A very close friend of our family has a young daughter who lost her eye to a rare type of cancer about a year ago and the eye was replaced with a prosthetic one. This has been a very trying ordeal not only for the little girl, but also for the entire family and their close friends. She is a very brave young lady and considering everything she had to endure through all this, her courage is leaps and bounds ahead of what most people have to muster up their entire lives. She came home from school on Thursday and told her mother that "her eyes were creepy". When asked where she had heard that come from, the answer was the kids at school had told her so. Now you know why I'm on my soapbox today.
Now I know that younger children can make innocent comments without understanding what they have said or done, but we all know that children can be very very cruel, and very often this stems from their upbringing at home where they are not taught to be kind to others in general, but are even less educated about the way to always treat someone who has a disability or defect, which should always be handled with the greatest of care and love. This responsibility comes back to the parents, the grandparents and even the older siblings of the family and it is their responsibility to correct and counsel the children in the home to be sure that they grow up with the understanding of how painful and hurtful they can be to someone who has to live in this world with physical or emotional problems and are being continually teased and put down because of their condition. You as a parent are responsible for your children's actions. I know....the government wants you to think it is their responsibility to raise the children, but it's not! You conceived and bore these children, it is your responsibility to see to it they are brought up to act like human beings, not animals.
One of my best friends growing up till I was the age of 12 before we were relocated due to my fathers job, was mentally challenged. He had many issues and it took a lot of patience to be around him, but no one else wanted to take on that responsibility so I did. I look back on that time in my life and I am grateful that had the opportunity to be his friend and that my parents taught me to be kind and loving and that they supported me in being friends to this young man. No, it was not easy and I took heat from other kids who knew I hung out with him, but I was a very large kid and my friend did not suffer at the hands of those who felt they were superior to him and I was big enough to take any ridicule that was sent my way for being his friend..
All too often in school, kids are very mean and degrading to others, be it their clothes, their looks, their being a little slow, a limp, a defect or a variety of other things. It is known as bullying. A bully typically will punch or push you, knock you down, take your milk money or stick your head in the drinking fountain. Mental cruelty is just as damaging if not more so, it goes beyond a bruise or a bump, it goes right to the heart of the matter....literally! A bullier should be dealt with by the schools and their security people immediately, but this is hardly ever the case. It seems that everyone is too afraid to do what is right!~ Immediate suspension is the first step, if that does not work, removing the bully from the school and having the parents find a school that deals with and handles these types of children is the second and last step. A friend of mine runs such a school that is geared to handle just these types of children of all ages. Bullies need to be placed in this type of an environment..
Why do you think that there are so many shootings these days? I personally think these kids that are walking into schools and killing innocent children because they are tormented angry individuals who are repaying what they consider to be a debt owed them. This is of course, insanity and there is no call for it, but our society seems to be breeding this type of behavior more and more as time goes by.. Of course society wants to blame the guns for the problem, but that's like me saying the scissors I was using yesterday became possessed and got up and stabbed me in the hand. Inanimate objects do not inflict pain or death on people all by themselves, it requires someone to control them!
I remember several times during my years in school where a bully or bullies had gone too far and no one kid was big enough to handle the situation by themselves, so the bully, or bullies, were taken on by a group of kids who gave him a really good reason to pull out of the bullying business. Nowadays, a child who attempts to defend themselves, either as an individual or as a group will be subjected to harsher punishment than the bully themselves. I intervened many times in my life to help someone who was being tormented or beat up by someone who felt the need to make themselves look like a real hot shot. I was always taught as a boy that I was not to fight, probably because of my size, and I was always pretty good about not fighting unless someone else started it or when I saw something happening to someone else and I knew I could stop it.
I just learned of a situation at the school where one of our grandchildren attends. A mother went to the school in an attempt to get a bully to leave her son alone.....the schools response....well, lets just say It left the mother in tears and in fear for her child's safety. This is wrong at so many levels. The principal of the school is responsible for every child's safety while they are attending, if he or she cannot control or correct the problems, they need to be replaced. We have become a nation of self righteous, judgmental, entitled blithering idiots who are not willing to maintain a safe environment for our children or even ourselves. Too many are afraid to get involved or to do what is necessary to turn wrong into right. The legal system is just as guilty as it is nothing more than a giant lottery and creates a perfect means by which people feel they can obtain great sums of money for themselves and this is all because the liberal agenda has convinced a majority of the population that they should be getting something for nothing and the sheep are all baaing for a free cell phone.
Law enforcement has become a joke, cities and counties profit to the fullest extent through law enforcement, as law enforcement has become nothing more than a revenue generator for the city or county in which they work. They are too busy collecting revenues to be bothered with much else. I personally know of a small town in mid California that thrives on and creates all it's income through speeders and traffic violations, the highway is one giant speed trap and they are especially fond of nailing truck drivers. (No I am not a truck driver) You cannot even get through to a live person when calling into the court, the recording tells you to pay the fine. If you do show up to the court to protest your ticket, you can rest assured that at least 100% of the time you will be judged guilty and the fine goes up. Bullying at a state level.....the same idiots that people expect to raise their children.
