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ceebeegeeWhen I was a kid, I didn't have to deal too much with this, thank goodness. I was never one of the Popular Kids but I did make friends and my involvement in sports definitely smoothed the path for me. Not to mention that the school system in Virginia where I went for most of my school years was so small, there was no point in hard-core cliques and as far as I knew, no one was bullied. We didn't all sing Kum Ba Ya every morning but it was generally pretty chill--I know there were outcasts, but I honestly cannot remember any notorious incidents. The school system in New Hampshire might've been different--that was much more of a stereotypical large school where the jocks were big. That school routinely won state championships in football, tennis, soccer, skiing and other sports. Again, I walked the middle ground between jockette (I was one of the few freshmen on the varsity soccer team, a BIG deal, and yes, we did go to State's) and theater/music nerd.
My mother belongs to a neighborhood pool, and during one college summer, I worked the concessions stand. This place always had a rush during the break, because that's when they kicked the kids out of the pool, so they'd all come over to buy candy and soda. There was one kid, about 10-11, who was obviously not really accepted by the others. I used to chat with him--a small quiet really cool kid. There was another kid, about 12, who was much bigger, a little chubby. He was a bully, and he used to give hell to the first kid. Made fun of him all the time in front of the other kids. I kept my eye on it but couldn't really do much. Then one day the kids are all there, they've all bought their stuff and are standing around eating it. I'm standing behind the divider with one of those plastic panels from chaise lounges in my hand--this one had fallen off and I'd picked it up, holding both ends in my hand so it formed a kind of belt. Big Kid starts harassing Littler Kid again and steps it up--he jams an inner tube over the kid's arms, trapping him, and then starts pushing him around and hitting him. I just reacted (probably not wise--in retrospect I'm very lucky I didn't get into trouble). I whacked the HELL out the Big Kid's arm with the makeshift belt in my hand. He looked absolutely stunned and I told him to get the hell out of here and "you leave him alone." Big Kid was furious, threatening to get me fired--I said bring it on, I'll tell your parents and the pool officials what you were doing here. He ran off, clutching the welt on his arm and, ever the WASP, I picked up my conversation with Littler Kid without making one reference to what had just happened. (I didn't want to embarrass him.)
Middle school/high school power dynamics, of which bullying is the most dramatic manifestation, are so complex. Obviously when a kid is beating another one up, that's a clear evil that needs to be stopped. Orchestrated (or even just one-on-one) harassment is also intolerable and wrong. But what about just...not liking someone? What about low-level snottiness? I'm thinking of A Friend to Die For/Death of a Cheerleader, a Tory Spelling Lifetime movie about a so-called Mean Girl who is murdered by a Wanna Be girl at the same high school. It's based on a true story that happened in Miramonte California in '84. If you go on the imdb message board about the movie, there is an awful lot of "OMG, she deserved it, she was such a bitch!" But if you watch the movie, she really isn't. Let me clarify--Stacy (the Tori Spelling character) was really not nice at all to Angela (the Kelly Martin character). But she didn't beat her up. She didn't stalk or harass her. She made a few snotty remarks but for the most part, she rolled her eyes and just wanted to get the hell away from her. They do show the Stacy character being ruder to another character (who's later suspected of her murder) but even that--that is par for the course for high school. Teenagers can suck. People can suck. I'm not sure where to draw the line between standard welcome-to-the-human-race shittiness and an indentifiable, intolerable, punishable pattern of behavior but classifying everything negative as bullying or outrageous isn't wise, IMO.
Here are a few guidelines as to what should be out-of-bounds (IMO):
Physical contact
Remarks about race/gender/ethnicity/handicapped status/sexuality
Anything orchestrated, whether in person or online
Another interesting result of adolescent power dynamics is the flipside--the assumption that anyone on the low end of the totem pole is automatically morally superior. This actually irritates the crap put of me--I blame John Hughes! ;) Some people are on the low end because they seem gay, or because they dress badly (IOW, things they can't help). And some people are there because other people just don't like them. People all over the spectrum can be judgmental and obnoxious.
My mother belongs to a neighborhood pool, and during one college summer, I worked the concessions stand. This place always had a rush during the break, because that's when they kicked the kids out of the pool, so they'd all come over to buy candy and soda. There was one kid, about 10-11, who was obviously not really accepted by the others. I used to chat with him--a small quiet really cool kid. There was another kid, about 12, who was much bigger, a little chubby. He was a bully, and he used to give hell to the first kid. Made fun of him all the time in front of the other kids. I kept my eye on it but couldn't really do much. Then one day the kids are all there, they've all bought their stuff and are standing around eating it. I'm standing behind the divider with one of those plastic panels from chaise lounges in my hand--this one had fallen off and I'd picked it up, holding both ends in my hand so it formed a kind of belt. Big Kid starts harassing Littler Kid again and steps it up--he jams an inner tube over the kid's arms, trapping him, and then starts pushing him around and hitting him. I just reacted (probably not wise--in retrospect I'm very lucky I didn't get into trouble). I whacked the HELL out the Big Kid's arm with the makeshift belt in my hand. He looked absolutely stunned and I told him to get the hell out of here and "you leave him alone." Big Kid was furious, threatening to get me fired--I said bring it on, I'll tell your parents and the pool officials what you were doing here. He ran off, clutching the welt on his arm and, ever the WASP, I picked up my conversation with Littler Kid without making one reference to what had just happened. (I didn't want to embarrass him.)
Middle school/high school power dynamics, of which bullying is the most dramatic manifestation, are so complex. Obviously when a kid is beating another one up, that's a clear evil that needs to be stopped. Orchestrated (or even just one-on-one) harassment is also intolerable and wrong. But what about just...not liking someone? What about low-level snottiness? I'm thinking of A Friend to Die For/Death of a Cheerleader, a Tory Spelling Lifetime movie about a so-called Mean Girl who is murdered by a Wanna Be girl at the same high school. It's based on a true story that happened in Miramonte California in '84. If you go on the imdb message board about the movie, there is an awful lot of "OMG, she deserved it, she was such a bitch!" But if you watch the movie, she really isn't. Let me clarify--Stacy (the Tori Spelling character) was really not nice at all to Angela (the Kelly Martin character). But she didn't beat her up. She didn't stalk or harass her. She made a few snotty remarks but for the most part, she rolled her eyes and just wanted to get the hell away from her. They do show the Stacy character being ruder to another character (who's later suspected of her murder) but even that--that is par for the course for high school. Teenagers can suck. People can suck. I'm not sure where to draw the line between standard welcome-to-the-human-race shittiness and an indentifiable, intolerable, punishable pattern of behavior but classifying everything negative as bullying or outrageous isn't wise, IMO.
Here are a few guidelines as to what should be out-of-bounds (IMO):
Physical contact
Remarks about race/gender/ethnicity/handicapped status/sexuality
Anything orchestrated, whether in person or online
Another interesting result of adolescent power dynamics is the flipside--the assumption that anyone on the low end of the totem pole is automatically morally superior. This actually irritates the crap put of me--I blame John Hughes! ;) Some people are on the low end because they seem gay, or because they dress badly (IOW, things they can't help). And some people are there because other people just don't like them. People all over the spectrum can be judgmental and obnoxious.
