Bullies

What is with all of the bullying? There seems to be a lot of it going on in the media, in politics, all around us. Adults in positions of power are doing and saying the most appalling things. It really makes you wonder what happened when they were kids. Where does that come from? Why didn't they learn better early on?

The scale of things I see and deal with on a day to day basis is much smaller and much more personal. Bullying at school, sporting events. When does a kid go from being considered a nice child to being labelled as a bully? Things at school and in sports have brought it up lately, and I find myself trying not to take sides in various incidents. But let's get real, it's impossible not to take sides when your own kids are involved. If one of my guys is wronged I can usually go and resolve things in a civil way (after ranting angrily in private), but I will overcome my normal shyness to go stick up for my boys. Mama tiger is in there, believe me. I try to maintain an open mind and I'm not afraid to admit when one of my guys has done something wrong and I actually appreciate the outside reinforcement from other adults and people who have influence with my kids about the right way to behave and treat others. There have been  incidents over the last 12 years when I wasn't actually there when something happened and others stepped up and intervened, or told me about things that needed addressing, and it's all good. My kids are not perfect little angels; no kids are. It takes a good village to raise a good person. Finding your village is very challenging in this complex world we live in, but we are fortunate to have a great community surrounding our guys.

One of the things that troubles me, though, is the way we tend to label kids. There have been incidents where a kid was 'bullied' and other kids were punished, and then it turned out that the kid getting bullied wasn't blameless and had his own history of bullying. It's a complex problem, and I know that the teachers and coaches and parents have a hard time keeping things fair and keeping order in the ranks. My guys know they can come to me or Paul and tell us things that happen and they have the self-confidence to stand up for themselves, so when it has happened to them they know they have us standing with them, and that there will be consequences if they've done wrong, but they aren't afraid to tell us the truth, at least.

So there's this kid. He's what we would (politically incorrectly) call a weird kid, where there's just something not right there, though he's in regular school, and he has no convenient label put on him to explain or excuse his oddness, or help others with ways to handle him. But he's always been 'off', and thus always been a target to the other kids, from the beginning of school. This kid has serious problems fitting in with the other kids; they don't like him, they find him annoying, they find him tasteless and offensive and disgusting. I've heard this from numerous sources, mind you; it's pretty universal among their grade. It hasn't gotten better, and as these things tend to go, it's getting worse as they all head at breakneck speed towards the dreaded junior high years. He's really one of the kids who is a constant target for a few of the other kids who are what I would call 'career bullies' who constantly pull crap and then skillfully try to turn things around when the adults show up, blaming other kids and saying they were the bullied one; some of them are seriously mean and scary and all of the kids in their grade know to avoid them like the plague. Those kids may really be the ones to be seriously worried about, but they're a whole other discussion.

But this kid is different. He has no friends, though he's not malicious; he didn't used to be mean. But lately, he's been doing things that seem to indicate that he's angry and frustrated and not surprisingly, he hates the way things are for him. And so an incident occurred and several boys were accused of bullying him. This is nothing new, mind you, it happens with some regularity despite the school officials' massive efforts to crack down on any bullying with strict punishments, educational efforts about it all and counseling groups and other measures. They are a good school that way, with a zero-tolerance policy towards bullying; they really try. But this kid is always getting bullied. So an incident occurred with Casey there, and it turned out that he had a hand in teasing the odd kid. There were taunting words exchanged, though there was no physical violence in the actual teasing part of the whole thing. Except as it turned out, the kid getting bullied may have triggered the incident by physically smacking the other kids too hard in the game they were playing. He had insisted on joining their game even though he wasn't welcome, and then got physically rough during the game and was hitting them and wouldn't stop, and pissed them all off and then the name calling started. And Casey was a name caller, mad and angry and fed up. And he got in a right lot of trouble for it, with a note sent home and parents and teachers and such all involved.

So I heard the story first, in bits, from Casey, and then more the next day, then more the day after. The interesting thing was that he was wracked with guilt for having called a name in the first place, and then for not having owned up to doing it right away; he claimed it was this thing where he said a word under his breath and wasn't sure anybody else heard it until later when all the kids involved were being interrogated and accusations started flying thick and fast and the truth was up for grabs. Once accused of saying a bad word he owned up and admitted it and then was in serious trouble for not coming forward and admitting it in the first place, even though he got accused of some other things he didn't actually do and the teller later recanted. It was all quite muddled and wasn't handled particularly well by the authority in charge.

