How Bullying Affected my Life and Continues to Do So to This Day -- Guest Post

Today, Caitie George from A Sainted Sinner talks about bullying. Not only in terms of what it does to kids, but how it can follow you into adulthood. Powerful stuff.

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As I sit here writing this, I am currently 27 years old. Most of the events that take place in this happened when I was 11, 12, and 13. For the most part, I’ve managed to put it all behind me and move on from the bullying that I endured for three years. In 2010, when it was our ten year reunion from middle school, we met up for dinner. Silly me thought that maybe people would have changed in ten years. Instead, they laughed about how funny it was when they had teased and taunted me and when I told them that those things had actually hurt and had caused a huge fall out, they continued to laugh and tell me that I was being too serious.

There were two major reasons for my being bullied; my religion and the music band Hanson. Let’s start with religion. I was born and raised Roman Catholic. In the Catholic faith it is believe that when a baby is baptized, he or she is cleansed from original sin and can thus began their life washed anew. There are other sacraments, like first communion, confession, and confirmation that help to keep you free of sin as you journey through life. My classmates didn’t believe this. My classmates were mostly Baptist with a few Episcopalians and Presbyterians thrown in.

One girl asked me one day when I had been saved. I remember looking around, confused, because I had never heard that term before. I asked her what she meant and she asked me if I had gone to the principal and prayed with her and agreed to accept Jesus into my heart. I told her that no, I hadn’t, because I was Catholic and had been baptized and I already had Jesus in my heart. I was then told that I was wrong and when I went to hell, it would be fault and my fault only for not following the true teachings of Christ.

That’s where the issues first began. I was 11 years old and suddenly I’m being told that I have not in fact been saved and cleansed of sin and I’m going to hell unless I do it their way? I went home that night in tears. In fact, tears would be a common theme for those three years. There was rarely a night where I didn’t sob over my dinner because of how terrible school was. Even the teachers were in on it! They kept pushing me to accept Jesus and every time I told them that I had, I was told that I was a wrong and an infant cannot accept Jesus.

In addition to all of that which was going on, during my sixth grade year, I became a fan of Hanson. I just loved their music. As most fans do, I had the tshirts and the books and the whole shebang. I can remember one dress down day, there were whispers going everywhere. I didn’t pay attention, because at that point I was tired of the whispers, but before I knew it there was a parade of upperclassmen opening my classroom door to look at and laugh at my Hanson tshirt.

I was trying to hold it together, but it didn’t last very long. I excused myself to the bathroom where I had a good cry. In that moment, I decided that I wasn’t going to let them win. Why should I?
That doesn’t mean that I didn’t still cry about it at night. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t purposefully wearing things I knew they’d tease me about, but I wanted them to think that they couldn’t get to me. That they couldn’t hurt me. It wasn’t true, but at 11 what did I know, really? I remember one class, we a substitute and everyone else was being holy terrors. I had finished my assignment and was reading a book when the substitute came over and asked me to point out my name to him. I pointed it out and he thanked me.

At that school, we had a check system for the day. It’s been so long, I can’t remember how many checks it was but if you got more than two checks for bad behavior, you received detention. I was the only person in the classroom that day that didn’t get a check mark. Oh, you can imagine the insanity that happened. Someone tried to tell the teacher it wasn’t fair because I had spoken to him. I think that was the beginning of my true breaking point. They were willing to stoop that low? They wanted to hurt me that badly?

In seventh grade is when I began to cut. At first it was nothing more that little scratches because I was afraid my parents would find out and I didn’t want to hurt or upset them. In school, I would dig my fingers into the undersides of my arms with my arms crossed until I drew blood. It was the only way I knew how to keep myself under control. Seventh grade was also when I finally broke down and went to see the principal and accept Jesus into my heart. My thinking on that one was that I already believed he was in my heart, so what harm could it do?

Unfortunately, the principal announces to the school who has finally accepted Jesus and all I got were smug “I told you so” looks from the bullies. From that point on, I was a different person entirely. I was defiant, I didn’t care what they wanted me to do or who they wanted me to be. I purposefully did the exact opposite of what I was told to do simply because I was tired of trying. I had cried for so many nights and I had even gone to the principal about it and I was told that I just needed to conform and everything would be okay.

