I was one of those kids who got his school lunch money stolen, who was shoved into school lockers, who was last picked in gym class, and who had his books knocked out of his arms when he walked down the school halls.
I was one of those kids whose name was used when mean girls, wanting to hurt another girl, wrote notes that said "Carol likes him." "Susan kisses him." "Linda wants to marry him."
I also was a kid who, at age 15, was dragged into a car one night by four "straight" older boys, driven around and beaten up and forced to perform oral sex while the assailants forcibly masturbated me.
From the moment I entered first grade through most of high school, education was a living hell for me. By fifth grade,it became obvious that even my teacher, Mrs. Bonna Teichert, regarded me with the same contempt as my classmates --- and in fact, her contempt fed the students' contempt and dislike. Somewhere around that point, I stopped wondering why everybody hated me and just went through the days of my life wanting to survive. By junior high, if Reba McEntire's song, "I Can't Even Get the Blues No More," had been written, I would have adopted it as my theme song.
By ninth grade, when the rape incident occurred, I knew there was something wrong with me. I knew that I had been sexually assaulted because of some kind of behavior of my own and I accepted that. I also decided to change myself as best I could. It was too late to become a jock, but I could at least start dressing like one. I changed the way I walked and talked as best I could, and I made sure I had a girlfriend at all times.
When an older girl asked me to take her to the senior prom, I said I would if she would fuck me and talk about it. Apparently the offer was enticing to her because she did. By my senior year, I was outwardly as straight as they come.
After high school, I married --- twice --- and breeded, lots of times. In addition to the two wives, there are assorted baby mamas out there, at least one of whom sent our son Patrick out on a mission to find his real dad --- me --- after he came out as a gay man. When he showed up on my doorstep, I was surprised --- his mother had neglected to tell either him or me that we existed.
I have only one son who was in my arms on the day he was born. There are other children, adopted and fostered, but the only son who was born during one of my marriages is Jonathan, who is now a 27-year-old college student majoring in mass communication, just like his dad. God help him.
Jonathan, like me, was a very happy, sunny-dispositioned child until he got into school. And then he started to experience some of the same things I did --- while he would have some friends, there were other kids who just didn't like him. One kid in particular --- a boy two years older who came from a very different, less stable family background from Jonathan --- went out of his way to beat up Jonathan on the playground. Jonathan, who had been taught by his parents that fighting was wrong, would just take it and come home crying.
I finally told him he had a right to defend himself, even though the school's policy was to paddle all participants in a playground fight, no matter who was the aggressor and who was the victim.
The next day, Jonathan beat the shit out of the older boy. The adults supervising the playground said that he was still swinging when they yanked him off the kid. He got paddled, and took it like a man.
And he was never the same sunny kid that he had been. His grades went down. He rebuffed attempts at friendship. Today, he's regarded as a gentle, sweet-natured guy and is genuinely liked and respected by his professors and fellow college students whom he lets get close to him. But he's still a loner --- a pattern that looks to be his for the rest of his life.
I read a report, "Studies Reveal Why Kids Get Bullied and Rejected," this morning by a writer named Robin Nixon, a contributor to LiveScience.com. Nixon writes that kids who get bullied and snubbed by peers may be more likely to have problems in other parts of their lives, past studies have shown. And now researchers have found at least three factors in a child's behavior that can lead to social rejection.
The factors, apparently, involve a child's inability to pick up on and respond to nonverbal cues from their pals.
According to Nixon's article, in the United States, 10 to 13 percent of school-age kids experience some form of rejection by their peers. In addition to causing mental health problems, bullying and social isolation can increase the likelihood a child will get poor grades, drop out of school, or develop substance abuse problems, the researchers say.
Nixon quotes Clark McKown, lead researcher at the Rush Neurobehavioral Center in Chicago as saying this public health issue is "under-addressed."
According to the study, unstructured playtime - when children interact without the guidance of an authority figure - is when children experiment with the relationship styles they will have as adults. It is a time when kids are on their own and are winging it without much knowledge of the basic rules of operating in society. They make mistakes in the way they deal with each other --- usually unintentional.
