May 16, 2007
[There's this Aussie kid, Benjamin Cox, who recently got handed an assload of money in compensation for being bullied.][1] Not to be paid by the bully, mind you, but by the school district, and therefore the Australian taxpayers. His mommy took him by the hand and led him through a lawsuit, because he was so very traumatized by being the picked-on kid that he can't go to school, can't get a job--can do nothing, in fact, but sit in his room playing on his PlayStation. He's going to get paid to do just that for the rest of his life, now.It's horseshit. Oh, I believe he was bullied, and I believe it sucked really hard, but this kid just wants a free ride like everybody else.His mother, bless her enabling soul, makes some very telling statements, such as "He didn't like crowds, he didn't like teachers, didn't like the work," when explaining why the middle-school bullying so truamatically screwed up his high school career.Well, hell, I don't like crowds, most teachers, or schoolwork, and never did, but I somehow managed to repress my tortured soul long enough to graduate.And I'm sure I could go round for round with this loser on bullying stories. During the course of my public-school education, I was knocked unconscious twice, had my cheekbone broken and my shoulder sprained (two seperate incidents), had dirt and toilet paper shoved into my mouth, and to this day I have the tip of a graphite pencil embedded in my calf. Those are just the ones that stand out, not counting the fact that the unofficial sport of MeadowView Grade School was, for three hellish years, a game where about two dozen students would surround me with basketballs, kickballs, four-square balls, and volleyballs, and proceed to play a very one-sided round of dodgeball where I wasn't allowed to dodge, throw back, or be called "out".What did the administration do? Put me in the prinicpal's office with the man himself, an ineffectual little pantywaste who read waaaay too much psychology in teaching college. I was taught that the only way to end the cycle of abuse was to not participate in it, but I never learned how not to do that. I think it had something to do with becoming very Stoic and not crying, and how many nine-year-old girls do you know who can do that when being pummelled? About four years after I left his school he finally came to the realization that he had majorly screwed up a lot of kids' heads, had a nervous breakdown, and now bags groceries. Good riddance.Granted, I was an incredibly tease-able child. Teasing was strictly forbidden in my household, where I was the only child of an over-protective mother and an over-worked father. We tiptoed around each other's feelings, like we were fragile and could be broken by a word. I didn't play much with other children my age before school, and those occurences were almost always supervised by my mom, to make sure nobody's feelings got hurt or knees got scraped.So I never learned how to take it and give it right back, never grew any calluses, and therefore entered the proving-ground of elementary school with neither armor nor weapons.Plus, my mom had me in a mullet from the ages of 6-12, and let me pick out my own clothes, so that didn't help.I ended up an absolute wreck of an 11-year-old; I wouldn't speak to anyone who wasn't at least fifteen years older than me unless forced to by hair-pulling, I hid in corners and shadows, put myself in glasses reading in the dark.Rather than sue the school, though, my parents did something actually useful. My dad, in the summer between sixth and seventh grades, did two things that saved my life: he transferred me to another school, and taught me how to fight back.Realizing it would be a while before I could return the verbal barbs, he instead focused on teaching me that it really, really wasn't cool to let people hurt me, and how to hurt them back if they tried. No martial artist, he strung up a feed sack full of grain from a rafter in the barn and taught me how to throw a punch, and, in an emergency ("because ain't nobody gonna respect you for doing it"), kick a boy in the nuts.Basically, he taught me how to deal with bullies like a boy does, because that's what he knew. And now, I'm glad that there was nobody around to teach me how to deal with them like a girl, with the back-stabbing gossip and duplicity and all that bullshit. Luckily, I and my new classmates were right at the age where being respected by the boys would get you in with the girls, too.Second week of school, Greg comes up to me at lunch and says something to the effect of, "you're so ugly that your own momma took one look at you and said, "Get it away! I never want to see it again!". On the first day of school, of course, as the new kid I'd had to get up and "say a few things about yourself!" Being adopted was just unusual enough to be the standard I trotted out at times like that.So I punched him in the face and bloodied his nose. He came up to me the next day and said he was sorry for being an asshole, and we were friends through high school.And I got picked on a lot after that, still, but I'd learned that it wasn't really personal, nor was it bullshit that I had to brook. I simultaneously grew a spine and a sense of humor.Pity no one was around to teach this kid to punch a few folks. An even bigger pity that no one was around to teach his mom that you're not helping your child by kissing their boo-boos and sheltering them into adulthood.Because most of us geeks, those of us who were bullied and tossed around, eventually grow up to be some pretty nifty folks. Something about that isolation from the herd during a formative period teaches us that it's just fine to think our own thoughts and hold our own beliefs, and not need constant approval from our peers. It's liberating, if you survive it. And a suprisingly vast majority do.So instead of having a youth of adversity overcome to look back on with a little pride, Benjamin is instead going to look back and see that he gave up without a fight, and that his reward is a long quiet life full of bland vanilla failure. He'll never have to leave his house, or talk to another person, or debate ideas, or have his character tested, or exchange witticisms over over-priced cocktails, or get in a barfight, or get some chick's number, or build sets for a play, or be inspired by a classmate, or find himself singing along with the music in the grocery store. Because he let them win. By taking this settlement and scuttling off into his room with his PlayStation and his Mountain Dew, he's let them break him. His mother stood by and let him be broken, and is now demanding a full body-cast instead of physical therapy.Benjamin Cox won a lawsuit, but he lost the biggest--and now only--trial of his strength as a human being that he will ever face. And that's just sad. [1]: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/05/14/1178995042035.html
Comments
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El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says...
