the truth about bullies

Okay—the (the imagined) demand has been overwhelming for a sequel to my much beloved (it *almost* went viral!) and original attempt at a children’s book, You Are Not. (Which was totally ripped off—pretty sure this guy stole from my blog, which came first by two months). Unlike the real entertainment world, I wanted to make sure I had a proper subject and story rather than just bang out a You Are Not 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and finally hit upon something that I can address from (lots of) personal experience. Hope you, and your children, enjoy!

(And as always, illustrations by my son Zane.)

The Truth About Bullies

If you’re like most people, you are not special.

Yay, indeed.

However, it also means that at some point, you have been probably minding your own business, either at school or on the playground, when you’ve been accosted by a person, usually bigger, who has been mean to you, tried to take something from you by force, or even beat you up for just existing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Congratulations! You have been bullied.

And it sucks.

If you were lucky, the only hurt to you was physical, as that usually heals pretty quickly. If your bully made you scared or feel really bad about yourself, then it’s going to take you years to get over it, probably with the need of some expensive therapy where you also find out that you suffer from self-esteem issues, you’re borderline OCD or that all the other kids probably don’t fantasize about removing the skin from their dog and wearing it over their head like one of the Lost Boys from Peter Pan ….

Anyway, you’ve most likely already been inundated with info about the steps to take when you’re bullied, so being a good, rule-following student, you first try to ignore it, but when that doesn’t work (and it almost never does in grade school), you go to your teacher to tell her what happened. And she says, “It’s okay, I’ll take care of it!”
Which is code for “Chillax, little dude, I’ll get the bullying to stop.”

But it won’t.

Chances are, the bully will get in trouble or have to see the school psychologist in hopes of being taught not to bully any more. The bully may even lay low for a little while, but he will come back after you as soon as he thinks he can get away with it because the school psychologist, although meaning well, has a better chance of transforming Lunch Lady Loretta’s meatloaf surprise to filet mignon than getting a bully to change his spots—sometimes, being a bully is just hardwired into someone’s DNA.

But now the bully is twice as mad for having got him in trouble, and you are No. 1 on his hit list.
You know how that ends.

That’s right, with you picking an atomic wedgie out of your butt every day after school.

So after laying in your bed dreaming about standing up and punching the bully in the nose to make them stop, and still trying to follow the rules because you’re a good kid, you go back to your teacher to tell her that you’re still being bullied. And she will let out a long sigh and say, “Okay, we’ll have to take bigger steps.” Which is code for, “Time to call the bully’s parents in for a little chat about making the bullying stop, this time for good.”

But it won’t stop the bullying.

See, most bullies don’t fall far from the bully tree. So the bully’s parents will show up at the school and intimidate your teacher and principal by screaming things like, “My sweet snowflake is the one being bullied,” or “My poor baby has developmental issues” (which the school psychologist will now validate). Or, most likely, they will declare: “I’m going to call my lawyers and sue all of you!” which will be enough to make the lawsuit-fearing superintendent tell your principal and teacher to “Deal with it.” Which is code for “Just get them through this year and it will probably resolve itself. Somehow.”

You know how that goes.

That’s right: You’ll be begging for those halcyon days when it was only atomic wedgies!

Don’t misunderstand—your teacher and principal are good people who like you and really want to stop bullying, but they are limited because the school systems are bullied by parents who sue at the drop of a hat. This would be called “irony,” you know, if there were also 10,000 spoons when all you needed was a fork.

So to try and stop the bullying, they will put up anti-bullying posters, have anti-bullying assemblies and even may go so far as to have “a zero tolerance” policy for bullying, which sounds great but is the emptiest of threats. (See lawyers and bully parents.) They may also even show anti-bullying movies and public-service videos starring Justin Bieber, that guy from that movie with the sparkly vampires and even The President of the United States, all of whom will talk very seriously about stopping bullying. It may even seem like a wave of anti-bully messages, and everyone—including the bullies themselves–will join hands and joyously sing songs about how there will be a stop to bullying forever!

But the bullying won’t really stop.

The truth is that most bullies will never, ever change—they are what they are, will grow up and, if you’re lucky, go on to other people to bully. In the meantime, the best thing you could do is figure out how to deal with it on your own because the truth is that you will run into bullies throughout your life, some of whom may not even realize that they are hurting you or making you feel bad about yourself. The sooner you find the proper course for you—be it standing up to the bully, ignoring him or just surviving the abuse until happier days—the better it will be.

Sorry, that’s not much of answer, but it is the truth, and since this is called The Truth About Bullies, it made sense to stick to the theme.

If it helps, think of the old character-building adage: “That which doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger.” You should be freaking Superman by the time you graduate high school, right?

Sure. And monkeys may fly out of your butt.

Anyway, if you’re lucky and make it through grammar and high school with your psyche somewhat intact, your life will most likely get better. Bullies will be fewer and less intimidating as you realize that they are nothing more than terrorists, and if you don’t waste your energy being afraid of them, they really have no power on you. Heck, you may even hit that growth spurt and tower over all the bullies, which will help in keeping them away from you.

Or so you hope.

Of course, it’s also possible, just maybe, after you get to college with thousands of new people and are able to carve out a happier, bully-free life, you will be sitting in the student center, minding your own business, when one of the kids from your high school who was part of group who bullied you—let’s call him Joe—shows up.

And your first instinct will be to get up and run, but because Joe doesn’t know anyone else, he will come over to you and say “Hi.” You may hold your breath and wait for the eventual abuse to start again, but he might just say, “Wow, you’re still scared. I was pretty rotten to you in high school, wasn’t I?” And you might just sort of nod and say, “Yeah, no big deal.”

And maybe, just maybe, he’ll say, “No, it was. I’m really sorry about that.”

And you might wait for a sucker wedgie, but Joe might just have matured and actually be sorry. Then, for the next few years, he might actually be decent to you—we’re not talking best friends here, but someone you’d have lunch with on occasion, with no fear of your tray being dumped—until you both graduate and go in separate directions on your separate lives.

Sure, it’s not exactly a happy ending nor does it make up for the others who bullied you, but it’s “closure,” as your school psychologist would say. And sometimes, that’s okay.

You know, until your child starts getting bullied.