Tag Archives: reality bites

Reality bites. No. Reality kicked my ass.

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There is no other way around it: I am a hypocrite.

Isn’t it an ironic coincidence that after my holier-than-thou tirade against bullying and my immagonnakickyourpunkass battle cry, my 12-year-old son told me tonight that he has been called all sorts of names at school?

Names such as gay, nerd, retard. Hurled at him, in passing, on a daily basis.

And the worst perpetrator is the 13 year old son from a family we know (whose youngest child does the same extracurricular activity as my son and therefore we see and hang out with them very often).

As soon as I heard this, all the blood rushed to my head: I could see the Samurai sword in my bedroom and I could see, in my mind’s eye, me wearing a bandanna that says VENGEANCE, going over there right now to kick that little shithead’s ass. The visualization was so vivid my fingers curled around the imaginary sword in my hand and I felt my legs twitch as I kicked the door down.

Of course I did no such thing.

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Not able to coax more details out of my son, I did the only thing I could do: I went to his Facebook account and changed the setting so the little fuckhead and his mother could not see my son’s wall posts any more since, as you probably guessed, unfriend the little fucking curd is probably going to addle him more.

Finally after I put the little one to bed, I had some quiet time with my 7th grader before he went to bed.  I pretended to be calm (not very successfully since I mentioned samurai sword and kick ass and something about moving to Taiwan) and asked him more about what really goes on at school.

Son: Mom. You are over-reacting again! I am not going to tell you anything any more!

Me: Ok ok. I promise I won’t do anything crazy. I just need to get it out inside the house now so I can remain calm about this. I just want to know that you are ok.

Son: You are so lucky that I talk to you! Most kids don’t tell their parents these things…

Me: OK. I promise I will not do anything without asking you first. I will not even tell Miss _________ about [FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT]. I just want to know more and make sure that you are doing ok…

Son: I probably exaggerated a bit. I am not bullied, I guess. People just call me names… like gay, retard, nerd. [Fucking piece of shit] calls me gay all the time.

Me: (Taking a deep breath) Does it bother you?

Son: Nah… Well, it kind of bothers me because I don’t like it when people use those words. When my friends say ‘gay’ or ‘retard’ I tell them to not swear and they say, “What? I am not swearing! I just say retard!” Ugh.

Me: (Taking a really deep breath) Do they single you out? Or do they do it to the other kids?

Son: It’s what the cool kids do. In order to look cool, you have to casually swear all the time, call people gay and retard all the time, and talk about sex non-stop.

Me: (Thinking to myself WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?! Taking a really really deep breath, and slowly) Ok. So… these kids. They call you names if you cross path. But if you stay away from them, do they seek you out to pick on you? (Wistfully) They don’t bother you right? Right?

Son: Not really… I just feel that they do it to me more. They call me nerd all the time.

Me: Does this make you not want to go to school? Are there other “non-cool” kids that you can hang out with?

Son: (Exasperated) Mom! I have a lot of friends at school! And they think I am cool. But even they call me a nerd. Well, because I am a nerd.

Me: (Exasperated. Hey, I am not Perfect & Wise Mom!) Why do you have to label yourself like this? [Yes, then I launched into a tirade against anti-intellectualism in this country and the stupidity of all this. ALL THIS! Probably did not help. I did say I am not Perfect & Wise Mom…]”

Son: It is kind of annoying that people think I am a nerd. I know Kung Fu very well and I can do a back flip, and I am probably stronger than a lot of them.

Me: Honey, I am not saying this because I am your mother, but I really really think that people are just jealous. I want to let you know that if somebody touches you, you have my permission to, wait, I’d better check with dad before I give you the permission…

Son: We are told this rule at school: If you are punched, cover your face. You are allowed to shove the person back but you are not allowed to make a fist and punch back. [Chuckles] I can probably shove the person back all the way to the locker.

Me: I just want you to know that we will not be mad at you for defending yourself. I also want to let you know that, although your friends seem to know better than to use ‘gay’ or ‘fag’ in front of grownups, if I hear them using these words, I will call them out on it.

Son: Just make sure you don’t do it to someone who can beat me up! Can I go to bed now?

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I am not sure what I should/could do. I am still in shock while at the same time feeling embarrassed by my naiveté for being shocked at all.

I did not grow up here. I did not experience anything like this: Not name calling. Not having words unapproved by adults hurled at you. To this day I cannot curse in Chinese; that’s how effective cultural and social conditioning combined with physical punishment, or simply the threat of it, is in disciplining children. And behold: Surprise surprise! All the news about bullying did not prepare me for when it actually happened to my own child. Obviously I had no idea what the fuck I was talking about when I was running my mouth. Please accept my sincere apology.

