Other People's Kids

Last night, I went to pick up my sons at a birthday party. Their friend from across our street was at this party, too. He was crying and mumbling to his father and his father's girlfriend; he was pointing out to the yard where my sons and some other kids were playing "freeze-tag." They left. But, as they left, the father's girlfriend mumbled something to me -- I think it was about my sons, but I didn't quite hear it and she walked away.

I'm not sure if it was about my sons. It could have been about the other kids. Something about them being "rough" or "tough on him."

We parents have to guard against being either too hard or too biased when it comes to our kids.

When my dad was a boy of 11 or twelve, he was collecting "half-balls" on the neighborhood roofs and a woman called the police, claiming my dad was "peeping" at her through the window while she took a shower. My grandparents, when the Philadelphia police showed up at the door, never considered listening to my dad when he swore he was only collecting half balls. They let the police drag my dad to the lady's door where they made him apologize for something he never did. (Years later, when I joked with my dad that he might have actually been peeping, he looked me in the eye and said: "Chris, I swear to you -- why would I lie now? -- that I was only collecting half balls. And, besides, if you had seen this woman, you would know there was no earthly reason why I would have wanted to have seen her naked.")

The Bully Society

Some people have watched the film Bully and come out of it with inspirations -- ideas about how to end this sort of horrible mistreatment of kids by other kids in American schools. Some have seen it and gone through tissues by the box and have left screenings with temporary feelings of sympathy -- or maybe even of empathy. Others, like yours truly, walked out of it in an existential tailspin.

It is a documentary that chronicles the bullying of a few young people in a few towns. There is no narrator. What we get is a series of clips, images and statements by the people involved: parents who have lost children to suicide; parents who have children who are being bullied and the children themselves, who, for whatever reason, are being tortured by their classmates.

Alex

You know what I saw? First, I saw stupid adults who are the maintainers of a system that encourages kids to categorize one another and whose actions in response to bullying were so moronic that it was all I could do to keep from clawing the cushioning off of the sides of my seat. Second, I saw kids behaving in a way that causes me to question the very worth of mankind.

I watched a principal chastise a kid who was being tortured by another. The bullied kid didn't want to "shake hands" with his tormentor (of course, the bully was all too eager to "make up" in front of the principal). The vice principal told the bullied boy: "You're just as bad as he is." This same professional educator told the parents of a bullied kid that when she, herself, rode the bus on which bullying was taking place, the kids were "good as gold." (Thought bubble above moronic principal's head: Kids are bad. I ride bus. Kids are good. Therefore, problem solved.) These are some of the people to whom we are entrusting our kids.