Everything Is Lies Day Is Every Day, Actually

I have been bracing myself for today’s “pranks” for a few days now, so I’m ready. While I am something of a fan of the very very obviously false posts, especially the ones on the part of organizations and companies, this day serves as a wince-inducing reminder to me that taking people at their word is considered bad in the world in which we live. Continue reading “Everything Is Lies Day Is Every Day, Actually”

Everything Is Lies Day Is Every Day, Actually
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Can Someone Explain the Santa Fetish to Me?

Ah, it’s that time of year again, when I change one of my car’s radio presets to some random station so as to avoid all the music that’s so nostalgic for many but mostly obnoxious and meaningless to me.

My history with Christmas isn’t a pleasant one, for various reasons. The aspect of it that makes the least sense to me is the obsession with creating and maintaining a belief in Santa Claus in children. As an outsider, it has always and will always strike me as absurd. Continue reading “Can Someone Explain the Santa Fetish to Me?”

Can Someone Explain the Santa Fetish to Me?

Former Bullies, Take Note

A while ago, I posted a Facebook status regarding one of my childhood tormentors. She had, upon encountering some of my relatives, said that she remembered me and asked that they say hi to me from her. I had a little vent but didn’t say that I hated her, believed her to be a bad person, or anything like that.

Regardless, I had unwittingly put out a former bully bat-signal. People I knew claimed that I needed to forgive her, that she could have grown up to be a perfectly wonderful young woman, that I ought to give her a chance, and so on. The justifications given were an exercise in typical bully apologetics: Kids are cruel. It was so long ago. Maybe she was trying to apologize to you. Why didn’t you just ignore her? Someone was probably hurting her, too. I doubt you were never mean to another kid.

I couldn’t believe that people I knew (and who, presumably, liked me) were trying to get me to be sympathetic towards a bully instead of being sympathetic towards me.

I’ve been thinking about it ever since. My personal resentment and hurt aside, the reactions of the former bullies were unhelpful at best. If the end goal is to prevent more bullying and promote more humanization on all sides, here are my suggestions for those who have come to realize that they were bullies.

What Not to Do

  1. Re-victimize/traumatize the people you know who were tormented by people like you, especially if they are expressing their pain. Insisting that the victims be far more loving towards their bullies than the bullies ever were to them is immeasurably hurtful.
  2. Project your own defensiveness. You feel bad but you also want others to know that you aren’t overall a bad person despite having done what you did. Demanding empathy of people, however, is not going to make them feel better about you or their experiences.
  3. Make excuses and justifications for bullying behavior. Those of us that were more among the victimized than the victimizers as children have heard it all before, trust me. It didn’t help when we cried about it as children and it doesn’t heal any of the lingering pain we might feel as adults.
I'm sure they didn't mean to gang up on and hurt this person.
I’m sure they didn’t mean to gang up on and hurt this person.

What To Do

  1. Make what you say about your friend, not about you, by acknowledging their pain and then, if it’s helpful, relaying your perspective in a way that is constructive. For example:

    I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I used to be a kid like your bully; if it’s any comfort, I didn’t have any idea what I was doing and wish I could take it all back.

  2. Focus on preventing bullying. As someone who used to bully, you are better equipped than any victim to recognize bullies and potential bullies and stop them in their tracks. Your remorse can serve as a cautionary tale.
  3. If you really would like to make amends, in lieu of trying to get your current friends who were victims of bullies to feel sympathetic towards their past tormentors, you could find your victims if you can and apologize sincerely to them. Again, be sure to make it about them, not you. For example:

    I apologize if this is a trigger to or intrusion on you, but I wanted to admit that I once was a shitty person who did something terrible to you. You don’t have to forgive me, reply to me, or even interact at all with me ever again, just know that I sincerely regret my senseless meanness and wish you all the best.

I am saying this as someone who has issued such an apology not once, not twice, not three, but four separate times, wholly unsolicited. That’s not to say that I’m a saint. Au contraire, it just goes to show that even those who experienced more victimizing than bullying are nonetheless capable of being, on occasion, bullies, or at least exhibiting bullying behavior. We are also capable of realizing that “forgiveness” for past behavior, whether solicited indirectly through current friends or directly through past victims, is not something for which a bully, no matter how reformed, has the right to ask.

After all, don’t childhood bullies do enough harm as it is without growing up to pressuring the bullied into empathizing and absolving the past behavior?

Former Bullies, Take Note

Tiger Moms: Harsh Parenting, Harsh Outcomes

Trigger Warning for Suicide, Self-Harm, and Depression

Remember Amy Chua, the woman who wrote The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother but ended up singing The Siren Song of the Back-Pedaler? Over two years after the publishing of her memoir and the explosion surrounding it, her name is passing lips again thanks to Slate reporting on pertinent research regarding Asian-American parenting styles:

Since “tigers” in Kim’s study scored highly on the shaming practice believed more common among Asian-Americans, it seems that, pre-Chua at least, tiger parenting would be less common among whites. (The moms rated themselves more highly on shaming than even their kids, suggesting tiger moms—like Chua, who recounted such instances in her best-seller—feel no shame in their shaming)

And although Chua presented her own children as Exhibit A of why her parenting style works, Kim said, “Our data shows Tiger parenting produces the opposite effect. Not just the general public but Asian-American parents have adopted this idea that if I’m a tiger parent, my kids will be whizzes like Chua’s kids. Unfortunately, tiger children’s GPA’s and depressive symptoms are similar to those whose parents who are very harsh.

I cannot express how glad I am that the study took a look at depressive symptoms. This is due to the unhappy facts about the suicide rates among young US-born Asian-American women.

According to Dr. Elizabeth Noh:

  • Suicide is the second leading cause of death among Asian American women, ages 15-24.
  • Asian American women, ages 15-24 and over 65, have the highest female suicide rates across all racial/ethnic groups.
  • Asian American adolescent girls (grades 5-12) demonstrate the highest rates of depression across both race/ethnicity and gender.
  • “Model minority” expectations and family pressures often are cited as factors of suicide.

I can attest to this. As a college student, I attended a support group by and for Asian-American women where we discussed the real-life, non-theoretical intersection of race, class, and gender that affected our everyday lives; the struggles that no one knew lurked behind the straightened-teeth smiles and college admission letters; the never-ending battle to please just about everyone in our filial, social, academic, and professional lives.

Every one of us, by virtue of being in that room, were highly successful students attending a relatively highly-ranked school. Not one of us had passed our teenage years without major suicidal ideation and depressive episodes.

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It really does come down to this: are parents like Amy Chua willing to sacrifice some of their daughters so that the ones who survive become piano prodigies and Harvard graduates?

Though the notion that tigresses eat their young is mostly an urban legend, I suppose self-described tiger moms have taken the old quote to heart.

Tiger Moms: Harsh Parenting, Harsh Outcomes