So he couldn't sleep and was upset and said he felt so awful for name-calling in the first place, as well as realizing he would have been better off admitting it in the first place rather than keeping mum about part of his own role in the debacle. He did feel it was unfair to be falsely accused by other kids and have adults just unilaterally decide based on the accusations flying around that he was a 'bad kid'. I was so relieved that he felt awful about his part in the whole thing, honestly. We talked about it all and sorted out some truths and what was fair and unfair and what he knew to be true about himself, and he actually did some hard self-examination to see how he felt about what he'd really actually done, and to move through just being upset at being falsely accused of other things and how unjust that felt. Sorting out the whole confused mess in his own mind seemed to help him figure out where he stood and how he felt about the various aspects of it all.

I asked him to go ahead and let himself really deeply feel this awfulness he was going through and remember it and imprint it deep inside so that the next time something like this happened, he'd remember how this felt and maybe it would help him not to do something like it again. I know for myself that having once teased someone cruelly, I hated the way it made me feel and I've tried never to do it again, and that was in junior high. It had a lasting impact on me, and I have to hope this will have an impact on him. I could relate to how he felt, and we talked about it all.

It's a small incident in the overall view of things, really, and it happened a while back, so it's all blown over now, with punishments and consequences and whatnot, and Casey's standing as a reasonable kid who means well is re-established among the school authorities. But  for him there were a number of important parts to consider about that incident. One was that Casey had never been accused of being a bully before; in the past he's been a kid who was bullied by the mean kids, so he wasn't used to being on the 'bad guy' side of the whole issue. He really didn't like being a bad guy, or being labelled as a bad guy, one bit. And that I find very encouraging, though I was appalled at his part in the whole thing. He also experienced first-hand just how fragile and precious having a good reputation is; the speed and ferocity with which he was publicly accused and judged by the main adult at the scene simply on the basis of what other kids were saying was very frightening to him. And he may have been judged harshly and prematurely, but he certainly felt immediate consequences for his actions; he knew with certainty that he didn't want to ever be in that situation ever again. It was one of those incidents in life where, if you can learn from it, you gain experience with your own dark side and learn to control it a bit better.

The kid who was bullied may have triggered the incident with his inappropriate slapping behavior, but he wasn't of course blamed for it at all. He did not come forward and complain about what happened; his younger siblings did, and then the accusations among all of the kids involved started flying fast and free. And while it's very admirable that the siblings would stand up for him, it's something to notice and question that he would not come forward himself and say what really happened. He did not stand up for himself, ever; he did not tell the entire truth about what happened, and he did not correct the other kids who were lying about various aspects. Whether he felt it was futile, or he felt to blame, or was too scared or humiliated or what is unknown. But he was acting angry and frustrated before and during the incident and it's all troubling. All the focus was on the kids who turned on him and bullied him, and perhaps that's appropriate or to be expected because it's already such a set pattern that he is the one who gets tormented. The ones who tormented him did get in trouble and face consequences, but the deeper issues he must be facing were not, to my knowledge, addressed in any way that would actually help him in the future. The way this particular incident was handled may have helped Casey learn from it, but I seriously doubt that the kid in the middle of it learned anything new and helpful from it; it was just another in a long string of incidents he's had to endure, and it won't be the last.

This whole thing was also an eye-opener for me, as a parent on the other side of the bullying this time; having one of my kids involved in an incident really made me look at it all from a different perspective. I know that my kid isn't a natural bully and this isn't usual behavior for him, so having him suddenly angrily and loudly accused publicly by the authority in charge, based solely on other kids' panicky accusations, was shocking and seemed premature and inappropriate, though perhaps the idea was to make a fearful example of him for the rest of the kids. He's since managed to redeem himself at school and at home, so that's good, but he also had several reasonable, supportive adults at school and at home who were on his side, who believed in him, to help him deal with the fallout, and many kids don't. That 'bully' label creates an expectation, and if there are further mis-handlings or non-handlings (and possibly denial by the parents), that label gets stronger and harder to erase, and it's easy to see where that would lead.

I also have to ask myself what should have been handled differently for the kid who was bullied and what hasn't been handled well in the past for that pattern of being bullied to be so long and well established. What can be done for the odd kid? Is just punishing and admonishing the kids who cat-called enough? What does that actually do for the kid who was bullied, aside from causing more of a rift and more resentment and setting him apart even further? Is there a better answer?

