Hateful Whores

          Growing up, I was definitely not someone who hung out with the “cool” people. And I totally understand why. I cringe when I think about some of my super-cool outfits consisting of Umbros and knee-high striped baseball socks, coupled with my equally awesome hair which was shaved bald from the ponytail down. What in the bloody hell was I thinking? Side note: Please don’t feel the need to sympathize with my naiveté. Years later, I became a cheerleader who got wasted on the weekends, and they are ALWAYS cool.

                 

           Mixed into my emotions of delusional embarrassment, I also have to laugh and be grateful for the way my mom handled my… unique?... sense of style. She was always so supportive of my ludicrous decisions, aside from the head shaving stage, which I still think was pretty dope. My mother behaved this way with all of my sisters as well, allowing us to channel our inner fashionistas and take on the criticism of middle schoolers head on. I do not in any way fault her for this open-mindedness, as I think my sisters and I all ended up just awesomely; however, I have taken a completely different stance on this issue myself when dealing with my own children.  

  

           When my twins started Kindergarten two years ago, I was beyond relieved over the fact that they would be wearing uniforms to school. Not only would it make things simpler when choosing clothes to wear in the morning, but perhaps this way there would be less snootiness at school as far as clothing was concerned. Shoes, socks, and hair bows are pretty much the only areas where these kids have the freedom to put a little bit of personality into their wardrobes. I thought this would be so simple to figure out, and that everyone would be happy with these effortless decisions I had to make regarding their accessories. Boy, was I wrong. After testing out fifty different types of socks, six different styles of shoes, and deciding that bows were just for babies, I was worn out. At first, I was getting on my girls for being so picky.  However, it didn’t take long for me to realize that the reason for the fuss was far deeper than simple comfort or preference; the problem was the little bitches at school who decided to make fun of 5 year olds for the socks they decided to wear that day.  

                 

          Yes, I just referred to my children’s fellow female kindergarten peers as bitches. Sorry, not sorry. I speak the truth. Side note: None of my friends on Facebook are mothers of these bitches, so stop asking yourself if I'm talking about you. Okay, to continue... there were days when I would pick my girls up from school, and one of them would be sobbing in the car because so-and-so told her that her shoes looked stupid. Seriously? Yes, seriously. Those short but long rides home were fraught with anger, hurt feelings, confusion, and defeat. At least those were my emotions. My initial reaction was to take the common stance of “they only say these things to you because they are insecure and blah blah blah…”. While this is true, it doesn’t do much to help a tiny little girl who just wants to be accepted by her classmates.

                 

          My girls are now in second grade, and over the past two years I have developed a new theory on these spiteful little bullies at school. While the campaigns for anti-bullying are powerful and definitely a good way to help some children being harassed, I just don’t think this method works for every child. No matter what the good parents of the world do in an attempt to end the bullying at school, we never will. There will always be parents who are bullies themselves, who pass this hideous behavior onto their own spawns of Satan. That being said, my approach is not to get rid of the bullies, but to prepare my children for having to deal with them the rest of their lives. I deal with bitchy adult bullies on a daily basis, and it has taken me a LONG time to just accept the fact that those people are mean and probably suffering from a lifelong case of diarrhea which causes them to be shitty to others (see what I did there?).

                 

           So how do you prepare a 7 year old for this awful truth of meanness? I’m sure that many of you will disagree with my new method, but it seems to be working so far, so kiss it. Basically, when one of my children decides to “express herself” by wearing her hair in a way that makes me, a mother who always thinks her children are beautiful, cringe, I just tell her the truth. Now don’t freak out… I’m not saying I look at my little girl and tell her she looks like Marilyn Manson on a bad hair day. I simply have decided to PREPARE her. I tell her that I can appreciate what she is trying to do with her new hairdo, but that there are mean people at school who WILL make fun of her for it. After providing her with this information, and hoping desperately that she will fix her hair to look somewhat generationally acceptable once again, I let her make the decision on her own. If she decides to make her psychotic fashion statement, at least she will know when walking into her classroom, some little bitch is going to make fun of her for it. She is prepared for the worst.

               

           I know that it is of the utmost importance to let our children express themselves and to discover who they truly are along the way, but why is it the norm to just let them go out in the world unprepared for the backlash? We teach them to wipe their asses, wash their plates, brush their teeth… why can’t we teach them about the bitches? Maybe if we did, our little ones would be more prepared to deal with these hateful whores the rest of their lives. Because there will ALWAYS be hateful whores.