Bullying (part 2)

When you're a little kid, especially if you are as quiet and shy as I was back then (and anyone who knows me now would have a lot of trouble believing that I ever was), you tend to get picked on unmercifully. Yes, other kids can be really cruel. But what you usually do NOT expect is for a grown-up, one that you admire and look up to, to do it to you.

Let me preface this by saying that my Mom was born and raised in New York City. She lived there until she was 20, then married my Dad and moved to a small town in Central Illinois. Culture shock? You bet - - but that is a story for another time.

Admittedly, New Yorkers have quite an accent. I grew up hearing it. And, as little kids do, I really soaked it up. I talked just like them. And that was the basis for my first experience with ridicule.....

I went to a Catholic grade school. Back then, all the teachers were Nuns; the ones in the the full black and white garb. I was in awe of them, and more than a little scared. But they were my teachers, so I had to get used to them. And eventually, I did. And did pretty well, until one day.....

As I said, I talked the same way my Mom and her family did. I had heard it all my life, and I didn't know that anything was "wrong" or "different" about it. I just didn't notice those kinds of things. One day in class, I responded to a question the teacher had asked, and that's when it happened. I was made to come up to the front of the room, and stand there while the Nun took me to task and ridiculed me for the way I pronounced things. She did that to me, in front of everyone, while they all laughed and giggled at me. In fact, she even turned to the other students and asked them - - didn't they think I sounded funny? Then she made me go back to my desk. I had to sit there the rest of the day, with the other students turning around and looking at me, laughing and pointing at me. I was totally mortified, trying to figure out what I had done wrong; but more importantly, why it was wrong. My Mom talked that way, so how could it be wrong?

What this incident did was turn a very shy little girl, who was just trying to do her best in school and fit in, into an even more shy, timid, and scared little girl, who was afraid to ever speak up for any reason, for fear of being ridiculed again. It made me feel like something was wrong with ME; that for some reason, I was just not good enough - - not as good as the other kids, who were born and raised there and talked "right."

Looking back on it now, I can honestly say I consider this to definitely be a case of bullying. It's not just other "kids" that bully kids; it is even worse when it comes from an adult. Unfortunately, while that may have been the first case, it definitely wasn't the last...

To be continued....