I was bullied enough when I was a kid to have concluded that some kids are just bone-deep mean right from the get-go and they get enjoyment from tormenting other kids and they will go out of their way to find their chosen victims. I never knew why they picked me or my sister, but they unerringly found us. In my own case, most of the time I said nothing about it to anyone because I figured it wouldn't do any good, and I found it all incredibly humiliating. I felt ashamed on so many levels: ashamed for being  a target, a weirdo who didn't fit in; ashamed that maybe all the cruel things they said about me might be true. I was angry and also very ashamed that I didn't have the courage to stand up for myself against the bullies; I felt powerless to do so. I was also a kid who was shouted at and knocked around at home, though, so the feelings of powerlessness had very early roots. For me it was an endurance test; like the 'it gets better' messages say, it got better. Time and distance and counseling and a lot support from friends and family all helped. Having 'victim' stamped on your forehead is not a simple or easy fix. I have to hope this kid can endure and find some support to get through the years to come.

I really feel for the parents who have sensitive kids who get teased like I was; nobody deserves to be teased and humiliated, and it's heartbreaking as a parent to see your child suffering. The anger at the mean kids and the situation, as well as the environment that engenders it, is hard to deal with. What are you supposed to do? I dealt with this particular instance as best I could as a parent, from the other side of the coin this time, and I have to hope it's something that will help my kid in the future on how to deal with bullying from both sides.

Aging Gracelessly

Hedgehoggy.
Yep, definitely.
Life has been very busy with boy sports and school stuff and other obligations that we've taken on for various reasons. Like so we can eat, pay bills, let the boys do sports, those sorts of mundanities.

I have had a bad migraine for the last three days. I haven't been having them as often as I was for quite a while, and while I enjoyed the respite, somehow these things always surprise me again with their intensity of pain. Medications don't touch them, and I just endure through them. As they wear on it just saps my will to live and everyday things start slipping.

It just makes it all harder; you know, dishes, washing clothes, that sort of everyday chore that never really ends. I find if I force myself to do them when I'm in pain it can have a good effect; I end up feeling like I'm fighting back entropy, or something. But there are times like this weekend when it just is too much and it doesn't get done, and once the headache finally, finally passes I'm left exhausted and with a sinkful of dirty dishes and mountains of laundry to face... Which I am procrastinating on dealing with.

sigh.
I know, make the boys do it all. Easy to say, but enforcing it can be more work and effort than just doing the chore in the first place and when I have a head that bad, it's all beyond me.

The good thing is, I'm not on any medications now. I had reason to go back through some of my old photos recently, and re-read my comments on the set of photos I kept while I was going through radiation a number of years ago. 

You can go look if you haven't heard or seen them before and you're interested. I should warn you that it's possibly triggery for anybody who's dealt with cancer and such. I had it pretty easy, really. And it made me realize again that I'm very lucky to be alive.

There are other things that I've gone through too, that make me appreciate life and simple things, like being able to walk. After breaking my leg and not being able to walk on it at all for three months or more, stepping up or down a simple curb has become a recurring silent miracle that I notice and rejoice in, even after 5 years. Gad, I broke my leg five years ago this spring. And my leg will never be the same again, certainly, but it's functional and gets me around.

I'm finding this whole aging thing has become kind of an accumulation of physical and emotional landmarks of things I've gone through, periods in my life. Breaking my elbows left me a wire and scars. I had twins; that left a number of indelible marks on my body; breaking my leg left some serious hardware inside the leg and an inability to kneel on it. There are others, of course. I'm going gray, I'm getting wrinkles and certainly have gotten fatter. The physical aspects feel like a collection of souvenirs from trips or something, but even harder to work through and throw away if you get tired of them than the emotional baggage that gets lugged around along the way.

But. I will admit that the constant feeling I've had for the last decade or so, that I could die sooner rather than later, that I needed to savor every moment, has abated somewhat. It turns out that it's really hard to maintain that intensity all of the time, for years, when you're dealing with the everyday minutiae of kids and regular life.

There's a secret that I've been learning through various life milestones: everyday life just keeps going. It's probably most noticeable when you have a loved one die; there's that weird disconnected feeling where life continues swirling on around you even though this huge and permanently life-altering event has happened. People still go shopping, laundry still needs doing. The cats still need to be fed, the bills still come due, the dishes still need washing. It's weird the way it all keeps happening even when you feel like your world has shattered.

I've tried to come to grips with that over the years in various ways; I started documenting things more, I will always try to savor the fleeting moments as they happen. Some things become more precious, like seeing old friends again, or watching the boys as they grow and develop into older people. You know, things that you come to realize are important and likely won't happen again, at least not in the same way.

Casey may make the Men's Gymnastics Regionals again in the coming years, but he'll only be this age, this particular flavor of goofy once.

