Sticks and stones

I come from a big, noisy, opinionated bunch. My family, all nine of us— and occasionally one or two extras—lived in a rather compact house just outside Toronto. My parents encouraged us to get along, share and accept that not everyone is the same. Mind you, if there happened to be a line up of 50 people, it was easy to pick out The Durnings based solely on facial expression. Maybe it was the signature smirk each of us wore so well. I’d like to think so. It could have been our collective mentality about so many things. Our sense of humour, for instance, slightly askew and definitely slapstick. Tight quarters will do that to a family. Mostly, we played by the rules laid down by our parents. Mostly. Because we were Catholic kids, we went to a Catholic school. Even though—as I pointed out at the tender age of seven— ”there’s a school three blocks away,” we hopped on the Grey Coach bus each morning and headed into Weston. It seemed a bunch of us Micks, standing at the bus stop, was a red flag to a few of the public school kids. Those kids were our neighbours and our playmates, but went to the school three blocks away. We offered an opportunity to have greetings hurled our way. By greetings, I mean we were regaled with slurs about being Catholic. Kids are like that, they’re sponges who, when left to their own devices, will say and do what they’ve learned at home, on the street or in the classroom. Maybe us Catholic kids hurled the first fighting words. Maybe not. It was pretty balanced, all in all. The interesting thing was, my parents just nodded when we told them what happened at the bus stop. They’d heard it all before, not only as Catholic kids, but as immigrant kids, and chances are they’d heard it all and done it all before, too.

As kids, we didn’t know it was hurtful to bully and harass people. We did as we saw and as we heard. Occasionally, someone would step in when the going got a bit rough. But mostly we were left to our own devices. It hurt to be on the receiving end, and it didn’t really feel great to be on the delivery side. We accepted and incorporated words and phrases crafted to offend and hurt. We routinely cast aspersions and tried to deflect disparaging remarks.

Not all of the taunting and teasing was about being a Catholic school kid or a public school kid. Sometimes, we took great delight in pointing out physical and mental differences. It’s what we heard and saw, every day. The grownups defended us by saying, “kids will be kids.” And then? Well, and then people started talking about “sticks and stones and words that never harm you.” A great dialogue bubbled up about correctness, sensitivity and kindness. It’s a great dialogue that continues because, deep down inside, many of us don’t believe that words will ever hurt. But you and I know words do a great deal of harm. Kids who are bullied experience all kinds of mental, physical and intellectual anguish. Kids who bully often engage in other violent behaviours as children and as adults, such as alcohol and drug abuse. Even the kids who are witness to bullying are likely to be fall prey to a host problematic issues, including, substance abuse, missing or skipping school, mental health problems and depression.

Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will hurt forever.

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca