Crimes of a Child

Bullying is one of the most horrendous things about modern society.

I have made someone cry on purpose, once. I didn’t feel proud about it, at all, but everyone around me told me it was ok.

I was in year 12, my brother in year 9. Like older siblings, while I loved to pick on my younger brother, if anyone else did, they were toast. My little brother is an easy target. He has VERY orange hair, ivory skin and is very well built. To top it all off he happens to be Autistic, so at times he can be a little odd. Regardless, I love him. I love him very much!

One day he came over to my friends and I in a distressed state after a well known bully (from a well known bullying family) had picked on him. He was stressed and babbling, he was scared. It distressed me to see him in such a state. My friends and I made sure he was okay and made him very welcome in our group and our activities. It all went swimmingly until the boy who had picked on him walked past, snickering and pointing.

My heart started thumping against my rib cage; I could feel the adrenalin pumping through my veins. For the first time in my life, I was truly furious. Without even thinking about it, I stood up and stormed over to the boy that was making my brother’s life hell. I stopped him in his path and I used my ‘older student status’ to stand over him. I didn’t yell, I didn’t raise my fist, I just very calmly whispered; ‘I don’t know what is so wrong in your life, that you have to come to school and pick on innocent people, in fact I don’t give a flying fuck! I just want you to know that if you pick on my little brother one more time I am going to make your life a living hell and you know as well as I do that I WILL get away with it!’
The little Year 9 boy welled up and ran away from me quicker than I could imagine. What I didn’t realise was, that in the short time I had been standing there giving my little speech, half the school had come to stand behind me.

What was scarier was that I would have been able to make his life hell. I happened to be dating a well known ‘Skater’ boy who was known to be a bit scary (he was actually a sweet teddy bear) not to mention the fact that I was a bit of a good girl at school who had managed to talk herself out of anything.

The reason I am focussing on bullying is because it has been a popular topic in the news the past few weeks. From the stabbing of the young boy in Queensland to the little girl having a knife held to her throat. It’s disgusting... The one story that makes me extremely upset is the one about the boy who was running away from his bullies, only to get hit by a car. Can you imagine how devastated he and his parents must be?

Now Kevin Rudd has come out saying that parents should take the matter of bullying into their own hands! What a complete douche bag response from a complete douche bag Prime Minister. Can you imagine? All I can see is Bogan parents tearing into each other. It would start wars within confines of our schools.

I was lucky enough to have very well grounded parents who were and still are very aware. They would always work WITH the system to restore a safe place for my brother and I to school and while my brother still frequently gets picked on, life is just that much easier for him because my parents are calm in their approach. I know people’s parents, of bullies and bullied, and quite often they are at either end of the spectrum... One side you will have parents who are socially unaware. They would rather have a long conversation with a cushion than deal with real humans, on the other side you have parents who are about ready to storm into any school and punch the first person that says hello.

In my opinion, there is no real solution. There will always be a pecking order within schools. My idea is to make bullying ILLEGAL! Make it an offence that no school has to deal with, but a higher authority. Make it a legal issue. Can you imagine if some of the bullies started having charges filed against them? Little bastards would be VERY sorry and less likely to EVER do it again. Yes I think they should be sent to jail (a special jail specifically suited for them or maybe one of those outback camps) and a permanent mark should be left on their record because let’s face it, the victims of bullying will ALWAYS have the emotional marks!

Sorry for the heavy topic so early on.
Poppit xo