We have been inundated lately with stories about bullies. Not just your typical, run-of-the-mill schoolyard bully, because it seems like – in this day and age, where everything is faster, brighter, louder, bigger and more extreme – a jerk on the playground is a quaint fairytale. Bullying has escalated to such a point that it is bordering on warfare.

I first noticed this phenomenon years ago, when I was reading the news reports about Columbine. And there have been countless other examples of student on student violence since then, unfortunately.

This week, for example: The teenagers in Florida that set another kid on fire over a bicycle.

Really. Has it come to that? Do you remember when PeeWee Herman got HIS bike stolen? He didn’t spray that punk with propane and light a match. When did THAT become the solution to a conflict?

Like many kids, I experienced my fair share of bullying growing up. A dangerous combination of awkward and outgoing, I was an expert at saying the wrong thing, or being a little TOO intense. No one would have ever confused me with one of the “cool kids”, that’s for sure. And though the bullying was a very run-of-the-mill “tease the dork” kind of bullying and I never (thankfully) suffered any serious physical injuries, I still bear the scars of being tormented in the years leading up to high school. They may be below the surface, but those scars have affected every day of my life since they were inflicted. This is not about holding a grudge. It’s the simple fact that when you are taunted and belittled for long enough…..when your heart and spirit have been broken enough…….it affects the person that you become. Bullying is abuse. Plain and simple. And if you do not stop abuse in the beginning, if you do not have a Zero Tolerance Policy for bullying in all of it’s forms, then the problem will continue to grow with the childhood bully. Until that child is an adult. And then that adult carries around the same rage and aggression towards other people and the world at large. And that? THAT is when you see violence of the worst kind. Worse, that ferocious, white hot anger is contagious. Which basically sums up terrorists in a nutshell. Terrorists are adult bullies. Or they are the grown-up, adult victims of bullies, lashing out in retaliation, finally snapping after years of taking the abuse in silence.

During my childhood, I was mostly on the receiving end of the bullying, but sometimes I was on the sidelines – and even on the day when the harassment was directed towards someone else, it didn’t make it much easier to bear. Trying to disarm or distract a bully can be near to impossible. And the biggest risk is getting sucked into the mob mentality, and becoming the bully yourself.

I am on the sidelines again now, as an adult. And when I read these news stories about a gang rape outside of a homecoming dance, and a pre-schooler being killed by an older child to keep them from talking, all I can say to myself is “There but for the grace of God go I.” My concerns have shifted, from being the victim of a bully myself, to being the parent of a bullied child. Or (and I think this might be even harder for me to bear) the parent of a bully.

I have the utmost sympathy for the parents of bullies. I cannot imagine the pain of watching your child evolve from a sweet dimpled baby to a raging animal. I cannot imagine the guilt that I would feel knowing my child had intentionally harmed a classmate or playmate. I just have to hope that by keeping the dialogue open, and giving my kids a healthy outlet for their frustrations, that I can keep bullies at arm’s length. Which will be distance enough, for now.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 10:59 am and is filed under Vanessa Ghantous, mothers, women. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.