My nephew is the coolest little dude I know. I am not just saying this because I love him. He is funny and creative. But I was just as perplexed as he was when he walked in my room moping because his friend in his kindergarten class, we will call her G1, called him ugly! My heart sank. He looked so sad, and I was furious. First of all, he is not ugly! Second of all, I was triggered. I had the same face all the way through high school when my peers would say something mean about me. He then said he didn't want to go to school because of it which really pissed me off! We all know the stats: if little Black boys don't develop a love for school early, they will probably drop out before finishing. I couldn't stand the thought of it!
"You are not ugly," I assured him. He looked like he believed me about as much as I believed my grandma when she would tell me I wasn't ugly. He probably was thinking what I used to think which was, "If I am not ugly, why would they say I am?" I explained to him that some people say mean things and that he should not let what they say get to him because what they say isn't true. I could tell he wasn't buying it.
Then, just yesterday morning, I put out his new outfit for him to wear to school that he was excited about. Yet, after he put his pants on, he was not happy.
"I don't want to wear these," he complained.
"Why not? They are new!"
"G2 made fun of my other pants," he said, shoulders slumped.
All of a sudden, it was 1992 again, and I was sitting in class trying not to hear the kids laughing at the clothes that I had on and again, I was furious!
"No one is going to like my pants!" he whined.
"It is not about if everyone else likes your clothes, it is about if you like your clothes," I told him, stuffing him into his coat to go to the bus stop. Wow. That one was one of my grandma's greatest hits.
Then I thought about my mother. She was always encouraging me to be tough and stand up for myself, and I just wasn't. Eventually, as much as I loved school, I hated to go. Hated the way I looked. Hated being seen. And when that got overwhelming, I became just as mean as everyone else.
As dramatic as it may sound, bullying is a big reason why I didn't want kids. I didn't want to have a kid that would just be a punching bag for the other kids, or worse, be the kid that was doing the punching. Bullying was a HUGE part of my childhood that I didn't want my kid to experience to the point that I didn't want one at all. Now here is my 5-year-old nephew, learning about the sting of cruelty as we have raised him with love and kindness. It's not fair!
"Tell him, 'F$ck dem kids!" P suggested. As crazy as that would be for a child to say to another child, it was honestly what I was thinking and what I have gone back and told childhood me as she got roasted on the playground by obnoxious little a-holes.
I think that I am going to call his teacher. This is something that neither my grandma nor mother would have done. But there has to be a middle ground between being too passive and being too harsh. For me, I feel like that is adult intervention. I'm not going to let the kids burn my nephew's self-esteem as they did mine so many years ago.
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