I suppose I should say that United States needs to because I don't really know about the rest of the world. Mostly when I see repeated stories about everyone being "traumatized" by bullying and now they want some sort of award because they were able to "survive" that, I just roll my eyes and groan a bit in my recliner in my living room. It seems like every time I turn around there is a new story about how bullies are out of control and seriously impacting our children... things like that.
Although I don't watch the show anymore, never really did, and don't even know if it is still on the air, but all of those X-Factor, American Idol, and The Voice type TV shows always seemed to feature some performer who has some sort of sob story about their childhood and how they were able to get past it by the majesty of song or something along those lines. Some of these performers make it much further in said competition than I believe they ever should based exclusively on this sob story. It gets to the point where a strategy of the competitors is to have a really tragic backstory before they even come on the show so they can have an edge over the competition based on how "horrible" their childhood was.
I hate to sound like a "get off my lawn" old man here, but having some tough times as a child is nothing new and I believe it is mostly things like social media fragility that is making people unable to handle any sort of stress that exists in their lives.
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When I hear these sob stories about someone being bullied at school and how it impacted their lives I just think back to my own childhood and how on occasion I was also bullied. Then I think about all the other people that were bullied. If you were bullied in your school I want to ask if you are aware of who else was bullied because I know the answer: Literally everyone else.
Bullying has become such a common word now that it has lost all meaning. If anyone ever makes fun of someone's shoes, clothes in general, a messed up haircut, how they performed in gym class, or some other thing that is basically harmless badgering, now they are guilty of a hate crime it seems. When I would get picked on, which happened a lot just like it did to almost everyone else I knew, you took this as a chance to accidentally grow. You face adversity and you come out a little bit smarter or tougher because of it. The world is not a sterile and friendly place so for us to pretend that no one should have to face adversity in life and actually turn them into a bit of a hero for not doing anything about it, we are doing kids a tremendous disservice in life. Perhaps this is why so many of the last decade's kids are turning into wimpy adults with super fragile egos that are offended by everything.
But if eliminating bullies in schools is what the desired outcome is... I have a solution that the Federal government would probably agree with. Let's set up "Bully-free zones" in all schools!
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Seriously, this is a real thing that schools have actually implemented as if the lack of a sign was a reason why kids were being kids.
I truly believe that most people are about as mean as they are going to be in their entire lives between the ages of 10 and 16. For some reason or another, most kids tend to taper off and get some form of empathy after that. Getting picked on for things, even things that you are unaware of, was a part of social development in my upbringing and I think was the same for most other people my age. At one point there was this one kid in my 6th grade class that kept talking about my "high waters" and how i must be "preparing for a flood." His buddies would snicker at me but eventually I got in his face and told him that "I dare you to make fun of my shoes one more time!" He was confused. High-waters, as it turns out, was a term for someone wearing pants that don't go all the way to their ankles and since my mom generally would pick my outfits for me at that stage in my life, I had no idea. We both laughed and became friends after that. Would have this situation have ended up better if I had reported him to the school's anti-bullying officer and he got suspended for it? I can guarantee that it wouldn't.
We are molly-coddling kids too much these days to the point where anytime they face adversity or even a different point of view, they react in an almost submissive manner because they never developed the skills of standing up for themselves anywhere except online where they can remain anonymous.
We've all seen the movies where the parents of a kid, instead of getting the principal involved, will teach their kid how to stand up for themselves. I understand that this is just a movie, but it is (or at least was) reflected in real life. I really believe that if we keep extending the childhood of the youth, that none of them are ever going to actually grow up. Then they'll get on anti-depressants and just be useless for the rest of their lives.
Again, I don't think that childhood should be a free-for-all battle, and the kids that engage in actual violence should be punished. It has been my experience in my own life though that once the violence actually happens, the kids involved are remorseful and things return to normal and both kids involved usually end up becoming friends based on their mutual experience. They also grow as individuals in the process.
Life is not a series of only good events that are going to happen to you. For the most part, it is the opposite. If we keep trying to train kids that nothing bad should ever happen to them we are going to "get what we pay for" in that most people are going to be incapable of handling adversity when it comes their way. It's time for people to return to courage and be willing to accept that bad things are going to happen every now and then... and it is how you handle these situations and learn from them that will define you as a person.
"The young-unz is all soft" is repeated by every generation. It, like the label of "bully," has lost meaning through repetition and misapplication. There is a fine line between teaching people resilience and condoning abuse to "toughen them up." There is also a fine line between supporting victims and molly-coddling whiners. All too often I see self-righteous older generations lazily conflate these ideas to promote some mythology of their own superiority. And often it includes admission they suffered, but never dealt with real trauma in a healthy way.
that's a really great way of breaking it down buddy. you are good with the words! I'm sure every generation has some sort of grievance just like mine. I know I am not unique :)
Well, sometimes a bit more than "OK, Boomer" is required. 😄
perfect! love it.
ok
sounds like you need something even worse than current democrats
^^
These days when speaking of bullying I guess you have to be specific. When I went to school, it was just a part of life. But should it be? Some people are bullied worse than others... There's a difference between harmless badgering because of a new haircut and constant harassment day after day after day. I'm not sure if schools know the difference though.
These days, at least where I live, schools have taken pretty much a zero tolerance attitude towards bullying (which is generally defined as repeated harassment of some sort...a single instance is not enough to be considered bullying so you can make fun of that new haircut but only once I guess).
But if bullying is at crisis level today then the 1990s and before bust have been bullying Armageddon every day. And don't get me started on cyber-bullying...
This made me lol in my room. Good one.
The cyber-bullying thing is a strange one to me but I suppose that is because I was young during a time when if you did anything online at all, it wasn't much and most of it was anonymous.
Victims are now rewarded for being victims. Everyone loves a victim! So why not make victims out of all of us! Then we can all be on government assistance of some kind, and will have to participate in society as slaves. Requiring (by law!) that we must second guess every word that comes out of our mouths, every thought we ever have, so that we don't offend another, has gotten much worse of late. It's all part of the brilliant plan to enslave and profit from our minds. It seems to be working, too. Or maybe it's always been this way.
When I visit my friends who live in large metro areas - which isn't often, I am often alarmed at how many things are off-limits as far as speech is concerned. I am not an offensive person nor do I want to intentionally hurt almost anyone's feelings but I agree, it has gone too far so that simple words that can mean a lot of things are now offensive to someone, somewhere.
They see giving offense as harmful. Offense is not harm. To silence anyone who might cause offense will send the world off kilter, which perhaps is the whole point - to make us ashamed of most thoughts, words and deeds we might have or do, so that we are more compliant slaves.
Lol. My son was being bullied and told him to fix it and beat the crap out the other kid with my permission. He did just that and was punished at school which I went and fixed dealing with the Headmistress. Just hate how PC and soft all walks of life have become. Imagine an army Corporal is not allowed to shout at new recruits in case you hurt their feelings?
I certainly hope that the military hasn't gone down that route. I haven't heard much about it. It seems to me like they would need that sort of treatment to be at all effective at their job.
Apparently there were a few suicides and the Army has had to ease off the way they treat the recruits. Having cry babies with rifles is the last thing you want next to you if you are in a tight spot.
Dear @beelzebubba,
Our previous proposal expired end of December and the Hivebuzz project is not funded anymore. May we ask you to review and support our new proposal (https://peakd.com/me/proposals/248)?
Thank you for your help!