Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Fear Is The Bully


by ADAM SCHERR on APRIL 18, 2011

“Mom approves 7-year old for plastic surgery to pin back ears to avoid schoolyard bullying.” This was a headline last Thursday in the NY Daily News. Given my emotional bull in the china shop nature, my emotions ran the gamete. Disbelief, anger, saddness and then a bumpy landing into real concern for OUR children. Now when I say our, I don’t mean mine and my wife’s, I mean US of OuRs.

Now I’m not here to say whether plastic surgery as a preventive measure is right or wrong. Although I am here to say it is merely putting a bandaid on a fatal gunshot wound on the soul of our youth.

The mother said she was upset about her daughters ears. The article didn’t mention how the girl felt. I do know that as a parent I have to constantly pray about not passing any fear to my boys. Fear is the most serious contagion going around. It is the root of “all evils.” The article says further: “kids are mean.” And I say if we are to take this bullying epidemic by the horns, we must start with ourselves. We must stop righting off our children as mean and bad. They aren’t born that way. They learn it. If I want my kids to stop yelling than I need to make sure that I’m not yelling. If my wife and I see our kids talking back to us, we just need to look and see if we are talking back to each other. It does the trick every time. Kids are born perfect. And they have a lifetime warranty. And it is our job to hold onto the warranty and nurture their perfection. Speak to their perfection not to their perceived defaults. That is our job as parents and adults.

The mother said that although she hadn’t been bullied yet, she feared that her daughter’s ears would eventually make her-self conscious and shy. The mother feared all the way to NY, all the way to a plastic surgeon. Having been in fear myself at times, I can only imagine how devastating it must be to be bullied by fear to the point that you take your child half way across the country for them to get plastic surgery, to prevent them from getting bullied in the future. The collective we must take this BULL-ying by it’s horns now. It is time to bully fear and doubt before it bullies anymore of our children.

“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is to be understood.” Marie Curie.
“Keep your fears to yourself but share your courage with others.” Robert Louis Stevenson
“You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.” Mary Manin Morrissey