Mommy vs The Mean Kid . . .

Oh, the many questions of parenthood! Should I breastfeed or use formula? Should I do timeouts or spankings? Public School or Private School? Day Care or Stay at Home Mommy? Vaccinations or No? Which Doctor? Which Dentist? Which Sports? Teenage Babysitters or just Grandmas and Aunts? The questions are endless, but I've found a new one. A burning question that if uttered aloud might just find me on the CPS alert list if I ever spoke it in the wrong company . . . Can I beat up my kids 10 year old bully friend for being a super big jerk and hurting my kids feelings?

Okay, I know that sounds bad, but really the kid in question is almost 6 feet tall and built like a linebacker already and he hasn't even hit 11 years old yet. I couldn't hurt him if I tried and really - I would never try. But, oh how I want to some days, the days my son comes home with hurt feelings and a bruised ego. The days he realizes that the world is really and truly not a fair place and can be downright mean. The days that he's crying and I don't know what to say to him to make it better. On those days the thought crosses my mind.

There are actually two friends in this scenario. The one that I'm constantly annoyed with, let's call him Bobby, and the sweet kid that is being currently sucked into Bobby's little madness, we'll call him Tommy. Tyler was friends with both of them and they were friends from different circles because Tyler didn't run with just one group or clique and never has. This year the two circles collided and Bobby and Tommy became friends too. Tyler gets more and more frustrated with Bobby all the time because he's bossy and manipulative. Tommy is super smart and Tyler always enjoyed his seriousness and his intelligence, his ability to quote facts about just about everything and his gentle nature. However, Tommy didn't have a lot of friends at school because many considered him a know-it-all. The more Tyler bucked at Bobby bossing him around, the less Bobby wanted to play with Tyler. And now Tommy, happy to have another friend, is doing every single thing that Bobby says. A 'yes man' to Bobby's whims - which is resulting in Tommy making a joke of everything Tyler says, avoiding 'serious' discussions in Tyler's mind and now telling Tyler that he just isn't 'cool'.

Oh my, it's starting already. The 'cool' thing. I was never cool, always wanted to be, strove to be, and constantly struggled with the idea of what really was 'cool'. I mean really, by the time I finally got that something 'was' cool and maybe did it, bought it or said it, it wasn't cool anymore. Of course, now as an adult I understand that it really wasn't about any one thing, it was about the people who 'made' it cool. So you could never really keep up unless you were in with the right people in the first place who were making the decisions on what was cool and what wasn't.

By the end of high school, I had finally figured out that I didn't really care if I was ever cool or not. I had found new definitions of cool and they were really about what I thought was cool. I credit my Junior and Senior English teacher for a lot of my changes in attitude, Mrs. Shannon. She changed the way I thought about a lot of things in my life and I am so grateful for her influence and inspiration. It was through her that I learned it was okay to disagree with a teacher's opinion, it could be cool to be smart and creative, I didn't have to hide the fact that I loved to read, I could write poetry and read it to others without fearing rejection, I could write the way I wanted to finally without being told it was too wordy and use vocabulary that I wanted to without fear of being told I was plagiarising. She gave me an environment that let me be me and think for myself that was safe, without judgment.

And it was also in that senior AP class of maybe 10 students that I learned another lesson - no one is who you really thought they were. We were an odd assortment of kids from different cliques. By 12th grade we all knew who eachother were, but we didn't know eachother. And because the class was so small, there wasn't room for hiding who we were from eachother anymore at all. I loved it. I saw different sides of people and the coolness factor of everything really changed for me that year. I think I finally got that my mom was right, everyone was struggling with the same things I was and everyone was going to start over after highschool - none of this crap was going to matter.

The other thing that changed for me those last 2 years was my youth group. After befriending a new student who became one of my best high school friends, I started visiting a different church all on my own. I had grown up in a church that started small, literally a year before I joined, but has become so large that I can't even fathom it's size nationwide anymore. It grew so much by the time I was a sophomore that I was lost there. And I mean lost. It was so popular that people I never expected to go to church at all were joining, which was the point - I know. But for a kid that was lost at school so much, I didn't need to be lost at church too. I needed a safe place and my home church wasn't that safe place anymore.

It was nice enough, no one was mean to me or anything like that. It just wasn't comfortable for me and teenagers should have at least one place to go other than home that they feel like they belong and I wasn't feeling it at all. The first year I went to youth camp, and I think that was after 8th grade, I didn't have a buddy. You know, that one person that you just do everything with - I was buddy-less. Talk about feeling lost, I wandered that camp by myself during just about every free-time. Sometimes I tagged along with small groups, but even then I wasn't really part of the gang and got lost in the shuffle.

