking politics and religion. How could our words and actions be interpreted by young and impressionable minds? Do we reach out to the quirky kids in our neighborhood? The kids who don't fit in? Do we tell our kid that it's not ok to tease the kid who can't run as fast or hit a baseball, who wears funny clothes, or who is just "weird"? Do we stand up and speak out when we see hatred and injustice in society? If we don't how will our children learn to?

I wish I could tell all the kids out there who are suffering that it gets better - that the geek will find true love and that the bully gets what's coming to him and the mean girl gets hers. But it doesn't always work out that way.

There is hope though. Some people are using their right to free speech to reach out and make things better. Columnist Dan Savage and his husband have started the It Gets Better Project. They and other adults have videotaped messages of hope to kids who are being tormented by bullies.

On their website www.godlovespoetry.com Kevin Cobb and Andres Almeida are taking the hate filled vitriol of the Westboro Baptist Church's website www.godhatesfags.com and turning it into beautiful poetry as a reminder that even in midst of hate and anger, we can find beauty, acceptance, and understanding.

I leave you tonight with a poem from Cobb and Almeida's website.

HATE

makes the heart suffer

love for hatred

cause some to fall.