Once I left that school and entered high school, things were okay. I wasn’t bullied there, but the scars from the past remained with me. I made very little friends because I didn’t know who I could trust and who was going to hurt me all over again. I had people I was friendly with, but nothing that I would consider a true friendship. However in high school, the panic attacks started and for four years, I suffered silently because I was afraid there was something really wrong with me.

The attacks were random, but they all had the same common theme : death. I was so afraid of what comes after that I would end up hyperventilating, unable to breathe, crying, shaking, and sweating. If the Baptists are telling the Catholic they have it wrong, and the Muslims are telling the world that they have it wrong (I was a sophomore when 9/11 happened), then who was right?! I couldn’t handle the stress of not knowing. I tried researching and I realized that there were common themes in all religions but I still couldn’t find the answer that would calm my panic attacks.

The self mutilation got worse in high school. Or rather, maybe I should say it became more frequent. I was honestly afraid that I was downright mentally insane and I was going to be put in a mental hospital if I spoke a word of it to anyone. So I hid it and didn’t say a word. Every time I had a panic attack, I would bite my hands or my arms almost to the point of blood and then I would stop. For some reason, the pain centered me and brought my mind out of it’s panicky fog.

I remember one attack. I was sitting in religion class and I suddenly felt like … like I wasn’t in my own body. That feeling where your skin is all pins and needles and prickly and you can’t tell if this is real life or if you’re dreaming. Only my mind interpreted it as “HA! You’re not alive! You’re dead. This is death and you are trapped in this school forever!” I remember running from the classroom with permission to the nearest bathroom. I was so panicked and so shaken up that I began to vomit and couldn’t stop.

Once again, I turned to self mutilation to calm my brain down and when the shivers and shakes had finished, I washed my face, rinsed my mouth out and returned to class. My teacher looked horrified. My eyes were red from crying, my hair was matted down from being so sweaty. I gave her my best smile and told her that I wasn’t feeling well and since it was last period of the day, she told me to lay my head on my desk and rest.

From 2003-2008 I dealt with a lot of death. I lost a beloved aunt to ALS. We lost a wonderful family friend due to old age. I lost my grandfather in 2006 and the hardest one of all, my gran in 2008. She died of a massive and sudden heart attack. No one was expecting it and to this day, I go to pick up the phone to call her or send her an email. Luckily for me, in the summer of 2004, I had a panic attack so bad (I know that doesn’t sound lucky, but it really was) that my mom finally clued into the fact that something just wasn’t right.

I had been napping on the couch and had gotten overheated in the humid summer air. For some reason, heat is a huge trigger for me. If I get overheated and can’t cool down, a panic attack is guaranteed. That afternoon I had a dream that I was headed off to college (which I was. I went to RIC in the fall of 04) and while I was in my dorm, someone broke into my house and killed my family and when the cops came to tell me, the first thing they said was “The man came for you. If you had been there, your family would still be alive.”

That panic attack was so bad that I ended up in the ER two days later. I couldn’t stop crying, I couldn’t sleep, I felt like there was a rock lodged in my stomach. I lost 9 pounds in almost three days because of how horrible I felt. I remember, the day of the attack, my mom sitting with me on the couch and it finally all came pouring out. The six years of attacks, the reasons why, why I didn’t want to tell anyone, all of the reasons why I was so scared to be me. She called my pediatrician that day and we set up an appointment for three days later but ended up in the ER due to dehydration because I couldn’t keep anything down.

The doctor I was referred to was amazing. He was patient and kind and he listened to everything I said, everything I babbled out. Both of my parents were there at the appointment as support and he asked them questions as well as me. Both of my parents were surprised at the symptoms they had noticed but had assumed was normal adolescence. When we came out of the appointment, I had a sample box of Paxil to try and a slew of diagnosis.

I currently (as of the writing of this article in 2013) have been diagnosed with bipolar II, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder. Now, as a medical person myself, I do know that most of these are caused by imbalances in the brain chemistry. But what I also know is that the bullying that lead the onset of my panic attacks didn’t help. Would I have developed panic disorder anyway? Maybe. It’s certainly a possibility.

But I also know that when therapists and doctors ask me when all of this began, I can pinpoint it. I can say to them “It started in middle school and got worse through the years”. This isn’t a piece on who is right and who is wrong when it comes to religious beliefs. I consider myself agnostic now as I try and find the pieces of who I am and what I believe. This is a piece that I hope even just ONE person reads and realizes how serious and traumatizing bullying can be.

