Mom Is Teaching

I was bullied from the third grade through the eighth grade.  Hindsight, I know why.  Hindsight, I understand what the teachers were trying to tell me when these attacks took place.  Hindsight, I wonder why someone didn’t do something about it. 

First of all, I transferred into a new school in the third grade.  The first 2 years I was in school with mostly family.  (My grandmother had 17 siblings, most of whom didn’t move far away.)  Anyway, when I arrived at my new school, I was the only girl with really really long hair.  You know, like down to my butt long hair.  I immediately took the spot as the top grade owner in every subject.  And, I took the leader of the pack’s boyfriend. 

Now, sounds like I might have deserved what I got, but I was 7 years old.  No seven year old should have to endure the verbal and emotional abuse that I took. For that matter, no adult should either, but I know it happens every day in our schools, in labor jobs and in corporate America.  It happens.  If you don’t believe it, find yourself a newspaper and read it.  However, I don’t buy for one minute that those things played much of a role in why the bullying was allowed to continue. 

You see, my parents were divorced.  We moved from one tiny town into another when my mom re-married.  However, the tiny town we moved into had some religious zealots in it and immediately I was labeled “bad” because, gasp, her parents aren’t married to each other any longer.

Now, I’m not saying that kids bullied me because of my parents divorce and mothers subsequent marriage, I’m saying they were ALLOWED to bully because of it.  The bully-leader had her own reasons but got away with it because the adults in the community said bad things about my family.  You know, because every kid that comes from a divorced home seriously needs help.

And, the bullying continued through the eighth grade.  I always blamed my mom for not intervening.  I once even had a kid 3 years older than me just plain slap me in the face.  I wasn’t planning to tell my mom, I felt sure it was pointless.  However, when I got off the bus at the sitters house, my face was still read (she slapped me prior to me getting on the bus to leave for home).  The sitter and her mom explained to me all these good reasons why I simply HAD to tell my mom what happened. 

I told her.  She did go to school the next morning to check it all out.  And, the people who witnessed me being slapped were all called in and questions were asked.  This particular bully was then called in as well.  She was not punished.  Not even remotely punished.

That said it all.  If a kid older than me could bully me physically, then the bullies in my own class could bully me emotionally and verbally.  And, they did.

While I don’t want to be one of those parents that runs to school every time something happens to my children, I still blame my mom for not stepping in when I would tell her about the horrible stuff that was going on at school each day.

I was hospitalized 2 times in the fifth grade, 2 times in the sixth grade, once in the seventh grade and 2 times in the eighth grade.  The diagnosis?  Nervous stomach.  What was the problem here?  Couldn’t these people put two and two together? 

One of the times I was put in the hospital because my father carried me to the emergency room.  It was my day to visit with him and he had picked me up after school.  I fell asleep in the car (I had horrible insomnia as a kid, no one ever seemed to notice though, I guess my mom just thought I was staying awake on purpose, I don’t really know) and while I was sleeping, I was jerking and grabbing my stomach (or that’s what he said anyway).  He called my mom to tell her that he was taking me to the ER and why.

That was when I was in the fifth grade.  I don’t know why people turned their head to the bullying.  I just know that they did.  And, I can promise you, if my kid comes home and tells me anything even remotely close to the things I was telling my mom, I will be all over someone.

To Be Continued….

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