My daughter came home today and told her mother about an "incident" at daycare. Her best friend wasn't there and she was playing with another friend who commented that she didn't like Smallsteps' shirt. She was a little disappointed in the evaluation, but said that she still likes it regardless. We thought it was a bit funny and cute and later while I was watering the garden with Small, I talked about how everyone has their preferences and it is okay for friends to like different things, with a few simple examples like colors and songs.
However, it jogged my memory and reminded me of an incident of my own at that age, and I don't quite know what I would do if my daughter had came home with a similar story.
It was a memory from my first day of kindergarten and I was four years of age and would start school the following year at five. I walked through the gates of the yard and had traveled about ten steps when one kid from a small group pointed and said with a mean sneer, Look at the nigger. I didn't know what it meant, but later that day I found out that I was black.
Your first instinct (if you have seen pictures of me) will be like so many others, "but, you're *not black" and you'd be both right and wrong. You see, the color of my skin doesn't actually matter, the perception of my color does, and to a kid of four, I am black - Semantics don't matter to children - first impressions do. I think this is a better indicator of color (and other things) than the process of skin color evaluation and grading (degrading to have done) by adults.
Suffice to say, my first day of kindergarten wasn't fun and while I never cried there, I cried a lot at home and said I wouldn't go back. My mother of course made me return and day two didn't go better and again, I said I wouldn't go back, but my mother said to try one more day. At the end of the third day, I said I wouldn't go back with the addition of, I can read and write, what am I going to learn there? I didn't go back and instead stayed at home with my mother and newborn sister.
I wonder if I had stayed, would I have been better or worse off? Primary school was no better, especially in the early years - but I coped with it well enough and while people might be shocked by what went on there these days, I credit a lot of my learning paths and skills being born from those times and the cruelty of honest children. While they didn't really have a grasp on what they were saying in a social context, nor did they understand the potential impact, they *did mean it to hurt me. I also credit those times with beginning the push toward emotional control as well as compassion.
People think bullying is bad, but there are potential benefits to learning some of the human and cultural aspects of it, as well as understanding and building mechanisms for coming with it. Having said that, How would I feel if that was happening to my daughter at her daycare or school - what would I do?
My sister is 4 years younger than me and when she was little, I would tease her about being fat. She wasn't actually fat (she has my body type though) and would be considered normal or lower than average massed today, but I teased her nonetheless. She was visiting here a couple years ago and I apologized profusely for me as a seven year old because having my then chubby little daughter in my arms, I had been forced to face the memories and couldn't process how someone could be so cruel to someone so innocent. I was no better than those kids at the kindergarten. Worse - as I was close to her, I had influence.
My sister is a beautiful woman and very, very independent - but I know that she (like most of us) has struggled with aspects of her life and I know that I played a part in that, even though it was a relatively minor role and I had no idea what I was doing at the time. Knowing what I know now, I should have been her ally and confidant, not her enemy and torturer. I missed an opportunity to build a better relationship with someone I care deeply about.
If we do not learn how to cope with what we experience in childhood, we can carry a lot of baggage into adulthood that can stunt our growth in many ways, hold us back, restrict our potential, damage our relationships and make us bitter and cruel ourselves - to pay the pain forward. If we do not learn to overcome our experiences, they will eat us alive. We see this in the chain of abuse through some families and until the dysfunctional links are replaced by better behaviors, the abuse keeps on giving.
But, the world is unlikely to change much, there will always be bullies, there will always be negative circumstances, conditions and relationships, there will always be feelings of suffering and persecution. The thing is, if we are trying to heal ourselves by changing our world, the likely result will be continued persecution and violence, just with different targets - something we see a lot of in the social movements today. People are taking out their personal frustrations on generalized groups based on assumptions and insensitivity to individuals.
This is more than be the change, it is that before attempting to change another, be sure to be at peace yourself. It isn't easy to overcome some events, but it is pretty easy to hold a grudge from the past - even if the person who perpetrated or instigated its forming, has become someone different, someone who has changed over time through various experiences themselves.
For me, I "knew" that what I had done was wrong early on, but it wasn't until I had my daughter and the feeling of so much love and want to protect her that I really knew what I had done to my sister. Perhaps if she had been a different person, of she had been born into the world today, she might have taken a much darker path herself, perhaps to her own finality - like so many children do these days.
I know it is impossible to protect my daughter from all the negative the world contains and to do so effectively would make her weaker down the track when the veil of protection can no longer cover her. The best I can do is attempt to help her gain the tools to cope with the world and understand a little of human nature and the way people think and act.
Some people never stop being bullies and some never stop being victims - but this isn't a dichotomy, there are other ways to negotiate society and relationships, as well as a spectrum of degrees across the board. I wonder if life is about survival of the fittest - which will survive and thrive into the future? We all have the capacity for great cruelty and compassion and while the world might be a catalyst, at some point we have to take responsibility for which paths we choose. I have been bullied, I have bullied - both instances are not me at my best.
The first step to peace, is to be at peace with ourselves.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