People take their lives because of bullying. I’m a lucky one. My parents are my rocks and without them, I don’t know what I would do. I know I’m lucky but there is one child out there, right now, who won’t be so lucky. I write you this story, this piece about my life, in the hopes that maybe someone won’t have to turn to suicide to feel better about who they are. We’re all amazing. We all have potential. We just need someone to believe in us.


 

Woman Hands Out Fat Shaming Notes to Kids so She's not Seen as the 'Mean Lady' -- Oh.

Perhaps by now you've seen this?

Now, you might this this is some spoof out to rile the social justice warriors. I admit, I wasn't sure at first. But no. This is a real note, courtesy of Cheryl from Fargo, North Dakota. In fact, here she is on y94 defending her decision.

The DJ asks her why she doesn't just give out healthy alternatives, and her reply is that she doesn't want to be the mean lady. So she'll give all the kids candy, and the ones she deems overweight will also be getting this incredibly well worded, and caring, note.

There are so many things wrong with this I hardly know where to start.

Let's first define "concern trolling" okay? Since apparently a lot of people don't seem to understand the concept.

Concern Trolling: "A person who posts on a blog thread, in the guise of "concern," to disrupt dialogue or undermine morale by pointing out that posters and/or the site may be getting themselves in trouble, usually with an authority or power. They point out problems that don't really exist. The intent is to derail, stifle, control, the dialogue. It is viewed as insincere and condescending." --Urban Dictionary

Now, this is a case of in real life concern trolling. The woman holds herself up to be helping the community by inserting a note which she finds to be "well-meaning" into those people's hands that she finds unhealthy. She has put herself into a dialogue that didn't exist, is controlling it, and wants to be seen as the good guy.

Here's why she can't do that:

1) It's none of her business. Halloween is an opt-in holiday. Think Halloween candy makes kids fatter and you can't stand it? Opt out. Leave your porch light off. It's as simple as that. Or as the DJ suggested, give out something you consider healthy. The kids won't care. They're there for the costumes and festivities. If they ever even do care about what kind of candy they got, it's long after the fact, and they won't even remember you. Repeat this to yourself: you are not that big a deal.

2) Parents have eyes. They can see their own children, they know what their children weigh moreso than even you do, and they have deemed it appropriate to allow their kids to partake in the collection of candy this year. They don't need you to tell them what they can see. They don't need you to tell them what they should do.

3) Collection of candy. That's as far as you see. For all you know that family is donating their stash this year. Or not. Not your business.

4) I happen to be a fairly thin, muscular woman--a woman some people would say is in great shape. I've  eaten four bags of Halloween candy in the past two weeks. Meanwhile, I know people struggling with their weight who have eaten nothing but wholesome, doctor-approved diets in that time. Point being, thin people do not represent healthy people necessarily. Those thin kids you're referencing in your note could have far worse diets and exercise than the ones you consider to be overweight.

5) Kids of trick-or-treating age are just coming into the stage where they learn about people like you, who will judge them for what they look like as opposed to for who they are. They've not yet built the walls of self-confidence around themselves, and reading a note like this could have a very definite and a very negative impact on them. They could accidentally allow you to define them. They could lose their sense of self and start judging who they are by what you think of them. They could then pattern this for years, becaoming more and more unhappy with themselves, always feeling inadequate, no matter how much they accomplish. These kids, they don't know you don't matter. So you have to act like you do. Because you might to them. And if that's the case, wouldn't you rather be the person who shored someone up when they were feeling insecure rather than pushed them down into the depths of self-doubt and worry?

In summation, here's a PSA. Happy Halloween, everybody! Remember this year to not be a total douchecanoe when handing out candy to the joyous children happy to be out and about and proud of their costumes.


 

My Son Was Bullied - Contributor Post

Alex Nguyen of Alex Nguyen Portraits speaks to an increasing problem as our children grow up. Bullying and what to do when it happens to your family.

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Last year, at the tail end of August, my husband and I casually talked to my son Samuel about school starting. We asked all the parent questions like, are you excited to see your friends? What are you looking forward to learning about the most? Anything that you want to talk to mommy and daddy about? He rattled off the expected answers such as, he was excited to see such-and-such friend; he wanted to know if he'd be able to check out such-and-such book during Library; and he wanted to see how much he'd grown against his buddies.

