Isabella has been telling me about a little boy named [redacted] that is bullying her: telling her that he’s going to punch her in the face and other things whenever they are near each other in line, or on the playground. This has been happening almost daily, since school started. I just wanted to make you aware.
The Bella is being bullied. Above is a note that I wrote to Bella’s first grade teacher today, after getting some details that made my blood boil about the situation. Bella told me everything in a very matter of fact tone: she seems to not be bothered by her tormentor at all. I’d like to think that it’s because she’s a self assured kid that doesn’t let others get to her, but I think it’s moreso that she’s very trusting and believes that other children are like she is: caring and kind. She would never lay a hand on another child, never even say an unkind word to anyone, so to fathom somebody doing it to her is pretty impossible. God I wish the world wasn’t so screwed up and that she’d be able to float through life believing those things forever.
Now I’m angry as hell, but I will not interfere, of course. Hopefully the teacher will nip this in the bud immediately; I don’t believe in disciplining other people’s children no matter what, unless they are being a danger to themselves or others and I don’t envy her job at all. I just don’t understand though, how do people tolerate this sort of behavior from their children? Isn’t it the parents’ job to prevent this sort of thing? To stamp out all signs of this sort of behavior as soon as it prevents itself? Have we so little control of the people that we are bringing into the world and letting loose on society?
I’m not raising bullies. In some houses, siblings hitting each other and yelling is normal. Not in my house it’s not. Bella has hit her sister one time, in their entire lives. As soon as Goobie was old enough to understand that her temper tantrums weren’t going to fly when they got physical, I started to work it into her as well. Now, the worst my girls will say to each other is “you’re playing mean!” and that’s it. Sometimes they will hit each other playfully, during games, but if I see it they get in trouble for that as well – it will only lead to someone hitting someone too hard and things getting serious, so no. I don’t allow it. I won’t stand for it. They don’t get away with it at home and they’d damn sure better not take it to school. I guess that’s more than can be said about this kid and children like him, excluding those suffering from developmental issues and what not, but no matter what I may assume about the way this little boy has been raised – it’s not my place to do anything more but talk to the teacher (but that’s not going to stop me from fantasizing about drop kicking that little mother fucker).
How dare he pick on MY Bella? Look at that face! I know I’m partial because she’s mine but really – ask anyone who has met her – she is the sweetest child. She’s just nice. Just nice. I can guarantee you that she’s done absolutely nothing to deserve this kid’s crap and I’m not buying that bullshit her dad told her about this being his way of flirting with her because I don’t care and even if it is I don’t want her to get used to the idea that boys that like you will hurt you because holy shit look where that got me. I don’t know what will happen if he actually does put a hand on my baby. I don’t want to think about it because if there is one thing in the world that makes me lose my temper and do things that I shouldn’t, it’s when I feel that my children might be adversely affected by something.
Bah, I can’t finish this post. I’m mad. I’m fucking pissed. If your kid has been bullied, feel free to tell me about it, maybe give me some advice.
*Alternate title: I don’t have any tolerance for other people’s mean ass children, especially when it involves them being mean to mine.
by Maria on August 25, 2010
in Self
I’ll be 26 years old. Yes, another birthday.
If you’ve been reading me for a bit, you know that I don’t really care for my birthdays. I didn’t like turning 24. I didn’t even really acknowledge turning 25. They stopped being fun when I turned 21, and even that one wasn’t all that spectacular because I don’t drink and I’m not a fan of clubbing so what was the point? The thing is that no matter what I’ve accomplished I always feel like the year swept by with me just standing in one spot. My daughters grow (The Bella’s first day of 1st grade is today), my life changes but me – me - I am the same, every birthday. That’s how I feel even though I realize it’s not really true. Especially this year – I have grown quite a bit this year, in a few different ways. I let go of a lot of things (and people) that were holding me back. I embraced some things that terrified me. I decided that it was alright to try to let go of the image I hold of myself, the person that I believe I have to be in order to survive.
I’m going to celebrate turning 26. I’m not going to cringe every time someone forces a “happy birthday” on me, or gives me a gift*. I’ll smile and welcome it all. Hating it isn’t going to stop it from coming. Getting old and wrinkly is going to suck so hard, and I can see the signs of aging in my face (no wrinkles or gray hairs yet though) and it makes me so very sad, but it’s inevitable unless I die first and I really don’t want to do that either so…lesser of two evils, I guess. There’s still so much I have to do before I feel like I can stop existing and have led a fulfilled life. I’m working on it, as usual.
*That means I’m totally accepting what you’re giving. I like money, especially.
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Listening to: Childish Gambino – So Fly
by Maria on August 5, 2010
in Guests
This is a rented post from Ashley, who asked to use my blog to do some much needed venting.
This is stupid. Never have I ever had my blood boil so much by one, stupid, fucking person.
If I could write this on my own blog, I would, but you stalked my blog. Visiting 4 to 5 times a day, I guess looking for any reference to me and him. I think fighting over guys is one of the stupidest things a woman could do, but for you to have the fucking audacity to come to me and ask if I “had a problem” with you really set me off because he told you how I felt about you.
Koree–you are a fucking bitch. There are no other words to describe it.
I have only dealt with one person who could ever compare to you in regards to the ruthless way you fawn after a man who already has his eyes on what he wants. How many times does he need to tell you that he’s in love with me before the message goes through? How many more times will you write subliminal messages to me where you add your slick endings “if you think it’s to you, it is–Bitch.”
It’s cute…but in a pathetic fashion. I sunk down to your level once. Calling you out as the girl who just wants what she can’t have. The gil who walked out of his life years ago and then tried to prance back in when she realized what she lost. The girl who has the gall to continue to say that “all you need is right here” when you know damn fucking well that he wants nothing that you’re offering you dried up slut.
I want to say all these things to you.
It kills me because I just wanted to be your friend. Tried to be calm and sweet with you when we first interacted, even encouraged you in your romantic endeavors hoping that you weren’t referring to him but knowing from the very beginning that he was your aim.
Stay in your goddamn lane you trifling ass homewrecking bitch. I am tired of having arguments with him about shit you say and continue to say because it’s “your damn blog” and I have tried to be nice about it, but I’ve now had to go as far as creating a new place to write to stay away from your psychotic, obsessed ass.
Get out of OUR fucking life.
Please and thank you.
by Maria on July 26, 2010
in Self
No, not that movie with Mark Wahlberg playing the incredibly hot psycho opposite Reese Witherspoon and Gil Grissom. Shit, remember that roller coaster scene? OH MY GOD it set my little adolescent hormones all a flutter when I first watched it. Yeah, this is not about that.
One day, I’m going to die.
Maybe it’ll be a car accident, or a stray bullet, or a aneurysm, or maybe I’ll just get old and fade away. That’s fine, I guess. I’ve never been one to fear much of anything, not even death. It’s never even made me intensely uncomfortable in the way that the ocean at night does, or roaches and bridges do. There is something as enticing as it is frightening about the void, the unknown. It’s hard to think about one day…not existing. About how there will be lives lived after I’m no longer here, about the descendants I may have that I will never meet. Contemplating your own mortality can be a pretty tough thing to do, but I’ve done it. After you get past the whole, you know, dying thing, it’s not so bad. It’s actually a pretty fascinating bit of introspection.
Anyway, one day I’ll be dead and there is no way to know what happens after that. My common sense tells me that nothing happens. That I am just no more, that I am as unaware of life – of what living means – as I was before conception. My ashes will scatter somewhere, or maybe sit on a shelf in the living room of one of my daughters that can’t let me go. Maybe someone will roll me into a blunt and smoke me like The Outlawz did 2Pac. Whatever happens, I’ll not know, because I won’t be. Yes, that’s what my logical thoughts lead me to believe.
Yet, I am afraid of going to hell. Yes, I am an Atheist: I do not believe in hell. However, I am also Agnostic: I do not know if there is a hell. What if there is?
Christianity planted a silent seed in my mind when I was a child: that if you don’t do what you’re told you will displease the most important and only omnipotent authority figure in your life and He will burn you to death as punishment for your transgressions. After, of course, you stand in front of Him and He reads from His book to you exactly what those sins are, and even though you beg for mercy and another chance, He will cast you back down to Earth and rain fire down on you, and you will try to hide but there will be no where to go, no escape. You will burn with the rest of the wicked, with sociopaths and unrepentant psychos – with Lucifer himself – because all sins are equal, and so is the punishment.
As preposterous as that all might be to me – it. is. terrifying. – and that why I’m so against introducing religion to my daughters at a young age. Here I am: almost 26 years old and because of my upbringing, the only thing in the world that I fear is something I don’t even believe in.
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Listening to: Dead Man’s Bones – Lose Your Soul
I wasn’t raised by my mother. She turned legal guardianship of me over to my grandparents when I was two years old, and they had been raising me long before that. For all of my childhood and most of my adolescence she lived thousands of miles from me and I called her by her first name. She never called to speak to me, she rarely visited, and gifts were few and far in between. She wrote me a letter once, when I was eleven, after my grandmother had told her I’d been getting in trouble at school. I read it up until the line that said “You will not be 12 years old forever…” then I immediately crumpled it up and threw it away, thinking she doesn’t even know how old I am.
Today, she has this habit of telling me how I was when I was a little girl.
We talk about potty training and she reminisces about how I was potty trained quickly and never had an accident. I wet the bed until I was about ten years old. She goes on and on about how my brother was behaviorally difficult from the time he entered preschool but I never was that way. I was kicked out of preschool for being such a terror. She talks to me about discussions she had with me, lessons she taught me, and none of it happened. The only memories I have of her from when I was a child are of her fighting my brother’s father and the time she came to North Carolina to visit with a bunch of our family and acted like she wanted nothing to do with me.
I don’t argue with her, I usually just nod or stare incredulously at her. I wonder if she has really convinced herself that these things actually happened. I wonder if all parents do this, if they claim memories that don’t really exist. On more than one occasion I’ve wanted to say “um, I think you are confused. I can count how many times I saw you when I was growing up on one hand.” but I don’t. I ignore it, or I talk to my grandparents and they shake their heads and mutter things like “delusional” and “crazy” and “off her rocker“. I think the three of us find it more amusing than anything else.
I asked her once, when I was a teenager, about her giving me up but keeping my younger brother and sister. She spouted off some nonsense like “you wanted to live with them, I asked you and you told me and they poisoned your mind against me“. She’ll never admit anything that would make her look like anything but a victim, and I had a wonderful childhood – much better than the one she could or would have given me – so what purpose would dredging up the past serve? I leave it be. That dog’s not just sleeping – it’s dead.
I’m grateful that unlike my mother, when my children are older, I won’t have to make up any stories about them. I’ll have real ones.
*It should be “let sleeping dogs lay” shouldn’t it?
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Listening to: Michael McDonald – I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)
