More On Bullying

I received an email today from a good friend who reads my blog and whom I know to be an extremely caring and wonderful mother. She was recalling a bullying incident which happened to her precious little princess while she was in standad 5. I was incensed when I read her letter, I can only begin to imagine what she must have felt like! Here's an excerpt from the mail....


"Talking about class bullies....my daughter never told me she was bullied
until my maid informed me. She was standard 5 at that time. I was quite
puzzled why she was not happy to go to school when she was before, and I
would find her things from her school bag missing and her pens broken
and twisted. How my maid found out was that this XXXX boy kept calling
up the house, everyday and wanted to speak to Puteri and when my maid
refused to let him speak to my daughter, he would hurl verbal abuses at
her.

So, we questioned Puteri and after much persuasion and probing she
admitted that the boy sitting next to her was bullying her. He used her
pencils, doodled and crumpled her text book, even asking her to exchange
writing in each other's activity book, so that he gets all the right
answers because he is so dumb. The school didn't have class streaming at
that time. He follows her during recess and eats her food from the lunch
box that I prepared for her. One day, she even asked me to buy her a
Gameboy as she wants to give a present to a 'friend'. He told her that
his father is an influential person in the government like a police
personnel and that if she ever told anyone about him, our family would
come to harm!

You can imagine what happened next. I blew my top!
Dragging my husband, I went to Puteri's class and saw Puteri sitting at the
corner with a fat XXXX boy next to her, almost pinning her to the
wall, it seemed. With a shrill tone and furiously controlling my anger,
I told the teacher about the bullying incident. She was shocked. I said
to her you've been here day in and out and you can't see what's
happening right under your nose! What kind of teacher are you! I didn't
mince my words. Then I told her loudly that I want Puteri's seating
position to be changed immediately, now and marched up to Puteri's desk,
took out all her books and didn't leave the classroom until she sat at
her new place far from that monster. Even talking about it makes me
tremble with anger! And also, a funny and strange thing happened at that
same time. My cousin in London received an email purportedly from Puteri
(with Puteri's email address)in broken English asking my cousin to buy a
Gameboy or some gizmo for her which Puteri would never do in her whole
life and we thought this monster might have Puteri's email particulars and
sent that message. He even has all of Puteri's contact details and
personal info. I just want to put that dreadful episode behind us.

I guess that's why the crime rate in this country is so high with these
little monsters running around. Now I'm extra vigilant with my two sons
and always tell them that if they're being bullied to tell me and not
hide it!"

Now, this perpertrator was a classmate; my eldest son was not bullied by a classmate but by his religious teacher and I never found out until much later when some other incidences of teenage angst let fly all the hurts and abuse he suffered at her hands when in primary school! From what he told me she took offence to his name being not Islamic enough and demanded to know whether he was a Malay. My son said no he wasn't, he was a Melanau. She then went on to tell him that he should go home and tell his father to change his name! etc.. She would also hit him with the ruler at her whim and fancy! When he related this particular incident it was too far gone for me to do anything about it. He was already in his teens. And it still breaks my heart to this day to think that had I known, I could've done more in terms of protecting him from vile human beings such as this. To me people like these are nothing more than tyrants who hide behind the facade of religion to wreak terror in the hearts, minds & souls of little kids.

I tried to lessen the harm already done by telling him ( & oft repeating after that) that it was I who had chosen his name and how special it was. That would take a whole chapter here, so I'll skip the lengthy explanation. His name is Jeremy Adam. Jeremy, being a shortened variation of the name Jeremiah which means 'from God.' And Adam, because he was our first born. I would've welcomed the opportunity to question that b***h(sorry folks, can't help it-t'was my kid she picked on) of an ustazah on the "muslimness" of her own name. Enough said!

Particular 'unpleasant' incidences in my childhood have made me extra aware/vigilant as a parent. All those experiences also instilled in me a strong sense of wanting to protect and shelter my precious "brood" from all harm. I hope and pray that I'm doing enough. One thing I'm very sure of is that I've been blessed with three children who will never evolve into bullies!