First Posted: 11/23/2013
Just like everyone else, my kids want to be just like everyone else.
They don’t want to be unique. They don’t want to stand out. They don’t want to be noticed, just liked.
That makes me a bit sad. In a world of bullies and snarky comments, children are afraid to be themselves. I noticed it in my home several times this week.
My youngest daughter had to bring something from her baptism to her religion class. As I’ve detailed here before, she was the recipient of a miracle, nearly dying two days into life until her emergency baptism somehow turned everything around.
She wanted to bring her baptismal candle or some other artifact the other kids might have. All we have from the occasion is a Polaroid picture one of the nurses took of the priest’s hand blessing her that amazing Friday afternoon. We treasure that photo. But she didn’t want that, since it made her different from her classmates. It might draw attention to her.
Our middle daughter is blessed with great reading skills for a child her age. She had a chance to read the opening at a school event, and she took it. The closer she got to that day, the more worried she became about the other kids making fun of her. She just wanted to watch like the other children did, she said.
Our oldest daughter still bounces back and forth on whether she wants to put herself out there to participate in a community play, which she’d already committed herself to doing.
In all these cases, their positive attributes that make them special made them feel like “the other,” as if they didn’t fit in with their classmates and friends.
Cases like theirs are quite common. Nearly every day you hear about some sort of bullying, picking on people who are better at something, mocking people who are worse at something, or acting out just to make the bully feel better. Most of the time they don’t even consider these pressures bullying.
Some say that’s not bullying; that’s just growing up. I don’t know how another term works better when you stop acting like yourself just to fit into a situation and not feel harassed.
I have plenty of experience feeling different in my life. I was the only Catholic kid in my class. I was the guy with the weird last name, different from anyone else in town. I was the uncoordinated smart kid. Yes, believe it or not, white guys can feel out of place in the world too. That’s not unique to any gender or race.
I spent most of my first 20 years trying to go unnoticed, flying under the radar as best as I could. I kept my wicked sense of humor to myself, occasionally whispering my quips to close friends so they could get all the laughs because I didn’t want singled out if the joke fell flat.
I never felt physically bullied, but emotionally I felt that way nearly every day. Then it came over me like an epiphany: The best part of living each day is living it my way, by being myself.
Once I had some confidence in myself and who I was, I had more fun and was more fun to be around. The bullies pick on those they perceive to be weak. Your strength and your courage is your shield against them. Once you have those, you can ignore and move past them.
So now I share the advice I shared with my children this week: Be yourself. Other people will like you that way, and so will you.