I can see that. I avoided contact with my fellow classmates for nearly 30 years after graduation --- a time in which I became a Type A control freak, always needing to be in charge of all aspects of my life, especially those parts that affected my self-image. It resulted in an emotional breakdown at age 40 and some time spent in counseling, during which I finally acknowledged that despite all my efforts to appear otherwise, I was a gay man.
Even after that acknowledgment, I continued to have problems. I started having nightmares about being back in high school. I would be a man in my 40s, but everyone else looked just as they did in the 1960s.
In 1999, I forced myself to go to my 30th class reunion. At this event, I realized that I was not the only one who had aged. The mean girls had turned into mothers and young grandmothers. The boys, like me, had thinning hair and soft waistlines. Everyone seemed --- mellower. One of the more popular mean girls actually came up to me and apologized for something she remembered doing to me that I had completely forgotten.
"I was so scared all the time," she said. "I hurt people before they hurt me." And she was a cheerleader, I thought. She was popular.
And some of them told me they were intimidated by me. I always seemed so confident in high school, they said. Always had a girl on my arm. Always seemed to know what I was doing and what I wanted out of life.
Apparently, I had been something of a "mean girl," too. I learned my lessons well.
In the study reported on by Robin Nixon, 284 children, ages 4 to 16 years old, watched movie clips and looked at photos before judging the emotions of the actors based on their facial expressions, tones of voice and body postures. Various social situations were also described and the children were questioned about appropriate responses.
The results were then compared to parent/teacher accounts of the participants' friendships and social behavior.
Kids who had social problems also had problems in at least one of three different areas of nonverbal communication: reading nonverbal cues; understanding their social meaning; and coming up with options for resolving a social conflict.
A child, for example, simply may not notice a person's scowl of impatience or understand what a tapped foot means. Or she may have trouble reconciling the desires of a friend with her own, according to the report.
When children have prolonged struggles with socializing, it creates a vicious cycle. Shunned children have few opportunities to practice social skills, while popular kids are busy perfecting theirs. The researchers concluded that just having one or two friends can help a child develop the social skills he needs.
Parents, teachers and other adults in a child's life can help, too, Nixon reported. Instead of reacting with anger or embarrassment to a child who, say, asks Aunt Mindy if her new hairdo was a mistake, parents should teach social skills with the same tone they use for teaching long division or proper hygiene. If presented as a learning opportunity, rather than a punishment, children usually appreciate the lesson.
I'm a believer that kids, whether minors or adults, have to learn how to deal with their own mistakes. But it's hard not to want to protect them. When Jonathan started withdrawing from contact with other kids, it broke my heart, because I knew EXACTLY what he was going through. In junior high, he would come home every day complaining about some kids not leaving him alone. One day, I took some time off work and went to the playground during the lunch break. Sure enough, two boys started following Jonathan around and making comments behind his back. At one point, he started running to get away from them and they started running in pursuit.
At that point, I got out of my car and walked onto the playground. I am a big man and I was a bigger man then. I took long strides through the hordes of children on the playground and grabbed both of my son's pursuers by their coats and took them to the principal's office with Jonathan following us.
I made all three boys tell their versions of what had happened. Jonathan said, "I just wanted to be left alone."
The other two boys said they didn't realize Jonathan wanted to be left alone and that they hadn't intended to hurt him. Just tease him a little because he always kept to himself.
The principal, who was a friend of mine and knew that Jonathan had a crazy dad, smiled and said he would handle it from there. Apparently some discussions about social boundaries took place. Jonathan was advised that not everyone is his enemy and the other two were told to respect other people's rights to privacy.
No further incidents were reported. But Jonathan still has issues with trusting other people, even though he makes what are obviously painful efforts to socialize. He is just one of those people who, for whatever reasons, is happier being alone.
It breaks my heart sometimes, but at this point, it has to be his choice about how he wants to live his life. I see him acting out many of the same behaviors I went through, just in different ways. I liked having people around me, but didn't let them close. He seems to just like being alone because it's easier --- human interaction is messy and he likes his life tidy. I guess all that yelling about him needing to clean his room sank in, although it's his life, not his dorm room, that stays sparse and free of clutter.
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