 

What we weren't expecting was his hesitation, and confession that he was scared, and worried about going back to school to see a specific classmate. At my son's school, he is in cooperative program where from first through sixth grade, he has the same classmates and they all move up together through elementary. So while it's lovely to know that he'll always be in the same class with his friends, this was the first time that we heard about him fearing a fellow classmate.

We talked to him about his concerns and fears, and he said that his classmate John* wasn't very nice. John was loud, disrespectful, mean to other kids, told lies, and not a rule follower. When Samuel was around John, it would make him feel anxious inside. I talked to my son about how sometimes kids don't know how to make friends, and they act mean because they don't know how to be kind. I told him about modeling kindness, including John in activities at recess, in games, and we brainstormed ideas on how he could interact with John to alleviate his concerns and fears before school started.

School started, and my husband and I checked in with Samuel to see how things were going daily. About three weeks into school, my son told me that John had hit him at recess. I asked him what were the circumstances, and basically they were playing a game. John was showing off and doing "karate moves", Samuel asked him to stop, John continued doing it and made physical contact with my son more than once. My son reported it to the playground supervisor, who followed up with John. I emailed my son's teacher at once to see her take on the situation. I got no response. I emailed again, and again, and left messages on the school voice mail. By this time, a week had passed since the initial incident, and my son came home to tell me that John had kicked him at recess again. He also mentioned that John had stolen stuff out of Samuel's desk, and taken Samuel's school stuff from his backpack. Just matter of fact, while he was telling me about his day.

This time, I emailed the teacher, I emailed the principal, and I went to the school to talk to the teacher. I asked my son if he had reported it to anyone, and he said he had told his teacher who said she didn't see it and wanted kids to "work it out" amongst themselves. For recess he had told the playground supervisor, but John had run away and hidden, so he wasn't sure what had happened. I finally cornered the teacher to set up a meeting time with me to specifically talk my concerns that maybe John was bullying Samuel.

Her responses to me: "I haven't seen anything, so it didn't happen" "It's never happened to me before in all my years of teaching" "Do you really believe the word of a seven-year-old boy?" "Well, I think the class is bullying John, not the other way around."

She wouldn't take my concerns that my son was being HIT BY A CLASSMATE seriously. She wouldn't take my concerns that maybe my son was being bullied by a classmate seriously. And she blamed my son. When we finally met up with the administration, two and a half weeks after the initial physical hitting incident, we were told that we could only discuss things moving forward, and we couldn't discuss anything that happened in the past.

To say that I was livid would be an understatement. The cherry on top of the under-responsive teacher and school administration sundae was that my son came home the day of our meeting to tell me that John had hit him again on the playground.

After calling the Vice Principal again, we had an action plan in place. But, I had to really advocate for my child, since his first line of defense, his teacher who should have been protecting him, would not believe him. She even marked him down on his report card, stating that my son had social issues and did not accept others' behaviors (because he would not get along with his bully in his classroom - even though he got along with everyone else, and was even chose as ASB representative for his grade).

The action plan we finally got in place for my son was this: my son and John had weekly separate meetings with the Vice Principal starting in October, and lasting through April. All adults in charge were made aware of the situation, and knew to at least acknowledge my son when he came up with them to tell them of John's behavior (a simple, "I hear your words" was all we were requesting from them). His teacher, parent volunteers, the P.E./Music/Librarians/Spanish teacher all knew. My son also had a daily check in with his teacher to make sure that things were okay.

I also starting volunteering in his classroom weekly to keep an eye out on things. My husband started volunteering during recess whenever possible to also check on things. It took a lot of effort, and a lot of pushing from us as parents to have the school take us seriously that this was a problem. As a parent, it is a nightmare when your child is being bullied and no one at your child's school takes your seriously.

My advice is to be persistent and document everything (emails, phone calls; make a spreadsheet if you need to of actions taken, who you contacted, if there was any follow up). Make your voice heard, even if the administration thinks you are overboard. Make sure there is an action plan in place for future incidents, and that EVERYONE knows it - playground supervisors, even substitute ones. Parent volunteers in the classroom. Teachers. Vice Principals. Everyone should know.

