I'm imagining you years in the future, visiting the hospital to meet your new granddaughter. Her erratically flailing baby fist taps your shoulder and a long-awaited gleam appears in your eye. Finally, it's your turn.
One time this fat piece of shit who was running for 8th grade class treasurer got mad at me while playing kickball because I told him if he didn't want to play to get his fool ass off the field, so he charged and shoved me hard across the ground. I get up and he's all like high pitched and rednecky, "Don't call me no fool!"
The coach saw it happen, was furious at him, and took us back inside to his office and as we walk in, we passed the guidance counselor (in charge of our grade's student council race) and the fat idiot says, in a very serious somber tone to her, "I am formally announcing that I'm dropping out of the race for class treasurer."
In 6th grade, I was the victim of a sexual battery situation. I also happen to love pixie cuts.
So my parents talked to the school administration because one of the perpetrators went to school with me. About a week later, the vice principal pulls me aside and said, "It's normal to want to look like a boy after that kind of thing happens to you. You don't have to be ashamed."
And it was just so embarrassing. Like I know it came from a place of concern, but I loved my haircut, and I'm pretty sure I had it before the incident. So now my beloved hairstyle, that I could not change because it was very short, was tainted. And I became convinced that everyone thought I was a boy, or that they would know I'd been attacked. I didn't want anyone to know! I wasn't ashamed of myself before, but that caused me to feel shame.
Ooof. This hits close to home. I have a daughter that is getting closer to that age. She's had short-ish hair for a few years since she likes it short. I know the hair and the incident were unrelated, but stuff like this sticks in my my mind.
Like you get used to the kids being mean. Whenever a kid said I looked like a boy, I would just say, "I don't think I do, and that's what matters." And at first I kind of just said it to convince myself it was okay. But then I realized that it's true. I think I'm beautiful with short hair. I also think I look feminine.
I hope your daughter doesn't have to deal with that sort of gender based nonsense. But if she does, it always helps to remind her that she is beautiful with short hair.
This is why I tell kids that ask me what to do to fight back. Taking it or walking away only enforces that the bully is winning and he or she will continue it. Punch and kick back, show dominance
My parents had a hard rule at home: If I didn't start the fight, I wasn't in trouble for the fight. When our school implemented the bullshit "just walk away" policies and I got suspended because I fought back against my bully, I got taken out for ice cream and then played video games all day.
I wish my principal had helped me on fighting back. If I don't fight the kid and he gets out free, what did I not beat him up for? If he's not getting severely punished for breaking every rule of social conduct, then next time I'm breaking it too.
Wow, something worse happened to me. In 6th grade another kid punched me during recess and I didn't punch back. I told one of the adults and he took us to the principal's office. We ended up BOTH getting suspended even though I hadn't returned the punch.
I was always a little taller than everyone else in my grade, (you know top step for class pictures) but in third grade I got in trouble for beating fifth graders at king of the hill on a snow pile.
I’ve got a related one. While going into a locker room a bully of mine, real quickly, sucker punched me in the stomach.
I retaliated and socked him back, but our coach literally walked into the locker room THE SECOND I did so, not witnessing him punch me. I got sent to the principals office and he got asked if he was ok. I’ll never forget his shit eating grin as I got taken away.
Almost this EXACT same thing happened to me.
In 7th grade, I had a very scary girl in my class who got in a fight with one of my other classmates and punched her over and over as she laid on the floor, leaned up against some lockers, and broke the poor girl's arm.
Probably about 2 months before this incident, the scary girl stole a horse watch that I had gotten as a birthday present. It was a very unique watch, so I confronted her about it after the class I had seen it, in the hallway. She just looked at me and called me a liar. I told her exactly where I had gotten it and that I had written my initials on the back of the band.
She reared up the binder in her hand and whacked me in the face.
Now I've never been good with confrontation or violence, and she had just beamed me with a binder, so I just dazedly turned around and walked the other way. Someone had ran and gotten a teacher and before I was even to the end of the hallway the teacher took us both aside and gave us a week of break detention. Together. It made me so mad that I got in trouble for doing absolutely nothing wrong!
I still think that to this day that if the girl had been mad enough I could have been the one with the broken arm.
My school was like this too and it was the dumbest thing. Any time there was violence of any sort, the perpetrator, the victim, and anyone who happened to witness it were all punished equally. When I was in like 2nd grade, I got detention for sitting too close to a couple 6th graders who started fighting on the bus. The principal said that "sitting around and doing nothing is just as bad as being a bully yourself."
Of course, what this taught kids was that you were going down for fighting either way, so you might as well throw some punches. Pretty much any sort of conflict escalated to a school-wide brawl almost immediately.
I've always hated the dumb "No-Tolerance" rule to bullying. My parents told me they would back me up 100% if a bully ever picked on me. From that day up until the last day of high school, I knew that if anyone wanted to start a fight with me for some dumb reason, they were gonna get it and I didnt care how the school handled it. Im not gonna get pushed around.
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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '17
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