TAG! You're IT!

I am an only child of a single mother. My father has not had a part in my daily life since before I was 2. No hard feelings about that-- just explaining that it's been me and Mom for as long as I can remember.

My mother went to work all day, and I stayed with my grandmother. My nearest cousins lived 200 miles away from us. I never went to daycare. I did not go to preschool. I was not in any sports or dance or gymnastics groups...

I didn't get a lot of social interaction with other children until I started kindergarten.

My grandmother lived (and continues to live) in a one bedroom apartment in a tiny rural town 2 block from the elementary school that I attended. Up until I started school there myself in 1975, my mornings consisted largely of being dropped off with the grandparents, sitting on my grandfather's lap while we ate breakfast (poached eggs on toast with strawberry jam-- every morning,) seeing my grandfather off to work, and then sitting in the big picture window in the living room watching all the neighborhood kids walk to school.
I was really looking forward to starting school.

See... in my sheltered, delusional state I thought that when I started school I would suddenly meet all these kids and-- ergo-- have all these friends.

What actually happened when the big day arrived was that I didn't meet anyone new until the first recess. That time before school started was filled with me trying to convince my mother that it was ok to leave me there and go to work, while other children clung like burrs to their mothers' legs and cried. So there wasn't much time for making friends.

So, the first recess comes along and there I am, standing all alone on the sidewalk realizing I have no idea how to go about making these new friends. When Robin comes bopping up to me. She was so perky and confident-- and she immediately introduced herself to me and asked me bluntly, "Would you like to be my best friend?"

Well. I had to think about that. It seemed like a strange way to go about making new friends. And, frankly, I did already have a best friend. But then I reasoned that this school thing was new for all of us (I had no concept of daycare and preschool, can you tell?) so I thought maybe that's the way her parents advised her to go about it. So I said, "Ok."

My brand new BFF then asked me if I owned any makeup. Which seemed odd. I mean, we're five, who needs makeup? But, as a matter of fact, I did have quite a collection of makeup for playing dress-up so I let my new besty know that I had an impressive collection of Avon lipstick samples at my disposal.

At this point, the bell was ringing and we began filing back into the class, but Robin was sure to tell me to bring my lipstick to school the next day.

I was pretty excited when I got home, as you can imagine. My first day of kindergarten was a success.
My second day? Not so much.

First recess came and my perky new BFF bebopped up to me and immediately demanded, "Where is it?"

I was at a complete loss: "What?"

Perky tilted her head to one side, furrowed her eyebrows, dropped her voice an octave, and said in what I still remember as the most sarcastic tone I've ever heard a human voice accomplish, "The lipstick."

The lightbulb went on over my head and I remembered our previous conversation. I explained blithely that it resided in a drawer in my grandmother's bathroom and that I'd bring it the following day.

To which my new X-BFF tossed her head in disgust and uttered, "You probably don't have any makeup anyway" as she turned her back and walked away.

Robin never said another kind word to me again.

She went on to befriend Kathy, Theresa, and Debbie.

Kathy and Theresa continued through school with me until our senior year of high school. Theresa was our homecoming queen.

Honestly, both Kathy and Theresa eventually wandered off to their own lives and I don't have any particularly hard feelings toward either of them as they pretty much left me alone entirely after kindergarten.

Debbie went to school with me until about the 3rd grade and seemed particularly intent on making my life miserable.

I never saw Robin again after kindergarten.

But that group of girls comprised the "popular girls" during kindergarten-- and they did their share of teasing and verbally tormenting me.... I guess they all remembered their makeup.

Nevertheless-- I have never considered any of these girls to have been bullies. Not to me, and certainly not to anyone else by any stretch of the imagination.

I had bullies.

Roxy was a year older than me and for the life of me, I've never understood what I ever did to her. She used to punch me at recess. Pull my hair. Put gum in my hair. Throw rocks at me. Spit at me.

My grandmother said "she's just jealous" and "ignore her and she'll go away."

Aren't grandmother's precious?

But Roxy was ever-present for some 3 years of my life. She was every bit a bully. Just plain mean.

There've been lots of bullies-- real bullies-- throughout my life. Mostly other girls. The gum in the hair trick is a popular one.

I love the way these things can happen in classrooms, on playgrounds, on school buses-- right in front of the people who are supposed to be supervising you-- without being noticed.

I had to learn how to defend myself, and I had to learn how to pick out the merely obnoxious from the actual bullies.

Even as a child, I could tell that there was a distinct difference between the people who merely taunted me, teased me, or said hurtful-- and often unintentionally so-- things to me. It was one thing to have someone call me "ugly" or bark at me... quite another to outright threaten me or throw rocks at me.

I do think that these negative experiences with my peers had a lasting impression on me-- some tragic, some not so much. I never automatically assume people like me. I have some social anxiety and can be surprisingly shy.

On the other hand-- it isn't the end of my world when it turns out that someone actually doesn't like me.

And it doesn't crush my delicate self esteem to have someone disagree with me, or deride me, or roll their eyes at me, or call me names. And since I'm deeply convinced that I'm not going to win any popularity contests anyway-- when someone wants to rally their allies against me, I'm perfectly content to shrug and let them win. I long ago realized that popularity is not all it's cracked up to be anyway. If that's how you feed your self-esteem, have it, you need it more than I do.

The thing is-- self esteem doesn't develop on its own. If you live your whole life in a sterile bubble, the fact that you've never been sick doesn't mean you have a healthy immune system-- it means you've never been exposed to anything that could make you sick.

I'm pretty sure self esteem is the same way.

We have school districts in this country that are banning the game tag. Seriously. Because parents are concerned for their delicate snowflakes' self esteem. Apparently playing tag is going to traumatize our children.

So much debate all around us lately about the "wussification" of America. Kids can't play tag. We don't keep score at sports events so no one will lose. Everyone gets a trophy just for showing up.

Suddenly "bully" is the new buzz word and everyone is crying about "Internet bullying." Social networks like Myspace and Facebook-- if someone says something the least bit hurtful to you-- you're being "bullied."
Hogwash. Just because someone hurts your feelings doesn't make them a bully.

We still have freedom of speech in this country, and some of us still believe that's a freedom worth keeping-- if it means getting our feelings hurt now and then.

It's ok if someone disagrees with you. It's ok if they have an opinion of you that is less than complimentary.

The Internet comes with all kinds of "block address," "block user, " and "delete friend" options-- use them if your self esteem is really so delicate that it can't take a little opposition. But just because the Internet has made it easier to find out what people are saying about you, doesn't mean they haven't always been saying stuff about you. And it sure as heck doesn't equate to "bullying."

If playing tag is hurting your feelings-- stop chasing people. Because once tagged, they are going to chase back.