If nothing else, I've begun to realize that sometimes the everyday life stuff that wears you down may be what keeps you going when things get bad. Whether it's because you feel like you have no choice or other people are depending on you or whatnot, the mundane bits will always be there, swirling around even when life feels totally surreal.

And sometimes the everyday things like neon orange shoes are exciting enough to a boy to indelibly imprint themselves into the mental souvenir stash. He's already wearing these shoes out, and there will never be another pair just like them, but he loves them with a passion for life that's pretty infectious. It all drives me crazy at times, especially with a migraine, but it also is what pulls me through it to the other side.
Off to wash some dishes now.

Atomic Testing, Rings and Big Hotels (with Casinos)

There's an Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas.

Bizarre to think of such a sombre subject for a museum in Vegas, maybe, but true. Weird to think of Vegas having museums at all, except maybe for the defunct Elvis memorabilia museum. But Las Vegas and the desert around it has historically been a busy place for atomic testing.

The museum had a simulated bomb shelter which they'd set up with sound and air and movement to give an idea of what it would be like if an atomic bomb went off at a good distance away, and they had a film to go with it. It was sobering and rather scary, which made going through the rest of the museum more meaningful and real to the boys. There were museum bombs, films that could be run at varying speeds back and forth that showed the effects of test bombs, and a lot of other things that gave a feel for what a nuclear bomb can do.

Their generation has not grown up with the same fears of nuclear war that my generation were raised with, and I found myself appalled at the idea that our younger people wouldn't have the same instinct drilled into them that nuclear war must not happen. I think the museum helped; it educated them a bit and gave them some visceral things to think about.

We actually went to Las Vegas last weekend for a big nation-wide gymnastics meet which Casey and his teammates were competing in. The meet was the Winter Cup/Blackjack meet for mens gymnastics and a lot of college teams were there as well as the US Mens Olympic team, so we saw a lot of gymnastics.

It was good to get to see Olympic gymnasts in action, as well as the college teams. Stanford has a stand-out team, as does UC Berkeley. I guess they've managed to get funding for now, at least. Casey's section of the meet was very early on Sunday. He and his teammate and best bud Griffin competed together, making the whole experience a lot more fun and a little less stressful.

The stress levels were higher at this meet; it was an Olympic style meet with traditional warm-up before actual competition, with double sets of each apparatus and gymnasts competing at the same time on both sets. Chaotic, busy and very hard to keep track of what was happening. The floor especially was stressful, with competitors running two at a time parallel on the the floor instead of the usual one at a time. Casey had a handstand fail on his floor routine because his hands happened to fall in a crack in the floor padding, so there were some serious disadvantages to the set-up.

It was good for the boys to see other gymnasts at their level from all over the country and Canada as well, as there were some real differences in their routines and skill sets. Both boys did well, however, and Casey ended up coming in first for his level on rings, while Griffin came in fourth on rings.

Their coach was quite happy with how they did, since taking a good team to this particular big national level meet has been on his bucket list for a while. So they were all pretty happy with how it went.

After the meet, we had time to look around. Las Vegas is an odd place to take kids, since it's really not oriented towards kid entertainment. It's more kid friendly than it used to be, certainly; we stayed at Circus Circus, which is much more family oriented and has clearly delineated areas for adults vs. kids. Very handy, actually. We took in a Penn & Teller show, which we all liked a lot, and Riley got his picture taken with both Penn and Teller, though I can't show you those since they were taken on his iPod. :) He was very impressed with Teller. And they led to a discussion about Libertarians (which both Penn & Teller are) and how they're different from Republicans and politics in general and why you need to really listen and examine the facts and think for yourself before you decide on your position on issues.

It's nearly impossible to avoid adult themes in Las Vegas, which led to several other very interesting discussions about why there was so much stuff about sex and why the women in the huge video displays everywhere were so scantily clad, and why there were 'hobos' on street corners handing out 'prostitute trading cards' as the boys put it. And talks about the differences between showgirls and strippers and prostitutes happened as well. Turns out it's kind of hard for boys their age (or perhaps boys of any age) to tell the difference. A lot of the gender role stuff going on in Las Vegas really didn't fit with how they've been raised; we saw the free Treasure Island outdoor show, which used to be all pirates and was pretty cool, but has now been 'sexed up' to be Sirens vs. Pirates, and man, did the Sirens and all the pseudo-sexy stuff going on seem stupid to the boys. Why would women want to act like that, they asked. Why indeed.

