A love letter to my son

Dear Nick,

I dreamed for so long about becoming a parent and although you are my second born there was a moment and I don't recall exactly when that was, but there was a second when I thought about the perfection of the cycle and how amazing a gift you were; another chance to experience it again. One night when you were just a baby, your dad held you on his chest and you were asleep and he mouthed to me, "This one's mine." Funny, but ultimately true in so many ways. Watching you grow and change and reach the milestones that you've hit these past 10 years has been like watching a film of everything that was good and right and memorable about my own childhood, like reaching for a sea star in the clearest ocean water on the warmest summer day. Perfect really.
I wish that I could take all of the gentle moments, the smiles and the contentment and somehow insert them into the mainstream of your mind so that when the difficult times come, you have that reel of feelings and memories to call to the front of your mind, to your heart to help you overcome the pain. Watching you deal with the difficulties recently and the pain that has accompanied them has brought out every survival instinct that I have and that I now hope to pass along to you.
I love you, Mom

In considering scenarios where children bully other children and this includes ignoring them, I have to pause and ask myself how much responsibility falls on the parents of these children and how much falls on the child themselves. I ask myself this and then I realize that, in the end, it doesn't matter; finger pointing doesn't matter and really, it just exacerbates a problem that plagues everyone: the community, the school, the classroom, the family, the child. Blaming someone else does not make the situation any better because unless that person is willing to take accountability for their actions, then what is the point? And what does that teach my child?
If you are a parent who does not know how your children are treating other children, then shame on you. And, if you have a child who is being picked on, made fun of, or generally ostracized for being different or just for being themselves, then you have my whole hearted empathy because as I watch my son try to deal with things in his life that are monumentally difficult already, I have to ask myself where the boundaries are between protecting him and helping him to cope. And, unfortunately, I have yet to find those boundaries.

What frightens me and bothers me every single day is the idea that a bunch of children would gang up on another child just for fun. That a student can just come out and say that they hate another child for no apparant reason. That children think that they have the right to tell a child that he can't sit at their table to eat lunch or that they don't want to sit next to him in class. And if it bothers me, think of how the child must feel.
The conclusion I've come to is this: kids suck. That's it, no Freud 101 or pop psychology here. I am the first one to say if and when my own children fuck up and believe me, they do. So, I am also the first one to say, if your kid is bullying my kid, you better know that I'm going to find out and when I do, you and your kid will deal with me and then the school and then the school district and what's more, if your kid is bullying anyone and you don't know about it, then it's your fault for being ignorant.

There is no excuse for ridiculing or hurting another human being, even in the most dire of situations and it most certainly should not be happening on a public school campus so often that a child no longer wants to go to school. Shame on those children who think that they are being funny and who think that they are finding solidarity by harming another child. Shame on any parent who thinks that their child is not capable of this kind of behavior. Shame on everyone who thinks that this kind of a thing isn't a real problem that exists in real life, real days and real time. Because it does. Just pick up People magazine.
It's one thing not to like someone, but it's entirely another thing to humiliate them.

Cradling your child, nursing them, reading to them, taking walks with them, teaching them to tie their shoes, sending them off to school... you wish that you could keep them safe from harm and yet, you give them to the world willingly and you hope for the best, remembering the little smiles and the squeals and the days that they ran around naked in the backyard content with just the hose for a companion and you remind yourself that it will be okay; you remind yourself that with love and support and hope that your children will come out of it and not want to hurt themselves or others or give up on life. You remind yourself to try and do everything you can to keep that soul, that precious, unique gift that belongs to him, in tact through it all. You pray and you hope...