My column in this week's newspaper
Bullying has garnered a frequent spotlight in the news during the past year, with recent instances of children being murdered by bullies or of teen suicides following episodes of bullying. The bullying is not limited to boys being intimidated and roughed up by other boys in the middle school hallway. Girls are bullied by other girls. If art indeed imitates life then consider the comedy film Mean Girls and Stephen King’s not-so-funny Carrie.
In 2007, nearly one in three students between the ages of 12-18 reported having been bullied, up from one in seven in 2001. But it doesn’t stop in high school as recent university tragedies testify. Neither is it limited to face-to-face intimidation. A recent federal study determined that more than half of 15-16 year olds say they have experienced a form of cyberbullying ( threatening e-mails, public ridicule and humiliation, posting of private information, photos and even videos).
But bullying is hardly limited to youths harassing their peers. Parents bully children while older siblings bully younger ones. Many of us have witnessed or even experienced being bullied by a teacher, a coach, or by some other adult with power and authority. And here I’m not even flicking the tip of the iceberg of physical or sexual abuse.
But adults are well- accustomed to bullyhood as well. Because bullying is not just physical intimidation, both husbands and wives may act as terrorists in more subtle ways. Yelling, cursing, threatening, name-calling, accusing, blaming, guilting and shaming, mocking and ridiculing, are all forms of marital bullying. I often see couples pointing the past in each other’s faces like invisible guns and knives. Controlling one’s spouse is also a form of marital bullying.
And who among us hasn’t felt bullied by a boss or a company that dangled job security over our head like a spider over a flame? Who hasn’t wondered if their employer or supervisor wasn’t reading and employing principles from Attila the Hun’s Guide to Leadership ?
But neither is it confined to bullying by an individual. Corporations bully others into forced mergers and buyouts. Nations bully other nations. People groups, nationalities, and religions bully those they don’t like.
Bullying is possible when one can intimidate and create a fear of one or more of the following….
* being physically harmed
* emotionally abused
* neglected or abandoned
* verbally attacked
* publicly humiliated
* professionally/vocationally hindered
* financially damaged
By and large we are seldom successful at bullying our friends because unlike family or co-workers we instinctively know that friends won’t tolerate our behavior and can/will just walk away (temporarily or permanently). But co-workers or employees may feel trapped by job security and financial pressure. Family can feel trapped by commitment, obligation, and nowhere to turn. There are multiple ways to black-mail people we work or live with and there be no mention of a suitcase full of cash.
In sports a player or a coach cannot just say anything to an umpire or referee without risk of technical foul or ejection. But in homes and offices across America there is bullying in measures of frequency and severity that could make getting chewed out by a drill sergeant seem like a pep talk in comparison.
We certainly need to provide programs and guidance in schools to educate kids how to respond effectively to bullies whether on the playground or in cyberspace. We need measures of protection for the innocent and measures of accountability for the perpetrators. But we must also recognize and confess that as adults, both in small private moments and on grand global stages, we have regularly and shamelessly modeled bullying to a generation looking to us for cues in how to succeed in this life.
--rLp--
Comments