7 Year Old Gets Plastic Surgery to Avoid Bullying

It's worth it.  As someone who has been the victim of severe bullying, I can personally attest to the fact of the lifelong damage that it does.  It made me absolutely hate school and dread going.  In fact, it's why I dropped out of high school, even though I'm a relatively intelligent human being.  Bigger bullies awaited, though, as people look down on you for not having a degree.  Schoolyard bullying is not child's play, it can ruin your entire life.  If only someone had intervened.  If only I had been sent to a different school.  If only I had had the right clothes.  Bullying can have a life-long impact on a child if nothing is done.  It made me know that I was all alone in the world and no one was really on my side.  And adults can be as bad, or worse than the kids.

Years later, when I was teaching religious education to children at day camp, there was a girl who was being bullied by a boy.  She came to me for help.  I told her to tell the nuns, thinking that, of course, they would do something about it.  They laughed it off and just said to the girl, "That means he likes you."  I was pretty disgusted.  I tried to return to teaching the class as normal, but could see how ruined this poor child was.  Why was it that bullies always won?  Why were they always accommodated?  As an adult, though, I knew I could and had to intervene.  I really had to put the pressure on that nun to do something about it.  He was expelled.  So all could be well in my class.

It really is the job of parents and educators and administrators to create a safe learning environment for all students to learn and grow in.  I guess it's human nature to ignore bullying if it doesn't affect you personally.  And, indeed, that is much of how the adult world operates as well.  But to do noting about it is really to give up on younger generations.  It's a way of saying to the victim, you don't matter.  People tend to be protective of themselves, and that same protection ought to extend to people who are weaker, or an easy target.  It really would lead to a more civilized and better world.