By Sarah Stephens
Elmore/Autauga News
I am set to speak before some middle school students tomorrow, and I find myself a bit nervous.
It isn’t the public speaking part. I can talk to a wall. Being shy is really not anything I have ever dealt with.
I will be talking on self-esteem and bullying. My nervousness comes from the age group of which I will be addressing. I have very real, very scary stories about bullying I will not be sharing.
I was bullied for many years in school. In junior high there were mean girls, even way back in the day. There was a group of the “popular” girls, so I thought, that never took a real liking to me. I was a bit awkward, admittedly. I was 5’9 by the time I was 11-years-old, so I towered over most of the people in my class at that age.
I lived in a neighborhood of mostly boys, so I was more interested in Matchbox cars, the G.I. Joe with the Kung Fu Grip, playing sports, fishing and building forts in the woods by the creek.
I didn’t worry about make up or spending an hour on my hair. I took a lot of bullying about that from some of the mean girls. The guys never asked me out, but they did want me on their Dodge Ball, baseball and football teams.
One day I walked into class and took my seat. In an obviously orchestrated move, the girls around me slid their desks back away from me and yelled, “She stinks!”
I can laugh about that now, but I do remember how much it hurt. I was not part of the fashionable crowd, and wore my basic jeans and clothes. I would get comments like, “You must be poor if you can’t afford (insert some popular clothing.)”
In high school I was so proud when Dad gave me a hand-me-down 1972 Ford Pinto to drive for my very own. It had some dents, no AC or heat and no radio. But it was all mine.
I pulled into the parking lot of high school one morning and was told I could not park “that piece of trash,” next to a girl’s new Camaro. Silly stuff. Stuff that everyone says people will grow out of, you just have to rise above, and all that.
When I was in fifth grade I was already writing short stories, and loved my English and reading classes.
But that year the teacher, for a reason I have never understood, picked on me constantly. She stood in front of the class one afternoon and proclaimed, “Who else thinks Sarah is stupid? I don’t even know why she comes to class. I am going to have you moved to special education.”
She called me fat and ugly. She finally placed me in the back corner of the room and told the other students, “Don’t talk to Sarah. She will make you stupid.” One girl in the class continued to be my friend, so the teacher began picking on her as well.
This kind of stuff went on for a while until I finally came home crying one day and told Mom what had been happening all school year.
And Mama Bear roared.
She went to my principal, and he arranged to have me take a series of reading, grammar and comprehension tests, to determine if I was on an appropriate level for my grade.
Long story short, when the results came back, I had a reading and comprehension level of high school/college.
The principal went to my teacher and said, “Sarah is not the problem. You are the problem.”
I was moved out of her class, and never had any more issues with my English grades.
Bullies exist. They come in all forms, all ages. It doesn’t end when you leave the playground. Today with social media, our kids and those around us, are dealing with a form of bullying that we could not even comprehend back in the day. I don’t know how to fix that.
I will tell you what I believe. One of the most critical issues in our country is lack of self-esteem among both children and adults. Without it, bullies will view you as an easy target. We have to start doing a better job of raising our children with confidence, not arrogance. We need to teach them to be kind, but also be able to stand up and defend themselves. We have to somehow give them the courage to report issues to the appropriate people that will listen and take action.
I give my Mama Bear a lot of credit with helping me growing up. She would always tell me I was beautiful, smart, and would be a leader one day. And I believed her.
She also taught me to be kind to everyone, and to walk away if possible when they were not being kind. Never in my life did my parents use the word “stupid” in relation to me, or ugly, or fat.
As I aged my confidence grew, and I went from being bullied to being a hunter of bullies. I may have made quite a few visits to the principal’s office. It was never a fight I started, let me make that clear.
One of the most memorable was a day that a guy in my class began berating my friend over her weight. He said some pretty horrible things, and I intervened. It went badly quickly, and I found myself sitting before my principal.
That was back in the day where principals had the wooden paddles, with duct tape around the handle and holes drilled in them. As he slapped his hand with the paddle, he said, “Sarah, what will your Dad say when I tell him you got into a fight with a boy today at school?”
I said, “When I tell him what he did to my friend, he will tell me I should have hit him harder and repeatedly.”
My principal did everything he could not to smile, but told me to get out of his office and go back to class. I didn’t get a whipping….that day.
But bullying isn’t just in schools. I hear some things out in public some days that horrify me in the way parents are talking to their kids. I have witnessed a man slap his daughter so hard, he knocked her into a grocery aisle and destroyed a display. That one didn’t end well for him. And I didn’t go to jail.
This stuff really does happen every day around us.
One thing that is hard to understand is that bullies are usually being bullied themselves. Perhaps in their own homes. They are acting out aggression on others, because of what they are living. I don’t have the answers.
So, as I continue to think about how I will speak, and what I will say tomorrow, my wish is pretty simple. I want everyone listening to understand that we ALL have special gifts and talents. We have to find ours, improve ourselves. Believe in yourself and not what others believe about you. Keep a tight circle of real friends, and not people that you just want to like you. Welcome the new kid. Invite them to sit next to you a lunch.
At a high school reunion I learned how something as simple as that can make a big difference. A girl came to our reunion and hugged me so hard and started to cry. She reminded me of a day in high school. She was the new kid. I had noticed she had something on the back of her shirt, and realized it was food. The table behind her had some people throwing food at her and making fun of her. I sat beside her, introduced myself, and turned to give the table “the look.” They didn’t bother her anymore, she told me. Just be kind.
And parents, please….every day…. tell your children they are smart, they are beautiful and you love them.
I would give a lot up to hear my Mama Bear say that one more time. But she told me enough when she was alive, and I still believe her.
Sarah Stephens is the owner/founder of the Elmore/Autauga News. She can be reached at editorsarah@yahoo.com.
