Categories: uncategorized
Date: 27 October 2007 14:25:11
I was vicariously bullied.
That's overstating it, to be fair, but the brief exchange cut me very deep. I was with Cambuslang, him riding his bike, in our local park. Passing the children's play area we noticed a couple of his classmates dangling on the climbing frame. And they both shouted in chorus that Cambuslang still had stabilizers on his bike, and one of them said "and my bike is much better than yours". Yes, to be fair, Cambuslang does still have stabilizers, and some of his classmates don't need them any more. So I suppose at least now I have a more serious incentive to work on his balance and take the stabilizers off the bike. But the "my bike is better than yours" comment really pulled me up short.
My first reaction was the rationalists' one, to think what sort of bike this classmate had, and to objectively judge Cambuslang's bike. And then to wonder on what grounds one could say that the other kid's bike was better. At which point I realized the futility and the missing-the-point-ness of this line of thought. We could have gone to every shop in town and chosen the swankiest, coolest, funkiest and most expensive bike in the entire universe. And still that turd would have said that his bike was better. Because it's nothing to do with the bike. It's another of those damnable confidence tricks. That little sod has the confidence to say "mine's better than yours" without thinking, without it even entering his tiny mind to consider, how his bike might actually and factually compare with Cambuslang's.
It's a rhetorical device (after all, what can you respond - "no it's not" is a rather pathetic reply) borne out of an excess of confidence. Yes, it's also designed to knock the other person down emotionally, and you could argue that that displays a lack of confidence - people with genuine self esteem don't need to bully others - but that's only half the story. It really displays a confidence and is ultimately one of those pointless taunts "I'm taller than you" that makes a virtue out of something beyond the control of either participant. Because of that it shouldn't bother us - why should such an absurd boast/taunt have any effect on us? But it does.
I think what really depressed me about the whole event was the realization that I'd been kidding myself. Kidding myself that Cambuslang needn't have as miserable a childhood as mine, needn't spend his whole time at school trying to avoid the bullies, that the folk around him would be nicer than those around me at school, that he would be better equipped and better able to cope with what difficulties his schoolmates would throw at him. That he might even, dare I say it, enjoy some of his childhood? In those brief moments in the park all those delusions fell away, and I was faced with the responsibility for him suffering just what I had. The responsibility for blindly leading him into a series of traps when I should have been looking out for them and taking avoiding action.
Most of the time we can safely consider murderers to be completely different, mentally, from us. We can separate them and feel smug that "I would never do that". Child-murderers are even more repugnant but, consequently, even more safely distant from us - we're nothing like them - they're nothing like us. In the sleep-deprived 2a.m.s of a child's first months a parent might learn that actually the wall separating "them" from "us" is paper thin. When the child has been crying for hours on end and nothing will stop the wailing, when the parent cannot remember the last proper sleep they had, at that point the thought might enter the parent's head that there is one sure way of finally stopping the wailing. That would be a hideous moment for the parent, and usually the realization of what they had just thought would provoke a flood of love for the child. That flood will wash away those evil thoughts and help the parent to get through the rest of the night. But they'll know those thoughts were there, and they'll be that much more ready to think "there but for the grace of God go I" when reading of parents who murder their children. And similarly when your child suffers, and a vision opens up of a life for that child containing almost endless suffering, then you just might find your mind entertaining the thought of murder and suicide. And then, when you next read of parents who kill themselves and their children, you might read with just a little more humility, understanding and, just a hint, possibly, of forgiveness. And possibly alongside the forgiveness for others you'll feel a fear of yourself, and an earnest prayer for forgiveness for yourself.