Have you all seen the movie " Mean Girls" with Lindsay Lohan? I hate to say but I love it. And I do because it is a comedy, Tina fey is in it, and it's the kinda conclusion you wish scenarios like this would have. The mean girls figure out that it's wrong and learn their lessons. We all know that doesn't happen.
I have had my share of time with "mean girls" in my life. I would have to say grade school was the worst for me. They were down right cruel. My hair, my clothes, my glasses, what I watched, what I read, what I drew......everything was fair game.
There was one in 6th grade, I think, and we were having a battle of the two 6 grade classrooms. We had to decorate our door with some kind of design and it was a top secret. So I go into the bathroom one day and R is there. She is a girl I that I have known since I was little. We played together since we could walk. She comes up to me backs me up into stall door and says " What are you guys doing to your door? " " I'm can't tell you." " If you don't , I'll tell everyone we played my little ponies last year." I couldn't remember if that was true or not but I was mortified because people already made fun of me as it was. So I spilled the beans and prayed no one would find out it was me and hate me anyway. She didn't have to do that. She used what I thought was our joint past/friendship against me to shame me into something. I never really trusted or talked to her again.
And then there was K. She made it her personal goal in life to laugh/point fingers at me whenever she could. She pants-ed me twice in gym class. I finally learned to really knot my shorts after the first time.( And not to buy flowered underwear :) )The thing is I never did anything to her. Why did I deserve that? I'm sure if I asked her why or if she knew she really tortured me, she would have no idea. And probably say she never did those things. That 's just as sad.
The high school mean girls were just too busy with the boys /hair/clothes/social lives to bother me too much. They just used me for pens, loose leaf paper, and tried to get answers from me.
Now in my thirties...the mean girls are older,wiser, and better able to cloak their meanness in false flattery and just plain old stabbin' you in the back when you aren't around. Didn't their mommas love them enough? Don't they have anything better to do like...I don't know...raise their kids?
I look at my daughters and wish I could spare them this kind of pain. I know they are going to have mean girls in their lives. I hope they can deal with better than I did. I don't know how to tell them to deal with it because I STILL don't know how to deal with it. I already see myself in K. She's so trusting and thinks everyone likes her even when the other kids decide to play keep away from K without telling her. She's so blissfully ignorant. I hope she keeps that just enough to not let things like that bother her. I want to tell them to not let it bother them because they won't have to deal with them forever but that's not true. And going to public school , there's the chance that they may have to deal with them for 14 years..YIKES. I always think I should tell them to tell themselves....(see below)
I feel ya on that one! My daughter is almost 3 and I can see herself being used by some of the other kids. Not so much bullied as I already see the kids love her, but I'm afraid the boys will try to use her to cheat, "borrow" (aka steal) stuff, and so on. She's at daycare with a group of boys that will be her classmates and I worry about them. Maybe they'll be ok, maybe they'll be friends, I just hope it works out. I wasn't so much picked on, but I had my moments where I was teased for sure. We couldn't always afford the best clothes, name brands, etc., and I remember that too much. I had some friends that we would either love or hate each other but luckily most of those worked out for the love side now.
ReplyDeleteI'm secretely afraid that I will buy my daughter all the expensive brands so that they don't pick on her for clothes since I went through that some (elementary, middle school). I'll probably be broke because of it but I don't want her upset, I hate it when she's upset!
Megan...The clothes thing...ya. I'm probably going to do almost anything I can so that clothes will be the one thing they are not made fun of as well. I'll so my best on the technology side of things too but all these expensive cell phones are going to make that really hard.
ReplyDeleteThe hardest thing is when it isn't a child picking on your child it is their mother driven by pure jealousy for your child ugh I barely got through that with my oldest (26 yr) but now I see it happening from a parent who has an issue with me but can't be grown up enough to address me so she is rude to my child while she is helping at the school and there is no administration that wants to get involved because of her volunteering so we just constantly tell our 9 year old to ignore her and her child, it is so rough to grow-up with mean PEOPLE.
ReplyDeleteJanice...wow... you have to feel sorry for a grown person who has to be mean to a innocent child. Tell your child that they are stronger than they know.
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