Changes can be as simple as making sure your child and their bully are not sitting at the same table group in a classroom. If the school doesn't take you seriously, check with your school district website. I found out that our school district actually had something called a Bullying Advocate for parents/students. This was a third person liason that would work with parents with resources, and give us ideas on how to approach the administration better. At the end of the day, you are the best advocate you have for your child, and you know what is right for them.

 




 

Ask a Teacher: What to Do About Bullies?

Now that school is back in full swing, you may be noticing some social problems you'd hoped you wouldn't have to deal with. Namely, bullying. Teacher Emilie Blanton from Teaching Ain't for Heroes gives advice on what parents can do about this common, but shitty, reality.

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Bullying is a huge issue in schools. It's been an issue. It will continue to be an issue. Bullying will involve your child at some point in their lives. I get so many questions about bullying, I decided to tackle several of them at once. Bullying is persistent, aggressive behavior that is meant to emotionally or physically harm another individual. Bullying takes on many forms, from passive aggressive insults to outright physical assaults. All forms are serious and dangerous and need to be stopped.

How do I keep my child from being bullied?

Unless you lock them in a bubble, there's no way to shield your child from bullies. Even if you homeschool your child, there's the park, birthday parties and the eventual real adult world filled with bullies to deal with. Someone is going to attempt to bully your child at some point. Bully-proofing your child is important. Building up your child's confidence is the first step. Give them a happy, safe home to come to. Encourage them to advocate for themselves. Teach them the difference between tattling and advocating. Be there for them. If their attempts to stand up for themselves fail, be there to back them up. Realize that sometimes they have to fight their own battles and always be an open, caring person for them to talk to. You can't protect them from everything, but you can give them tools to help keep them happier.

Help! My child is being bullied!

Again, teach your child to advocate. Approach the teacher first and let them know what you know. Be as specific as possible. "Little Johnny is making my daughter uncomfortable. He pokes her and pulls her hair. It needs to stop." Don't vaguely state that Little Johnny is bullying your child, say what exactly is going on. The more specific you can be, the better. This part is important. Not all teachers will take action. Make sure you are recording when you talked to the teacher and what was said. Email is perfect for this. If the bullying is still going on, move a level up and seek out a counselor or administrator. The next step after that is the school board. Record everything and be as specific as possible.

Remain calm as you talk to each person. It is hard. Your child is being targeted and it feels horrible. Be firm. Be confident. Hold your head up and demand respect for your child's well being. Screaming and yelling won't get anything done faster, but that might be what you want to do. It's okay to have a strong reaction to your child being targeted. Staying calm will help you remember everything you want to say. If you need to, when speaking to someone in person, bring notes or index cards with important information. There's nothing wrong with having reminders to help you. I go into meetings with notes and you can, too. If you get flustered, take a moment, breathe and begin again. Your child deserves to feel safe and it's okay if you need to take a little longer than intended to ensure that safety.

I've failed. My child is a bully.

You haven't failed. Not all bullies are budding sociopaths bent on tyranny and extra milk money. Bullies come in all shapes and sizes, from all types of families. Your child stumbled while learning to walk. They're going to stumble while learning to be a decent human being. Haven't we all?

If you are contacted about your child being a bully, don't go on the defensive. It's okay to be concerned. It's not okay to try to explain it away. Regardless of the reason your child may be bullying others, it does need to stop. If you explain it away to the teacher or administrator, you might start explaining it away to your child and they'll think the behavior is okay. Talk to your child. Impress upon them the importance of empathy. Remind them what it feels like when others are mean to them. Break out that old phrase "treat others as you'd want to be treated!" Just don't brush it off. Don't say "Well, kids will be kids." Yes, kids will be kids, but it is on us to make sure that they grow and develop into decent human beings capable of love and compassion.

The other parents are bullying me!

They probably are. I know people say that middle school is when bullying is the worst, but I'd posit adults are the worst bullies. There are mommy bullies, work bullies, frenemies and more. Hold your head up. Don't get sucked into the drama. It's hard to resist. I know. I've been there. Be a positive example to your child about how one deals with bullies. Be confident and avoid the people who cause the worst stress.


 

Play Therapy

D: "Will you play with me?"

N: "No, we don't like each other."

D: "Well, I like you."

