Oh Bullying… Aren’t you the popular kid right now?
But not popular in an enviable way.
The movie Bully is opening this coming weekend. My dear friend sister from another mister, Lu of Art Slam shares her story of being bullied here.
Her story is a prime example of this girl-on-girl bullying that we are seeing so much of these days. But this “phenomenon” has been happening for a long, long time.
I have not seen Bully, yet. But I did get to preview the movie Finding Kind last night with my other sister from another mister, Lisa.
I honestly don’t remember how I first learned of Finding Kind. Either Twitter, or Facebook… or maybe Dr, Phil’s show. But I remember thinking, “Wow. This needs to be seen. Girls AND moms need to see this.”
I was bullied, though not relentlessly, nor profoundly… But enough that my self-image is still influenced. To this day. The most dramatic of it all was during a girls youth group meeting. It was maybe 8th grade… A girl stood up from her spot on the floor. She pointed at me an yelled…
I don’t want to be fat! I don’t want to be fat like Jenny!
And I was. Fat. Chubby. JC Penny’s sold “Pretty Plus” for girls like me. I wore “pretty plus”.
I hate admitting it.
I shouldn’t. It’s not shameful… I guess it’s because it takes me back to a time where I felt a lot of shame about the size of my body. I hated myself. And I really didn’t even need it to be pointed out in public. I knew. I KNEW.
There were other things too… but the worst of it was when I let my low, self-image allow me to avoid and at times even run away and hide from another girl at school who was perceived to be even lower on the social ladder than I. My friends and I – we talked about her behind her back. Made fun of her. Excluded her… Surely associating with her in any way would forfeit our chance to progress up the social ladder.
My harmful attitude toward this girl was short-lived. But I know. I KNOW it just takes ONE thing to push someone over the edge. ONE event to change one’s life and forever place a stumbling block in the path of the life of another. It was done to me, and I am guilty of doing it too.
Fast forward a couple decades and I am sitting here… watching my daughters enter this space. I worry first, that they will be mistreated… then I worry that they will do what I did and succumb to social pressure to appear “cool”… to climb the social ladder.
Which is, like TOTALLY jacked up. BY THE WAY.
How football players make millions while some teachers (who educate OUR CHILDREN) have to get second jobs is beyond me.
I digress.
Oh. AND… you know what? It’s not just the little girls… HAVE YOU MET THEIR MOTHERS? Our girls learn their behavior from somewhere. I have to be honest, I more and more avoid the all-women spaces because DEAR MERCY. Sometimes it feels like we never left junior high.
The gossip. The slander. The judgement. The impatience. The expectations.
Groups of women still scare me.
But that’s the thing… I think most of us are scared. Because somewhere… that wounded little girl we all have deep down is still scared. And rightfully so.
All that to say… my friend Lisa took the action needed to help bring Finding Kind to The Firehouse Theater in Kingston on April 14th and 15th. In under 2 weeks, with minimal Facebook sharing across and handful of friends, the 2 showings “sold out” (a free event) in under 2 weeks. Which means… this weekend around 400 girls and moms from the Kitsap community will have their lives changed… by a message of kindness.
After our preview last night, Lisa and I talked about our hopes and expectations for what will come after. We are hopeful that something will be born in our little community. I think of a pebble hitting a puddle of still water. The ripples. Because something like this…
every little girl should have the blessing of knowing…
*Photo credit: Lisa. The girls in this picture… our daughters.
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