Confessions of a Childhood Bully

by Jo Parente (Subscribe to Jo Parente's posts)
Oct 26th 2010 2:00PM

Filed under: Siblings, Bullying, Opinions, Relationships, Behavior, Behavior: Toddlers & Preschoolers, Behavior: Big Kids

Do bullying wounds ever heal? Illustration by Christopher Healy

My sister was three years younger than me and small for her age. She had a pixie haircut and a dark complexion that set her apart from the rest of our fair-skinned family. Strangers often mistook her for a boy or a foreign-born adoptee.

I rarely dared to hurt her physically, not because she was younger and painfully thin, but because what she lacked in strength she made up for in ferociousness. When she was a toddler, I'd impulsively slap or pinch her and keep walking -- until the time I felt her teeth sink into my back. From then on, I kept my distance.

Instead, I assaulted her with words, calling her a mistake, mutant, slob, loser. I glared at her across the dinner table, or pretended she wasn't there as I talked to my parents and brothers, everyone but her. I snorted in contempt when she brought up her achievements in kindergarten, and laughed when she shared a bad day. She stayed silent as our mother gave her meaningful looks, as if to say, "Remember what we talked about." Mom repeatedly ordered me to stop being nasty and leave her alone, to no avail. I was bursting with irrational hatred.

Now I read articles about bullying and cringe. Victims I have never met reopen decades-old memories of my little sister, my scapegoat. Together, their awful helplessness weighs me down like a load of bricks; it kicks me in the gut and knocks the air out of me. I fantasize about saving just one child from a bully, as if to wipe my own slate clean.

But my sympathy also extends, guiltily, to the perpetrators. I wonder if someone is insulting and domineering those kids, too, or if they have witnessed someone they love being tormented. Will anyone even think to investigate? I imagine staging an intervention and holding a mirror to a bully's seething insides. But after he faces the awful truth, then what? I've treated the symptom, not the disease. There's no happy ending to that scenario.

I know now that when I bullied my sister, I was fighting somebody else. She was an arbitrary enemy on whom I would practice my revenge. My real target was a babysitter, an adult relative who frequently abused me verbally. Although I stood up for myself and talked back, it had no effect.

My sister reacted to my tongue lashings the way I wished my harasser would've. Her silence was my reward. After I hurt her, I would feel energized and hopeful, like I could take on any threat. But in that moment of relief, a nagging voice whispered that my sister didn't deserve such treatment any more than I did. Unable to handle the guilt, I would quickly rationalize my behavior: "My sister made me feel like this. She did deserve it."

Today, we live on opposite coasts and see each other once a year or so. I shower her young daughter with gifts. I try to talk to my sister about the past and forge a closer relationship. Once or twice she's confided in me about weathering tough times as an adult, but it's been several years since we really connected. Her poker face reveals nothing to me of her feelings or opinions. Our mother says that's just the way she is.

I hope my mother is wrong. I want to believe my sister is guarded only around me. I can't bear to think she is aloof with strangers and close friends alike, and that I helped make her that way.

My sister enjoys watching her only child play tea party with her stuffed animals. At 5, my niece is happy and self-sufficient and fearless.

My sister turned out stronger than her bully. She treats others the way she should have been treated, not the way she was treated by me. I'm proud of her. And, I am truly sorry.

Jo Parente is the ParentDish nom de plume, a pen name, used by our editorial team when we want to spill our dirty little secrets but still keep our dignity, and families, intact.

ReaderComments (Page 5 of 9)

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10-29-2010 @ 4:30PM

Caitlin. said...

I can't help but wonder why the babysitter's actions are labeled "verbal abuse", while the writer's actions (admitted by her to be all but the same) are deemed "bullying".

Though, I understand the difference in the babysitter being an adult, and the writer a child at the time; but I almost feel that she's trying to pull the "I was abused!" card, to try to lessen her guilt.

10-29-2010 @ 4:33PM

Parissa said...

With all due respect to all referenced in the above story, but I'd like to know where in the hell the parents were in all of this? Sitting at the table being allowed to ignore her sister? Laughing when her little sister shared something good or important that had happened at school? Belittling, name calling, pinching, etc., etc., etc! WHERE WERE THE PARENTS? I realize things go on sometimes out of sight and kids are great at 'hiding' behavior's, but living together in a household, the parents HAD to have seen something. Why did they let it go on without intervening? I think the older sister is deluding herself if she things that behavior didn't impact her sister ~ even yet. I hope they can work things out, but, frankly, if I were the little sister I'd be leary of the whole damned family! She wasn't protected as she should have been by her parents and she certainly wasn't treated respectfully or appropriately by her big sister. If it were me, 'big sister' and the entire family would have one very long road to creating a meaningful relationshiop with me ... if ever!