N: "But I don't like you, so there."

D: "But why?"

N: "I don't like your hair."

D: "Why not?"

N: "It's not beautiful."

N: "Oh."

Dulce walks away. Natalina assume the role of the teacher.

N: "Dulce, what's wrong?"

D: "Nuffin."

N: "No, you're acting sad. What's wrong?"

D: "M and J don't like me."

N: "Oh, well, let me talk to them."

And on and on. And then over again. And again. Sometimes the "teacher" would get angry or sad. Other times, she would tell Dulce that it would be okay and go play with someone else.

It's cute right? It would be really cute if it were pretend. But it wasn't. The girls, with no prompting from me at all, and apparently no discussion ahead of time, they spontaneously broke out into this "game" recreating a very real event that had happened at preschool that morning.

M and J really did tell Dulce they didn't like her because her hair was dark and curly. And it messed her up a bit. My child is four. She doesn't need to hear about how her hair isn't beautiful.

Dulce told me and the teachers told me. I don't think they talked to the other parents, but that's okay. It's not a big deal, it's just kids being kids.

That didn't stop me from shooting a four-year-old child the adult death-stare of doom. Yeah, you heard me. Not above it.

Other than that, I just told Dulce that the girls were wrong about her hair, they probably just didn't know any better, and sometimes people just don't want to play with other people, and that's okay. I told her to seek out other friends who would be nicer to her when that happens. I didn't know what to do.

And my heart broke when this game started. This incident really resonated with the twins.

But as they went on, I became less sad and more fascinated. They were working through it. Over and over again, they worked through it until Dulce was satisfied with the solution.

And by the end, they were laughing and giggling away. Best of friends. Forever.

Perfection.

My kids.

 

The Mom Pledge - Guest Blog

Becoming Supermommy alerted me a while back to the Mom Pledge, an idea I really like and needed to know more about. She graciously agreed to write a post for me explaining the pledge and what it means to all of us.

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I’m not the creator of the Mom Pledge.  I’m just a mom, and a champion for it.  You see, there are bullies all over the place, we just don’t usually call them that.

I remember being a kid.  I was weird.  I was awkward.  I had huge hair, gigantic glasses, and a crooked smile.  I was a teacher’s pet, a know-it-all.  I never got in trouble, I always had my hand in the air.  My family were vegetarians, so I always had strange or exotic foods (by lunchroom standards) in my lunch sack, “Vruit” juice boxes and Baybel minis replaced Capri Suns and lunchables.  I was one of a half dozen Jewish kids in my whole school, and another two were my sisters.  In short, I was bullied mercilessly.

My parents would repeat, over and over, the same explanations for why I would come home from school heartbroken and miserable.  “Kids are mean,” they’d say.  “But one day they’ll grow up and stop being so mean.”  The implication was that bullying is a childhood phenomena, and that once you outgrow your childhood, you outgrow bullying.

Nowadays, I’ve resigned myself to the idea that I’m a grown-up.  I must be, after all I’m approaching 30 at a steady pace, I have children, I do a fairly good job behaving as a responsible member of society.  I don’t always feel like an adult, but for the sake of argument I’ll agree that I am.  And I’m still being bullied.

Not by other kids, but by other moms.

At first, this seemed absolutely absurd.  Adults?  Bullying each other?  Surely not!  But they do.

Each mother is fairly certain that what they’re doing for their child(ren) is the right thing to do.  Unfortunately, many mothers don’t leave it at that.  For many mothers, the choice by another mom to parent differently is an indictment.  And in their defensive angst, they attack.

Moms gang up and bully other moms for not homeschooling.

For vaccinating or not vaccinating.

For circumcising.

For choosing to hide the gender of their children.

For raising their children in a specific faith.

For NOT raising their children in a specific faith.

For what the feed or don’t feed their kids.

For how they dress their kids.

For what they name their kids.

For the way they gave birth.

For nursing too long or not nursing at all.

For watching some or no television.

For having a family structure they don’t agree with.

Every detail of parenting is personal, and therefore every parent takes the conversation about parenting personally.  And when you get personal, things can get ugly.

It’s said that you should never talk about religion or politics in polite company.  I would add parenting to that list.  It’s a hot button topic.