In all honesty, what my son is living with now is mild compared to some of the horror stories we have heard. But it still hurts. It hurts so much. My son is a part of me. When he is hurting, my heart hurts too. I can actually feel the pain inside my chest. It is already rousing all the primal maternal instincts I have. “You mess with my family? You mess with me.” And I’ve already had to calm myself the fuck down.

I cannot imagine having to deal with full-blown bullying as a parent. I cannot imagine having to deal with it as a child.

Deep down, I am wondering whether name calling truly is a lot more sinister: The school district does have a Zero Tolerance policy but only if there is physical contact. (And I am not going to spell out what is going through my mind right now. It suffices to say, IF they touch my son, it is open season). For words, mere words, there is nothing you can do about it, realistically. What’s the school going to do? There is no proof. And even if there is, what kind of punishment is the school going to dole out? Telling them to not do it again? “Be nice!” Slap the kids’ hands?

Hardy har har. Big fucking deal.

HOW FUCKING STUPID IS THIS?!

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I suck. I seriously do. Full of hot air. Nothing more. It’s been only one night, and I am ready to strike a bargain with the devil to make all this magically go away.

Why didn’t anybody tell me how awful it is going to be? Perhaps someone should have included this in the book “What to Expect When You Have Children”: Prepared to feel murderous rage against other teens but of course you cannot act on it and to feel the primordial urge to protect your young no matter what but of course you cannot do so when they are in school.

If I had known bringing up children in the United States of America means watching them being called names and not being able to do a fucking damned thing about it, I would not have married an American.

If I had known bringing up children means you have to sit and watch their innocence being stripped away bit by bit at the school yard where they are supposed to be fucking safe and protected, I would have hesitated.

I am most likely blowing everything up out of proportion. But this is how I feel right now.

Juxtaposition & Perspectives

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Interesting headlines today:

“[From NPR] U.S. income inequality at its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking household income in 1967. The U.S. also has the greatest disparity among Western industrialized nations.

At the top, the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, who earn more than $180,000, added slightly to their annual incomes last year, government data show. Families at the $50,000 median level slipped lower.”

“[From Forbes] Duarte, Calif., home to the 91008 ZIP code, is a small suburb northeast of downtown LA, near the Los Angeles national forest. The median cost of a house in this tony town is a whopping $4,276,462, making it the most expensive housing market in the country.”

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For perspectives, here is what 91008 looks like from above:

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Perspectives are important.

Case in point: The U of Chicago Law Professor who wrote a blog post complaining about being poor on an income of $250K and ignited a firestorm. What made me laugh out loud and cry inside at the same time was the fact that he was genuinely surprised that people were outraged. Much criticisms and analyses have been published over Professor Henderson and his irk vs. the “electronic lynch mob”. My favorite quote by a pundit came from Paul Krugman  (incidentally the 2008 Economics Nobel Prize winner) who penned in his blog post titled “Have you left no sense of decency?” (It’s a very short post. You should consider hopping over and read it in its brilliant entirety…)

“But 30 years ago people with high but not super-high incomes generally felt ashamed of themselves for griping — or at least, felt that they would be ridiculed if they gave voice to their gripes. Today, all restraints are off. The fuss over Messrs. Henderson and Stein is the exception that proves the rule: they wouldn’t be providing this spectacle if they didn’t normally swim in social circles where complaining that you only have 9 or 10 times median family income is considered totally acceptable.

Pretty soon, we’ll be having serious, completely un-self-conscious discussions in major magazines about the servant problem.”

In praise of “Fallen Princesses” Photography Project by Dina Goldstein

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Courtesy: JPG Magazine: Snowy

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I am absolutely in amour with this picture and actually, all the pictures by photographer, Dina Goldstein. She is currently working on a project, sort of like an alternative story telling, “Fallen Princesses.” In her own words:

“These works place Fairy Tale characters in modern day scenarios. In all of the images the Princess is placed in an environment that articulates her conflict. The ‘…happily ever after’ is replaced with a realistic outcome and addresses current issues.”

“I began to imagine Disney’s perfect Princesses juxtaposed with real issues that were affecting women around me, such as illness, addiction and self-image issues.”

This is one of the best examples for:

Motherhood does not make you stupid. It makes you THINK!

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p.s. I found this picture via @god, thank goodness he has a great sense of humor!

p.p.s. For a critique on how these pictures do not deliver the expected Punch, not subversive enough to destablize the stereotypes, please see Bitch Magazine

Cough cough, though I do love Bitch Magazine‘s “Feminist Response to Pop Culture” and agree with the perspective here, I have to say I haven’t found anything subversive enough to do exactly that, i.e. destablizing stereotypes substantially long enough to have the destablizing take roots, other than cutting off our own tits… even at that, we would still be labeled as “Suffering from hysteria”. The world will continue to stereotype any group with less power at will because that’s how power is gained and maintained. Ever wonder why stereotypes come in pairs?…