I was walking home from school one day when I was in the 4th grade and one of the neighbor kids who was in the 6th grade, and was a known bully, came along and started chasing 2 little girls who lived over on the next block. He caught one of them and was taking her over to toss her in a huge puddle of water. I intervened, freed the little girl and took the kid down to the ground so they could run home without him chasing them. Now I tell you all this for a reason, because I was pulled out of class after lunch by the principal and accused of trying to hurt the little girls who were standing there in the hallway next to their mother. The little girls both at the same time yelled that it was not me who was chasing them, it was me that saved them from the other kid and kept him down while they headed for home. Evidently, the other kid when confronted told the principal that it was me who was doing the chasing, not him. I was absolved of the crime but was sent to the office to wait for the principal. When she finally got to the office, she closed the door behind her and gave me some very sound advice that I have adhered to my entire life. "The company you keep" she said, "will determine what could happen to me in life". She proceeded to explain that being somewhere with someone who elects to do something wrong would put me in the same boat through association. I explained to her exactly what had happened and she was totally supportive of me and my actions and my willingness to protect the little girls, but wanted to make sure I understood exactly what could happen if I was to choose to hang around with boys like this kid I had taken on. I have never forgotten those words and have continued to stick my neck out many more times in my life to help someone in need or to protect my family and friends, but I have also been very careful about the friends I have and the company I keep. This situation the principal discussed with me is really not any different than if a child is hanging around with a group of other children who spend recess and lunch time out on the playground chanting and taunting one of the other children for their own amusement. Even if "your child" is not participating in the tormenting, they are just as guilty because they were there. Children need to understand that it is not alright to hang out with these types and that they will eventually find themselves in the same trap as those who are doing the instigating. Teach your child to report the problem to the office and make sure you are contacting your child's school and demand that they deal with the bullying issues with an iron fist.
A child who's spirit is broken because they are not accepted into the group of children they attend school with, or live and play with in your neighborhood not only struggles emotionally, have feelings of isolation and depression because they are not popular and treated like the other kids, but it can over time create an even worse situation as time rolls on. I'm talking about suicide. Something that has grown to epidemic proportions in this country, especially among teens. I won't even go into how many people I have known personally that have committed suicide over my years on this planet, that is an entirely new subject, but suicide is real and it is taking control of more and more people these days because they feel it is their only escape. Results in a lot of suicide cases can be traced back to a child's younger life, one of being an outcast, the brunt of other kid's jokes and giving the child every reason to feel that moving out of this world is in their best interest. How would you feel if you were the cause of another person taking their own life??? How about the mother who created the MySpace hoax where a 13-year-old who suffered from depression and attention deficit disorder, corresponded with a make believe boy that a neighboring mother had created named Josh. The hoax went on for more than a month and then abruptly "Josh" ended the friendship by telling her he had heard she was cruel. The next day the 13 year old girl committed suicide, she hung herself in her bedroom. Her family learned later that Josh never actually existed; he was created by members of a neighborhood family that included a former friend of the girls. My gosh, how could you live with yourself knowing that you had caused an innocent 13 year old to commit suicide or anyone else for that matter!
I lost a business partner a couple of years back to suicide and it all stemmed from people who were pushing him around and taking advantage of his weakness and physical defects. He was born with Muscular Dystrophy and his legs were in very bad shape and he was in a great deal of pain his entire life. He was an odd looking little man who was a giant in the world of business, but could not have punched his way out of a paper bag. He was a giving soul, one who cared greatly for others. He was never married and had no children, but he devoted a lot of time, energy and money to help those he knew who had children to help them. One of the kids he sponsored over many years actually became a driver for one of the big racing teams in NASCAR because of all the effort and funding that was extended to him to help him achieve a dream..
But one day something happened when he became unknowingly involved with a very angry and volital man who ran him monetarily and physically into the ground and put his life in jeopardy. The intense fear and threats that were instilled into my friend were something he could not live with and thus on a dreary December day, he took his own life. When I found his twisted body on the floor of his office apartment, I cannot tell you how I felt that day, it is something you have to experience to understand, but I realized that his struggle was over as he was no longer in pain or in fear for his existence. He sadly took care of it in the only way he knew how. Even though I fought hard to keep him moving in a positive direction, I ultimately knew that something was coming and that there was nothing anyone was going to be able to do to stop it.. He was 50 years old upon his death, age is not a factor when it comes to taking advantage of people weaker than yourself, it happens to people of all ages!!
I hope everyone who reads this will take a moment to reflect on how you have, or are currently, raising your children. It is important that parents talk to their children and emphasize how important it is to treat everyone with kindness and love, especially those who cannot stand up and defend themselves against such ridicule. I feel it is important that teachers explain in great detail to their students what a child is going through and how important it is for them as a class to always be there for these types of children to watch over them and be their friends and help them along life's road. Those who feel the need to treat others wrongly should be shammed to tears for their actions and avoided.. I have had many, many experiences with children and people who have come into this world with issues that cause them to be neglected and mistreated, and I cannot express to you how much love I feel for these special spirits who spend their time on earth fighting a bigger uphill battle than any one hundred thousand normal people combined could ever even dream of. experiencing throughout their entire lives!!
Wake up America.....it's time to take the bull by the horns and dropkick those who feel the need to create an environment of superiority for themselves, and return the "Consequences for ones actions" back into our society. I want you to know, that if what I have written here has offended you....that's too damn bad and I suggest you start paying attention, because you haven't got a clue and it's way past time you got one!
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