But the fact of the matter is that we DO talk about parenting.  The mommy blogosphere is HUGE- there are MILLIONS of moms across the world blogging about being a mom.  Blogging about their parenting choices.

And because the internet is perfect for connecting moms to other like minded moms, it’s easy to form a mob.  Easy to organize a few moms into a horde of enraged bullies who attack another mother until she shuts down her blog, changes her aliases, or abandons the blogosphere altogether.

And that is a terrible thing.

We don’t all have to agree.  I don’t know a single mom who hasn’t made a choice for their kids that I disagree with.  Not in the real world, and not online.  And that’s because we all have to make the choices that work best for OUR lives, for OUR families.  And the fact that we make particular choices does not give us the right to attack anyone else for disagreeing with us.

That’s why I took The Mom Pledge.  And that’s why I urge you to do the same.  Pledge not to allow your online space to be somewhere that people are attacked or attack others.  Pledge to facilitate conversations, not mobs.  Pledge to treat other moms, no matter what their parenting choices, with respect.

Because we’re all moms.  We all know how hard it is.  How much work children are.  How gratifying every milestone can be, how each step they take towards maturity makes you beam with pride and still breaks your heart.  How everything you do, you do to make sure that they have a good life.  A life at least as good as your own, but hopefully better.

That’s all any of us want for our kids.  Whether we vaccinate or not, circumcise or not, home school or not, no matter what we teach them about God or Science or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. 

Our kids grow up, they go into the world and have to make friends with other people.  And they pick up lessons we don’t even know we’re giving them.  If we, as moms, attack each other, our kids will learn to attack each other.  And so on.  But if we treat each other, always, with respect and consideration, our kids will not grow into bullies.  They’ll see that grown-ups do not engage in that awful behavior, and as they have since their earliest months, they will want to make us proud by being LIKE us.

So let’s be the best examples we can be.  Let’s stand together, despite all our disagreements, for an world that is an improvement over the world in which we grew up.  Let’s take The Mom Pledge together, support each other in the exhausting and difficult endeavor of raising children, and let’s put a stop to mommy bullying.

For more information, visit The Mom Pledge.

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Lea, aka Becoming SuperMommy, is a writer, painter, chef and costumer, dabbling in the all consuming chaos that is motherhood.  She and her husband try to maintain their happiness and harmony through an unceasing sense of the absurd.  The twin toddlers seem to help with that.  In a family where both parents are cancer survivors, both returning to school in the down economy, and both practicing different religions, they manage to keep things interesting enough that Lea never ceases to have something to share with her readers.  While still becoming, well, SuperMommy.

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Parent Your Kid

Have you ever stared down an 18 month old that you've never seen before in your life?  We went to the mall again this weekend.  Playland on a Sunday afternoon; every parent's worst nightmare.

The babies were playing on the slide.

I was standing right there because I'm simply not comfortable sitting all the way over on the side on the adult benches.  I think they are just too far away, and, in this instance, I was right.

A little girl, just two-thirds the height of my kids, walked right up to Dulce, and shoved her.  Dulce looked up at me - shocked - looked back at the little girl - wide-eyed - and back at me again.  By this time, I was on my knees, my arms around my baby, staring at the strange girl.  We locked eyes.

"Don't hit my kid," I said calmly but with a bit of grit, talking to a baby as if she were an adult.  "Don't ever hit my kid."

The strange girl was still looking at me when Dulce decided to tentatively push her back - a weak, ineffectual pat, that, nevertheless, forced me into action.

"Dulce, don't push her.  There is no pushing.  Ever."

At this point, there is a baby stalemate, and so I switch tactics.

"Can you give her a hug?  Let's hug."

The two babies are hugging with great affection by the time the other mother has gotten off the adult bench to take care of her kid.

"Tell her you're sorry," said the other mother.  The baby just looked at her.

"They've already hugged and made up," I said.  "It's okay."  What I meant, of course, was parent your kid so I don't have to parent her for you.

As the babies and I are leaving Playland, I see this girl push and topple over a little boy, and I laughed.  Bullying at 18 months; I couldn't believe it.

The moral of this story?  Always watch your kids closely.  If they're not pushing someone, they're being pushed, and if they're not pushing or being pushed, they're seeing it happen around them.  If we, as parents, don't step in and tell them what behavior is not acceptable, they'll never know.  Parent your kids, and everybody wins.