I hated school as a kid.
Hated it so much, that when the new school year hits every year, I still get anxiety.
From a young age I learned to hate school.
Was skipping as much as I could.
It got bad.
I was bullying my mom into letting me stay home because I had a lot going on in my head, and I couldn’t deal with school.
I only made it harder on mom and me, and that just wove a tapestry of fear and depression for us both.
I was bullied.
But the biggest bully was me.
I was a wreck.
It got bad enough that the school had to intervene to save me from myself. As much as I hated school, I need to remember what they did for me and what the guidance counselor did. Quite honestly, they saved me.
Now I find myself feeling familiar anxiety and worry now that my daughter is in Kindergarten. She is outgoing, silly, sweet, and has such a huge heart. She is a distillation of everything that makes up me and her mom. She makes friends easily and is so clever.
But that heart of hers.
Today she was in tears over two bullies at school. Boys who are loud, and acting mean, and making her scared.
It makes me angry and frustrated.
I have to remember, though, that these boys are going through something too. They aren’t handling it in a healthy way, but something is going on that makes them act this way.
Something is broken in bullies, and the longer they are allowed to bully, the longer they aren’t dealing with whatever demons are in them, the worse they get. The meaner and more violent.
I don’t want my daughter to get like I was, afraid of school and the kids there.
She has to go on her own journey, but we’re going to do whatever we can to help and support her. Hoping it’s enough.
It’s scary to think of every last awful thing that can happen to your kid. To think of the future heartbreaks, heartaches, and mistakes. To think of the awful things she’ll go through because we all go through them, in our own ways. It’s what makes us who we are. You have to go through these things, or you’ll never survive the things the world will put you through.
We are at a scary, dangerous point in history, and we have to prepare our kids to fight and to keep fighting, because they deserve this world and deserve to be as happy as they can be.
It kills me that my daughter has to go through these things. That so much darkness is ahead of her, but that’s why we have to work to make them strong, and resilient, and loving, and daring. This world needs more love, because we’re seeing the costs of the hate that’s allowed to run rampant right now. That doesn’t mean she has to turn the other cheek and let the world harm her, but that she needs to survive the worst, to overcome it, so she can find who she is and what she wants in life.
I have known too many who checked out of life, ran from it, or became the monsters that haunt other people. It’s so easy to give in to the nastiness of this world, to let it crush you, and make you into someone you wouldn’t choose to be.
So we fight.
And we instill that fight in our kids.
And we hold their hands as they step into that darkness until they are ready to face it alone.
And then we hope that we’ve done enough to arm them with light to battle against what lies ahead.
And me, I still hate school.
…c…
