Word warfare

Quote du jour:
"All philosophy lies in two words, "sustain" and "abstain."" Epictetus


Winter's long days appear to be taking their toll. I was at a meeting last night with a couple of community organizers and a couple of members of the congregation and at one point I and an organizer got into a quote match. Quote matches go like this: you offer one quote with attribution, then I respond with one of my own, then we repeat the exercise with brand new quotes. It is probably a lot easier with a younger memory; by the end of a short exchange my head hurt from retrieval efforts in the neuron library.

It's word warfare of the highest order. More like a tennis match. Unfortunately there's another form of word warfare - pernicious and soul destroying - and it's taking place at a school or program near you. Children are usually restrained in their physical behaviors toward each other but less so in their verbal ones. Bullying is not merely physical intimidation, but emotional and social intimidation as well. It's not comfortable to admit this fact of our children's experience. Although childhood may need protection from adult assaults on innocence and safety, we have a harder time protecting childhood from . . .children.

Addressing word warfare is not simply a matter of bullies and bullied but a matter of social norms that our children pick up in any number of venues. If you've every listened to a laugh track on a sitcom, it becomes quickly obvious that put downs get a laugh. If you've observed the deterioration of civility in public discourse, read the snark comments made about 'otherness' in online forums, watched our politicians turn policy differences into personal attacks, it's no mystery how our kids are finding role models for bullying words. Those may not be the role models we want for them, but they are the ones most often reported on and watched in our society.

My advice? As with so many other things, just say 'no'. Your kid is not a horrible awful human being because they're trying on a personna. Just say 'no'. You're not a lousy poor excuse for a parent because your child is learning about boundaries by finding where they are. Just say 'no'. And the universe will not shudder to a stop because kids make errors in judgement on their way to adulthood. Just say 'no'. * Your child will thank you. Well, maybe not, but they'll be happier and more confident. Really. So will you. Really. And so will we all.

* Teachingtolerance.org has a wonderful collection of anti bullying resources.