I guess that only works in Canada:
"SANTA ROSA, California (AP) -- A judge ruled Tuesday that a high school student who sued after being disciplined and then mercilessly teased for using the phrase "That's so gay" is not entitled to monetary damages..."
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/05/16/tha...
May 16, 2007 at 10:27 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
wbabbit (Will Babbit) says...
Should I mention this was Australia (Canada South)?
And man, I need to cash in on my childhood more, I can FEEL the cash flowing through my fingers...
May 16, 2007 at 10:46 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says...
Oh, crap, thank you. I get my foreign news sources confused when I'm surfing too early.
May 16, 2007 at 10:50 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ladylaw (Terry Bush) says...
So - do parents do a disservice to a child by not teasing (bullying) them at home? Or should they do all they can to keep them protected and sensitive they can cash in big later on? Talk amongst yourselves.....
Personally, I got teased at home and school. A lot. And being a big ole geek was subject to a lot of bullying. I never liked it much, so try not to do it other people. I never really DID learn to fight back very well. But I survived. For the most part. It never would have occured to me to sue anyone over the bullying.... But I did used to have cool fantasies about flying down on Pegasus, and not letting any of those mean classmates pet my cool winged horse.....
May 16, 2007 at 11:35 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says...
Will, you got me. I saw that but by the time I finished the article Canada snuck into my head somehow... back to geography class for me.
May 16, 2007 at 11:43 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
jeanc (anonymous) says...
Are you talking about Mr. Toomey? I went to Meadow View also. He wore a lot of cologne!
May 16, 2007 at 11:50 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
thetomdotdot (anonymous) says...
I don't tolerate bullying at home. I force them to get along. Hell, I'm yelling at them all the time about it. Little turds.
May 16, 2007 at 12:10 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
slowburn (anonymous) says...
I gotta tell ya, I generally disagree with your blog.
But this one was fantastic. Absolutely great. Kudos to you and your dad.
And screw the fat lazy Australian kid.
May 16, 2007 at 1:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Jester (Nick Spacek) says...
Favorite phrase in our home - "At least pretend you like each other."
May 16, 2007 at 1:30 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Kip (anonymous) says...
Hey, this isn't 1955. Absent a supportive base at home, these are the kinds of kids who take guns to school and waste their classmates and teachers.
Has Billy Madison taught us nothing?
May 16, 2007 at 2:12 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ladylaw (Terry Bush) says...
I HATED being teased - still do for the most part. But I hated bullies even more; to the point that I not only learned to stand up to them on my own behalf, but have actually gone into a profession where I get to punish some types of bullies. The nerd's revenge is indeed surving and thriving, despite the best efforts of the herd (or its horned leaders) to prevent that from happening. I'm not sure how to teach any given child the skills needed to survive. But I'm pretty sure that learning to effectively nueter bullies is one of the more important survival skills a parent can impart. Because children (or adults) who don't learn how to cope with bullying are going to end up unhappy for life! And no amount of money will change that fact.
May 16, 2007 at 8:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says...
jeanc--Yeah, I am--he did? My parents were three-pack-a-day folks; my sense of smell has never been great. I'm probably being too hard on the guy; he most certainly meant well, but just didn't have the balls to be an administrator, or at least an effective one. When did you go to Meadow View? Did you ever have General Patton, or much more fortunately, Mrs. Ney, Patron Saint of Patience?
May 16, 2007 at 9:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says...
And slowburn---comments like that are what keep me going. Thank you, most sincerely.
May 16, 2007 at 9:29 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
wbabbit (Will Babbit) says...
Thought you might be amused at how a parent handled their child being a bully:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?...
May 17, 2007 at 4:54 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )