I am going to take a moment away from the usual. A Facebook friend, an acquaintance from high school days, was wondering why kids are so mean. I offered the opinion that kids are no more mean today. In fact, I said that we were quite cruel to one another. I also offered that I have learned from my wife that girls are actually far worse than boys in enforcing social strata during adolescence (how did I miss that?).
An interesting thing that I am constantly curious about is something called "high school hangover". There are people who escape from high school with so many scars from the teasing they received it sometimes seems their entire adulthood is a war against those who treated them so poorly. Funny thing is, if I was honest enough, I could very easily fall in to this trap. For whatever reason, up until I was, oh, a sophomore or junior in high school, I received quite a bit of ill-treatment from my peers. Nothing horrific, typical stuff - knocking books on the floor; I was once pantsed outside the junior high locker room (actually, I think that one is kind of funny, although only in retrospect); typical teasing about any kind of physical difference (in my case, red hair) - and with the advantage of hindsight, I really don't take any of it seriously. I just view it as kids being, well, kids.
Did it bother me at the time? I can't answer that question with any clarity, because, at 44, I am so far removed emotionally and in time and space from my adolescence that any honest evaluation of my emotional responses is impossible. I encounter a whole lot of people in my life, however, who have high school hangover. They burn with resentment at this or that slight, perceived or real. They carry grudges, remember their small victories, and, for the most part, run their lives as a reaction to whatever social ostracizing they received in high school.
I guess I view it all differently. For one thing, I have had a rich, full life in the quarter century since high school. I've lived in a variety of places, including fulfilling a childhood dream of living in the nation's capital. I got to know and can call friends people from all over the country, in a wide variety of occupations, with a wide variety of backgrounds, who live a wide variety of lives. I consider myself extremely blessed by my family, in particular my children, who teach me every day how safe it is to just act silly, to laugh at nonsense, to enjoy being alive. I live close enough to America's "Second City" to enjoy the benefits of that closeness without having to deal with the hassles.
Furthermore, as I have been in touch with childhood acquaintances, several of whom I first met in elementary school, I am so happy at how different our lives have turned out. Even those who have a rough road are still traveling down it, no small feat all things considered. With all the adolescent crap and baggage out of the way, with no pressure to be anyone other than ourselves, we can catch up on our lives, get to know each other's families and children. We have reached the relatively safe-harbor of early-middle-age and domesticity intact and can enjoy the fruits of life without needing to prove anything to one another.
Another thing to keep in mind; all of us, even the coolest of the cool kids, that good-looking guy who seemed so serene and self-confident, that girl whose face was clear of acne and had her pick of the best boys in school - we all were going through the same anxieties, the same fears and frustrations, suffered the same bouts of self-doubt, and even (horror of horrors!), worried what others thought of them. One thing I try to pound in to the head of my older daughter, who is just starting her journey in to adolescence, is all of us go through it together. There is a sense of solidarity, I guess, the idea that we are all in this thing together. Even the most cocksure jock, the most self-confident young cheerleader/student council President, alone in his or her room at night, lies there and wonders "Am I good enough? Who am I, anyway?"
So, while I try to avoid rose-colored contact lenses as I look back, I guess I don't worry all that much about something this or that person said or did to me back in the dim, dark days of 1979 or 1983; there was more than enough good, more than enough friends, and certainly more than enough laughter and sheer joy to make up for the occasional nincompoop who could only assert his or her social standing at the expense of another.
My older daughter is like me in many ways. Shorter than most of her classmates, she is only now, at 12, starting a serious growth spurt (I keep telling her that I didn't have mine until I was a sophomore; she has an advantage being a girl that way). She also, like me, wears her heart on her sleeve, and is easily hurt by the casual nonsense of other kids. In the fourth grade, for example, some kids were calling her "shrimp" because she was so short. She came home crying one day, and asked for advice. I told her to look those kids in the eye and say, "You know what? I may be short, but you're ugly and I'll grow!" (shameless theft from Winston Churchill). My daughter is much more kind-hearted than I am now or ever was, and said, "Dad, I can't say that!"
You know what? She's right. First of all, that's stooping to their level. For another thing, that kind of thing isn't "mean"; like a small set of girls who spent last year reminding Moriah that she is "skinny" (I keep telling her that , first off, she is thin not skinny; second, this isn't exactly an insult), it might just be jealousy. I do believe she needs to toughen up a bit, and not take those occasional slings and arrows too hard.
After all, her teen years will end, and her life will be rich and full of all sorts of things that come after. Don't brood on the silly things people say and do.