And that was most of my life for a long time, lost. I came home and spent countless nights sobbing in my mother's arms because no one liked me. Or at least I thought they didn't. She would tell me to just smile and say hi to everyone and eventually they would smile back and say hi back. It wasn't bad advice, it works for adults, but really all it got me was an occasional smile and hi - not a friend. I wasn't friend-less of course, and I had some friendships that are still enduring today. And as bad as these boys are right now to Tyler, girls are way worse. They turn on each other faster than you can blink some days and I had my fair share of 'friends' that turned on me too. One of those frenemies that tormented me way back when has become one of my lifelong friends that I can't imagine living without now, but there were moments in middle school and high school that I thought she was pure evil.

So my Junior year I started visiting another Baptist Church in town and made some new friends. It was much smaller and cozier. There really wasn't any 'one' clique so no one was really left out, and most importantly to me, I wasn't left out. I even met my very first 'love' there although we didn't officially start dating until he had gone off to college and I was a senior. I didn't really continue to attend there after my first year of college, but the whole experience did wonders for my self esteem. It was also the first time that I really ventured away from my parents spiritual influence - very big deal, but they let me make my own decision which made me feel very, very grown up.

Anyway, not to sit here and moan about my childhood like it was the worst thing ever, because it really wasn't. I wouldn't go back though, never ever. I remember telling Senora Walker, the only teacher I ever knew who openly said 'these really are NOT the best years of your life', that if all the other adults who said they were the best years were right, I might as well end things right then and there because it sucked! Why would you want to continue life if high school was the highlight? Ick! It should be against the law to tell kids that, it probably is one of those trigger phrases for some people to consider the unthinkable. One of the lowest points of my life, for sure, and don't start on the whole 'well, no responsibility, no bills, yada yada' stuff because that wasn't true either. I worked for my own money and paid for my own gas and part of my insurance, there were responsibilities. Over all it was just horrific and I wouldn't do it again for all the tea in China.

However, if I could spare my kids all the pain and grief, I would. Especially these days, because as hard as it was for me, things are so much harder now. Bullying in schools is downright scary. Social networking can turn normal rumor-mills, gossip and teasing into something so giant and public it's no wonder kids are killing themselves all over the place for what used to be normal teenage behavior. It makes me want to call Bobby and Tommy's parents and tell them what-for about their kids. It makes me want to pull Tyler out of school and protect him from everything and everybody for as long as I can. And of course, that would be more harmful to him than helpful.

Tyler left this morning for Sky Ranch and a 3 day field trip with the entire 5th grade class. Weeks ago, he had requested Bobby and Tommy as bunk mates before they turned on him. So now he's stuck with them for 2 nights. There will be other kids and hopefully he will find someone to hang out with that appreciates him for who he is. I suspect though that when Bobby gets to camp and has free access to a couple of kids from the old clique (who, Tyler informed me, Bobby said they had called Tyler a dork, but I'm not buying that either), Tommy will also find himself ditched and reattach himself to Tyler. I can hope, anyway, but before Thanksgiving Bobby left school early and while the kids were having free time Tommy spent time with Tyler again sans jokes and teasing so I don't think I'm far off.

I haven't really known what to say to Tyler during all this except the truth which is that this is going to happen over and over again, even into adulthood at times. People can be stupid about how they treat their friends. I told him there was no one cooler in the whole 'real' world than his Uncle Matthew and Aunt Asheley and THEY think he's cool. Cool in school isn't really cool, it's just a fad. Real world cool is more important (okay, probably still not important, but I was grasping). I also told him that even though it's hard sometimes, I hope he'll stay true to himself and not do stuff just to fit in or be 'cool'.

I am truly hoping though that Tommy comes around today at camp. I would hate for Tyler to spend this trip like I spent my 8th grade trip to D.C. I had no 'buddy' there either and spent most of my time hanging out with one of the chaperones and her little boy she had brought along. I actually cared about what I was seeing and couldn't find anyone else who did too (probably were some kids like me, but Lord knows I couldn't find them - too shy, I guess).

I am going to do my best not to dial or email the mean kid's mom through this whole thing. And - I am going to be thankful for technology. I actually created a twitter account today because they are going to be doing 'tweets' from camp with pictures and updates so maybe I'll get a peek at how my little man is doing. And I am going to pray, pray, pray, pray, pray! I am praying for his strength, for my patience and some peace for all of us.

Thanks and God Bless!