A look at the bullying experiences in our lives

Someone has put together a nice compendium of quotes from my blog, so I though I'd provide it here with links to the actual posts. What struck me about this series of quotes is that they all have to do with bullying of special needs children. Sometimes, when I review our lives in this way, I start to lose hope that society's attitudes about bullying will ever change.

"However, I am armed and somewhat dangerous, so don't try stalking." OK, so that's not from my blog. It's from something I posted somewhere else. However, anyone considering bothering me should remember that in this country, we have the right to bear arms, the right to arm bears, and the right to be armed with bear spray.

"The first words out of that man's mouth at this meeting were, "There doesn't seem to have been any ill intent involved." My regret? That I didn't immediately leap onto his desk, reach out and abrade his face in three places with my fingernails, and then ask, "You tell me how someone does that without ill intent." This one still leads me to reliving that moment. Do I *really* regret not leaping across his desk? Well, no. If I'd thought that was a constructive thing to do, I'd've just done it. But that memory leads to a flood of disbelief that anyone could say that about that particular incident. If we're to address bullying in any effective way, adults in responsible positions are a starting point. Hey, adults in responsible positions: Don't countenance or defend or diminish bullying. OK?

From the same post: "Instead, we listened to him bullshit us for an hour, ducking and dodging my husband's pointed and persistent questions, and then we left. We then withdrew our son from school, and he has been happily homeschooled ever since." Yes, he has been homeschooled ever since, and it's been great. Best thing we could have done for him, so I guess our interactions with that invertebrate ended up on a positive note. But we left the system instead of staying to change it while our son endured more torture. We had to do what we had to do.

From my post about a boy at a vacation "resort" who mocked my son. "Unfortunately for the boy, TH's uncle was there, and this uncle--my brother-in-law--stepped in and handled this little dipshit in exactly the right way. Fortunately for said tween dipshit, I was not there to step in because had I been, I'm afraid there would have been more than stepping involved." Although it's not included in the post, there was ultimately more than stepping involved. There was walking, escorting of that child to his parent, whom we apprised of his various inappropriate activities. This, my friends, is one way to end the bullying--let the bullies know that there will be consequences for what they do.

From the same post: "Why does it surprise me that some little bastard of a tween would detect my son's differences and decide to mock them in that way?" From the same post. Why does it surprise me? I'd become too comfortable around people we know well. That's why. Because we chose to protect our son rather than expose him; see "homeschooling," above.

From the same post: "I can be deluded no more. What happens when children like mine, the ones who often can "pass," who are not candidates for specialized living facilities, encounter the assholes of the world outside the protection of those who love them?" This question stands. Certainly not all children who bully grow up to be adults who bully, but it's pretty easy to identify the adults who are bullying assholes. The question is, What will our children, as adults, be able to do about it? We can't provide protection all the time.

Speaking of bullies, we'd had so much in the way of people bullying our oldest that when our middle child bullied another child in his class and then accidentally knocked a little girl down in class by being too impulsive, we had some lessons to learn. The little girl, as I relate, was just fine, thank goodness, but I thought we'd have to commit Dubya for awhile there. "The day I emailed the teacher, Dubya, in a rush to reach the end of the lunch line--yep, you read that right, the end of the line--knocked into a little girl in his class. She fell, bumped her head on a table, and literally was knocked out cold, at least briefly. My son, having bullied a boy in his class, now had knocked a child out. Good times, these.

Dubya was horrified, in tears, his teacher worried he was traumatized. I sort of hoped that he was. Why? Because he does that kind of thing all the time, rushing past people, pushing his way through, thinking only of what he needs to do, where he's intent on going. I'm huge compared to him, so when he pushes past me, I don't go down and sustain a concussion. But this little girl? In the end, she was fine. But Dubya...not so much." That was a horrifying experience. We had to grapple with the fact that after all that our oldest had endured, our middle child had been teasing another child because...he was different.

Finally, remember this incident, with the father getting on the bus to pin down the bullies of his defenseless, special needs daughter? How many of us can relate to this father's impulses? "So, some people probably are going to think that this father was out of line. I think he was out of line, especially with the language and using, in his turn, his size and his anger to intimidate these boys. But in spite of that cool assessment on my part, there's a hot little core inside of me that supports his behavior fully, right down to the f-bombs. Why? Because if he didn't scare the shit out of these boys--likely ensuring that they'll at least think twice about doing something like that again--who will? Certainly not the adults in charge. What kills me is that the county sheriff's department says the father, who is facing charges, should've called them. Right. How much time and effort do you think they'd've put into investigating that? News reports say that the father had, in fact, tried to report incidents to county school administrators previously, to no avail. Big shock, that. The bullying, according to reports, had been going on since school started." One of the upshots of this horrible situation was, according to this report, that the bullying of this child continued and the daughter had to be placed on suicide watch. Also, there are allegedly some suspect connections between the district and the family of one of the bullies. So, I'm guessing that I was wrong in hoping that by scaring the shit out of these kids, the father would be successful in stopping the bullying. What is the recourse here?

As this little trip through Daisymayfattypants Land reveals, bullying comes from many quarters, but it's not only the bullying that we must face and fight--it is also those who look the other way, fail to confront it, or even countenance it. Does it make me angry when people bully my child or when I learn of others who do it without repercussion? Yes, it does. Our resolution has been protection. Not every parent has that luxury. But they--and we--shouldn't have to resort to that. What needs to happen is for bullying to get its due. And the time for that has long since passed.