I have a story that I wanted to share, even though it’s only partially mine. I asked my sister if she minded since it’s also about her and she said it was okay. I’m glad because it’s something that has been simmering in my brain for awhile, between the knowledge that Hayley starts school next year and the near-constant news stories about shootings and horror in school halls.

I don’t remember exactly when it all happened but I do know that I was 18 because I remember being aware that had things gone down differently, I could have wound up in jail because I was an “adult”, at least in the legal sense. That means Amanda would have been 13. When she was going to school, she shared her classes with many very nice kids and with one very horrible bitch named Jennifer. Jennifer was constantly mean to my sister, mostly just in that horrifying non-physical yet still really destructive verbal and emotional way that girls have a great knack for. She had her own little pack of peons friends and in that girl-pack manner they would bully anyone who was not a part of their special group. As far as I know, Amanda mostly ignored them since she had her own friends; at least she wasn’t that one loner who gets stuck eating lunch all alone so she did have a support group. You’d really have to ask her though to know how much it all affected her; we weren’t as close at that point in our lives so maybe it hit her harder than I know.

What I do know is that one day Jennifer started being nice to Amanda. No one really knew why but my sister being the person she is didn’t question it and accepted her as a friend. Jennifer lived on the same street as us, one block down, and one day – I guess it was a weekend – she invited Amanda to come over to play. Off she went, down the street to play. Once she got there, Jennifer had some of her little posse bitches friends over as well and they started pushing my sister around, bullying her and taunting her. It ended with Amanda getting trapped inside Jennifer’s closet and getting hit over the head.

I was home when Amanda arrived at our door in tears, spilling the details of what had happened. Before she had completely finished the story my shoes were already on. My mother tried calling after me, but I was already out the door and halfway down the street. I do have a vague recollection of my mother coming down the stairs, calling, “Sherry! Sherry, stop, come back!” but she would have needed to physically restrain me by then because although Amanda and I weren’t what you would call friends back then, she was my sister, my little sister and someone had hurt her and all I cared about then was that someone needed to get hurt in return. As I ran down the block, I knew very well that a legal adult punching a minor was going to lead to me being in serious trouble with the police if someone filed charges but I truly didn’t care.

Luckily for Jennifer and her little cronies, they were idiots but they weren’t stupid so they had fled the house as soon as Amanda left. By the time I arrived they were long gone but her father was there, so instead of pounding on someone, I angrily spat out what had happened. I’m pretty sure that obscenities were involved. I do know that sometime during our supper, Jennifer and her father arrived at our door so that she could deliver a forced – and fake – apology.

Of course, I’m not 18 anymore, so I no longer have any desire to go punch Jennifer in her face. On the other hand, if she ever decides to go and google herself, I’d like to say:

Hi Jennifer Taylor, you little snot! I’m sure you’ve matured over the years, so I am glad that I didn’t actually beat the crap out of you. However, I would still love to hear that you went on to, I don’t know, maybe contract a raging case of genital herpes or something. Karma’s a bigger bitch than you! It’s an even bigger bitch than me!

Anyway. The reason that I think about this sometimes is because that knee-jerk reaction that I had 14 years ago scares me now that my own kids are here. As a parent I can’t go and thwack some kid in the side of the head if they hit Hayley when she goes to school. It’s just not an acceptable reaction. And yet I challenge any parent who has a kid who came home crying after being bullied to honestly tell me that they didn’t have the urge to do exactly that.

Somehow I need to find a way to protect my children from bullies. Somehow I have to find a way to make sure neither of my girls BECOMES a bully. I need to teach them to be those kids who aren’t on either end of the bullying spectrum. I don’t even know where to begin. I have a book about it, but I don’t know if any one book can really help. I know that I have to just do the best that I can to make sure they both know that they can come to me or to George and talk to us and that we will react in a positive way (which does not involve acts of impulse like that day 14 years ago). All we can do is our best and hope that it’s good enough.

At least I still have almost a whole year before Hayley starts school and before I have to worry about it. Hopefully I can come up with a plan that will help by then. It may require taking up deep breathing for me. How DO you protect your kids and also make sure they don’t become the kind of person you want to protect them from, without also scaring the holy shit out of them, AND also managing to keep yourself from developing an ulcer? Parenting is the scariest and most responsibility-laden job I have ever had.