The defining trope of my childhood was that I was the underdog. I was the picked-on, the teased, the friendless, sitting alone on the playground with a book. This shaped my self-image for a long time, and is still something I struggle with today.
From conversations with my father and brother, I know that they had similar experiences, so I have been, consciously or unconsciously, waiting for the same thing to happen with BB.
This morning, he and I had a long talk on the way to school, about friends and teasing and getting along. It seems to be that he's a pretty happy kid. I asked him about a teasing incident he'd mentioned to me fron a couple of weeks ago, and he seemed surprised that I remembered. It hasn't affected his friendship with the boy in question. I asked him if he had a best friend, and he told me it was hard to pick one, and he has at least four candidates. My best friend was always just the one who picked on me least.
I'm beginning to have some hope. Not just that BB himself will escape his school years with self-esteem intact, but that maybe the whole system has gotten better. At the very least, I feel proud of my son, who is growing up to be a good and decent young man who has a hard time even grasping the concept of bullying.
Friday, October 09, 2009
Breaking the Cycle
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2 comments:
that is awesome! makes me tear up a little :) i never really had a rough time, but i've always been a little "different" which often made it hard to connect with people on a genuine level.
i worry about my kid not connecting deeply enough with his friends, but even though i remember being 13, i remember it with the capacity of a 35 y/o :) and while there's no doubt the kid is mine, he's also very different than me.
anyway, long story short, i am glad that our children seem to be acclimating better than we did at their age!
It may really be different these days. When my daughter was in jr. high(?) high school(?) and I tried to explain to her the fact that in my day (1970s) some kids were "social poison" (be friends with or even talk to this kid & you'd automatically be completely ostracized by _all_ the "normal" kids), she didn't get it. That level of shunning apparently just didn't exist in her time & place.
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