There are a lot of huge hotel/casinos in Vegas, especially along the Strip, and the size and grandeur of them is really boggling. They're fancy outside and in, but all of them start looking the same inside, with their slot machines and blackjack tables, and they aren't very interesting if you're not into gambling, or simply too young to play. Casey was annoyed that he wasn't allowed to play, since to him they just looked like games, many of them video based. He probably could have done quite well at most of the games, with his aptitude for math and his great memory. We had to explain why gambling was illegal for underage kids, and that of course led to why it needed to be illegal, and that led into gambling addictions and losing money and all the rest. Welcome to being 12, guys.

We walked down the Strip at night, just to see all the lights and to try to let the boys ride the roller coaster at New York New York at night.

We ended up going into Caesar's Palace, which is immensely huge and confusing; we got lost trying to find our way out several times. I will admit that it made me just want to flee, it was so fancy, so ornate, so adult and so formal. Fortunately the boys were along to help keep things around us informal...

It just really wasn't my style at all, and I couldn't wait to escape. We ran across the street into Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville, which felt so much more welcoming and friendly to all of us, and the food was good. Pirates on stilts made balloon hats for the boys and we sang along to the music and felt much more at home.

We never did make it to the roller coaster that night, though we did go the next night, right before we left Las Vegas. Which turned out to be exactly the sort of loopy silliness we needed to end the trip.

Decluttering in the wake of passing time

I'm trying to declutter the place. This is a major challenge since all of us seem to be incorrigible pack rats. Every so often I go into a cleaning and purging frenzy, but it's been awhile. Going through the boys' toys is one of the hardest things to deal with; other stuff I can easily get into a mind space where I can be ruthless and chuck stuff or give it away, but this is harder. I know I'll feel much better about this place once things are cleaned up, but I'm running up against this wall of resistance from everyone in the house, myself included, to letting go. Time just keeps racing by and all these material things are strewn in its wake. I feel kind of helpless against the flow of time; the things I'd like to hold onto the most are often the most fleeting of all.

With the boy toys I have to sort them and figure whether the boys are done with those toys forever. Really, forever. I think it's probably harder for me to let go than for them. There is some stealth chucking involved, since toys they haven't played with for over a year are ones they're probably done with, but if they realize I'm going to give them away then nostalgia sets in and they want to keep them, mostly.

I tried to let go of Riley's Mission model, and put it in the recycle. I found it later that day miraculously rescued and restored to its place on top of the shelf. Though it hasn't been played with or used much since 4th grade. (And yes, they are in 6th grade now, so what does that say about my lack of ruthlessness and my housekeeping abilities?) And do I donate the dinosaurs? They are very cool; they roar and move their heads in a quite startlingly realistic way. I like them too, but the boys haven't been playing with toys much in the last year or so. How am I supposed to deal with all of these toys that they have sentimental attachment to, but no longer play with? Out of sight, out of mind? Stealth chucking? I like to think that I would respect their wishes, and not just ruthlessly get rid of toys they love, but the bald truth is we can't keep everything, forever.

I have intentions of reclaiming the space in the living room that is now filled with toy shelves, and re-hanging the green hanging chair and restore a bookshelf or two to that spot, since the boys aren't using it for playing. When they have other kids come over, it's still a very popular hang out, though, so I'm a bit torn.

A lot of their toys are really cool, too, which makes it harder to know whether to let them go or not. Some are easier; all the Thomas trains we can let go to a good home, I know, so if you could use a huge amount of Thomas and friends trains and track, give me a shout out. We have several plastic bins of them...

I think I am too susceptible to melancholy, honestly. It's hard to go through all these drawings and the writing they did when they were little and realize that very likely they won't become very good artists; they don't have enough interest. I did try to encourage that part, along with a lot of other abilities, but I don't think that particular one took; I know I was drawing all the time and my abilities were much further along when I was the same age. They're much better at different things, like math and science and analytical thinking, though their writing ability seems well developed. I am left with a bunch of kid art supplies that will never get used, though I know I can give those to friends and others who can use them with other kids. I have to believe, though, that none of the time and effort was wasted; they will have those experiences drawing and telling stories with pictures back there deep inside, even if it doesn't get used right now.

There are other things, too. Wind, the horse, that I lovingly painted for the boys from a plain reclaimed wreck of a spring horse, is (obviously) something that needs to be let go of; he takes up a lot of room and it must seem faintly ridiculous to still have him in the house when the boys will be going into 7th grade next year. Maybe most people would pass him along with a sense of relief to be getting the big cumbersome thing out of their house, but I'm finding it surprisingly hard to let go. It's silly, of course, but I know I'm too sentimental already, so don't laugh too hard at me. It's just too symbolic of all that's passing away.

Gah. Wish me luck with all this de-cluttering; I'm having a hard time of it.