I don't have children. But I grew up around them.
I'm not a parent. But I grew up around them.
Is bullying someone's fault? Shitty children? Shitty parents?
When I was in junior high the girl down the street, Susan, got pregnant. The neighborhood buzz was that she and her parents were to be shunned. Her parents had done a miserable job raising this child. She was a sinner. She was a whore.
She was my friend.
And this is where the story splits in two and travels different roads until last year.
I remembered my mom told me to go to Susan's house and walk with her to school, just like I did every day. I always said I was lucky to have a mother who was not judgmental about that kind of thing. I also remembered that Susan's mother came by our house after dark one day and thanked my mother for her kindness. I'd repeated that story a million times.
Last year I was talking to mom about Susan. I wondered what could have happened to her. They sent her away to a girl's compound where unwed mothers, as they were then referred to, could have their babies. Susan's mother brought the child home and raised it as her own. We never saw Susan again.
I thanked mom for telling me not to avoid her.
My mother said she didn't believe she'd done that much. I asked her how she could think that and she replied, "Well, the day you came to me and said you were going to walk her to school, just like you always did, I realized that for you it was a matter of standing up for your friend and you really didn't care what anyone thought of you for it. So I didn't stop you. And when Susan's mother came by and thanked you for your kindness, I was very proud of you."
All these years I'd thought it was my mom who did the right thing, but it was me. She'd just agreed with my decision. Even if she hadn't I would have done it anyway. Throughout school I was always first in my class in the headstrong division.
Is a child born with an inner compass for right and wrong and even with their parents influence one way or the other, do they still feel that moral imperative? I believe there are good kids everywhere and some who aren't. I'm not sure parenting of any kind can help a natural born asshole.
End of chat.
