My 11 year old son has only been in middle school for a little over a month and has already learned about sex education, dealt with a bully, received his first phone call from a girl, gone to his first dance and now….accelerated math.

Hubby and I have no idea where his math aptitude comes from. We’re both secretly considering DNA testing. I’m pretty sure he’s mine though, because he is both organizationally and directionally challenged just like me. He resembles hubby in the looks department so we’re pretty sure he’s his too. This math thing has us both amazed and proud.

Yesterday his math homework involved finding the least common multiplier amongst groups of 4 numbers. He asked me for help! When I first read the instructions, I swear they said this; “@#$%&!”. After some clarification from my 11 year old, it came back to me. For the most part. We struggled a bit but got through it. This is only 7th grade level math people. I’m so screwed.

There is hope.

In addition to the excessively difficult homework, we also received this lovely card from his math teacher that I will keep forever:

I Appreciate Your Efforts At Home

Your son was rewarded with a sticker today because he showed great character and honesty today in math class. We were doing a very difficult problem and the class was stumped on the answer. One young man worked really hard to get the answer and shared it with your son and his math partner. Instead of just taking the answer without doing the work, your son and his partner erased the answer. I was very proud of both boys because they showed good character.

It doesn’t get much better than this. She’s proud?! I couldn’t be more so.

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I’ll bet when you first saw the title of this blog post you thought I was going to be writing about Corporate America or Congress or my weekend, right?  Nope.  Even worse.  Middle School.  And Bullies.  Has anyone in the history of the world ever looked back on these awkward, painful and embarrassing years and wished they could go back?  I didn’t think so.  Unless they wished to go back to finally stand up to a bully or two.

As I mentioned here, one of these future criminals punched my oldest son in the arm on the bus on his way home from his 2nd day of middle school.  I now have 11 years of experience as a parent and I feel I’m on solid ground here when I say that something must be terribly wrong at the homes of these derelicts.  I’ve met all sorts of children and parents and time and again I see that the children who misbehave most often and most severely are children whose parents are either too busy to be bothered, encourage aggressive behavior, abusive or simply set no boundaries out of ignorance.

I’m not in any way suggesting that my children are angels or that I am a perfect parent.  Far from it.  My kids do get into trouble and I do make mistakes.  In this specific situation what I’m talking about is a fundamental lack of respect for other people combined with an overwhelming need to feel physically superior to those same people.  There is something seriously wrong with a child that even considers punching an innocent by-stander for no apparent reason, let alone actually does it. 

Following that logic, children who are raised with manners and who respect others, will always have a difficult time standing up to a bully.  It’s not because they are wimpy.  It’s because this behavior is actually bizarre and completely foreign.  It’s no less bizarre than if someone were to stand up in the middle of a business meeting, jump up on the conference table and strip naked.  If you were sitting in that meeting, what would you do?  Nothing.  You’d be too shocked.  Of course, if it went on for any length of time you may call 911, start laughing, try to talk your nude co-worker down or at least cover him up.  But, in those first few seconds, you’d be too stunned to take action.  You may even feel a little bit afraid.  Your adrenaline would start pumping and you’d look around the room in an attempt to make sense of this situation.  And you’re a mature adult whose physical safety is not in immediate jeopardy, not a pre-pubescent child who is being attacked.

Bullying is not a matter of, “boys will be boys”.  By the time boys reach middle school they have developed the mental capacity for sufficient impulse control.  The fact that the impulse in question is unprovoked violence is seriously disturbing.  Boys will play-fight, wrestle, and tackle their friends.  That is not the same as randomly punching younger, smaller boys that they don’t even know and deriving some twisted pleasure from it.

It’s also not a normal rite of passage.  Just because we all had to deal with bullies on our own when we were growing up does not make it acceptable.  When our parents (or grandparents) were growing up, they thought segregation was normal and unobjectionable because that’s how it had always been.  The argument that anything is acceptable simply because it has been ignored or allowed to continue for many years is nonsense.

The overall culture in middle school is conformity at all costs.  The one exception to this rule is bullies.  Bullies are extremely different.  They are the ones leading the other kids in ridiculing others.  When it comes down to being picked on or being on the side of the person who is doing the picking, even the most well-behaved kids (probably especially the most well-behaved kids) will not put themselves on the line to stand up to one of these little tormentors.  We, as a society, have been allowing bullies to control the atmosphere in which our children spend their days for generations. 

The real question then becomes:  We don’t abuse our children so why do we continue to allow other kids to do so? 

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Some little asshole 8th grader punched my 6th grader in the arm on the bus yesterday.  I have a lot to say on this topic but right now I just want to go all Rebecca-DeMornay-in-The-Hand-That-Rocks-The-Cradle on this kid.  Unfortunately, I can’t find a video clip of that specific scene from the movie to put up here.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, she is a psycho nanny and threatens to rip some kids f-ing head off on the playground for doing something to the kid she watches.  Probably not the best idea for me but it’s a fun little fantasy. 

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“I walked over to the hill where we used to go and sled. There were a lot of little kids there. I watched them flying, doing jumps and having races. And I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn’t.”
— Stephen Chbosky

My youngest son is home sick from school today.  Probably strep.  We’re going to the doctor later this morning.  His older brother wanted to stay home too, just because.  I sent him to school anyway since he’s not sick, but I could tell they were both a little sad about being separated today.

This brings up something that I have been thinking about recently anyway.  My boys are two years apart in age.  They are best buds.  Of course they argue, but for the most part, when they are out in the world, they share some of the same friends and look out for each other.  I like that they have each other.  My sister and I are eight years apart, and although we are friends today, we weren’t as children.  It was almost like we were each only-children in a way.

My youngest son’s birthday is in October, so even though he’s only two years younger than his brother, he’s three years behind him in school.  The cutoff for starting kindergarten is September 1st.  If your birthday is after that, you have to wait until the next year to start school.  There are ways around this rule but they involve significant testing, including psychological testing.  I briefly considered it anyway, because I really wanted them to be in school together longer than they would be if they were three grades apart.  In the end, he wasn’t emotionally ready for kindergarten the year he turned five.  He needed a year of preschool first.  So, I didn’t subject him to the testing and accepted the fact that they would be three grades apart.

Next year, my oldest son will be in sixth grade…middle school.  When I was that age, it was called Jr. High and was only seventh and eighth grades.  Now, it’s sixth, seventh and eighth.  I remember Jr. High as the most painful two years of my childhood.  It was awful.  I hope that’s not how it is for my sons, and I wish they could have each other to help them through it if it is.

They won’t be in the same school together again until my youngest son is a freshman and my oldest is a senior.  I’m sure by then, they will have grown apart some.  What senior wants to hang out with a freshman?  Even if they are still as close as they are now, that’s only one year together.  After that, off to college, their own lives and who knows what their relationship will end up being like.

This all makes me profoundly sad, and a little frightened for them.  I want them to stay close to each other.  I want them to stick together and look out for each other.  I don’t want them to have to face anything alone.  Honestly, I don’t want them to grow up and I want to protect them from….everything.

There’s no way to avoid it.  I just have to send them out there on their own like every other parent.  I hope they do ok.  I hope I do too.

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