10-29-2010 @ 4:35PM

Angiebaby said...

Sounds like the way my older brother treated me, except he didn't refrain from hitting. However, his patterns were set from early childhood from watching the way my divorced parents treated me. My father would only pick me up when he couldn't get out of it, and more often than not, when he had to take me, too, he would keep my brother with him and drop me off on his mother's door. Sometimes it hurt. Like the time he and his wife picked my brother up and took him to St. Louis for a weekend ballgame, and left me behind because I was "too young." Never mind that I was eleven. But that's just the way it was.

Then we get to my mother. All I will say at this point is my mother and brother were partners in bullying me. They used to tell one another every private or embarrassing thing about me, snicker and whisper to one another, and team up on me whenever the notion struck. It was hard, I can't lie. Hard as hell. But how could my brother have treated me any differently when he was taught from the get-go from both our parents, by word and in deed, that I was not worth anything more than to be a whipping boy? Except I was a girl.

Anywho, maybe the sister in this story spends a lot of time guarding her heart. I know I do. I used to have the gift of gab, but I could talk for hours and you'd never know a single thing about me. Details of my life? A few, maybe. But you'd know nothing about me. Funny. In as much as my mother and brother thought they knew everything about me, they knew nothing. Just a few details of my life. Nothing more. What would it take for someone to get into my heart today? Hell, at my age, I don't even know that it's possible. I don't concern myself with that, though. When keeping to myself, I keep very good company. Perhaps it is this way with the sister in this story, too.

10-29-2010 @ 4:36PM

New York said...

There are now laws against bullying so you can untie you hands & do whatever you have to do to protect your students. Too many stories end in tragedy. Please do your job & protect these kids against bullies. I would expect nothing less from a teacher.

10-29-2010 @ 4:40PM

Tammy said...

I figured out long ago that the problem with my brother and myself, is that I was born.
He resented me and treated me with contempt for the most part. All I ever wanted to do was get along with him. He would drive me to tears and then feel bad that he did that, then we would get along for a short time and it would start all over again. Even as an adult I was picked on and critizied for a time untilly I finally spoke up for myself in a email to him several years ago. That this stuff continues on into adulthood is simply ridiculous. We get along now better then we ever have although I still don't talk to him whole lot.

10-29-2010 @ 4:47PM

Lori said...

My brother took his bullying into adulthood and he has nothing to do with his sisters. His bullying was filled with hate and disdain towards his siblings. Even the Navy straightened him out with discipline, but it never taught him Love, esp. toward those that didn't deserve it. He still has to be in control of others.

10-29-2010 @ 4:42PM

While reading this I thought you were a young boy, I never imagined a little girl would be allowed to be punched like that & your mom not intervening. I don't blame you for staying away. You are much better off. I would however let the two of them know how you feel. Maybe write them a letter & let it all out. It will make you feel better. Sounds like your mom & brother have issues. God Bless you.

10-29-2010 @ 4:44PM

jem said...

As someone who was bullied as a child, It makes me really angry when I read about someone who wants to lessen their guilt by calling themselves a victim! It's laughable and Jo, you are a disgusting example of why this problem will never completely go away.

Your SISTER is the victim, NOT you! She is the one who stood for years of your torture and probably shed a lot of tears behind your back, perhaps had years of therapy or simply can't be close to anyone. I am now highly educated, successful in my career, fairly attractive and married to a wonderful man -- many things that people want in this life -- yet I have trouble getting close to other people. Luckily in my case, my tormentors are not family.

Why don't you just apologize to your sister (without the excuses - you knew what you were doing) instead of broadcasting it behind a pseudonym on a website? Then, leave her alone to decide what the future of your relationship is! If she doesn't want a relationship with you, then it's your own fault...

10-29-2010 @ 4:43PM

saalormun said...

My sister is six years older then me. She would often treat me the same way. There was also a history of pysical abuse as well. It wasn't until my late teens and her mid 20s that she expressed her regret to me. It is only been over the last few years that I have felt that I have a normal healthy relationship with her. For many years there were a lot of feelings of pain and jealousy towards her. I hope parents will realize how serious bullying by a sibling can be.

10-29-2010 @ 4:46PM

Jane said...

My brother was three years older than me and he was always picking on me. My mom and dad never did anything to stop him like they should've. They had this idea that this crap was normal behavior for an older brother to do to his little sister. Instead of teaching him to protect me, they let him "be an older brother".
I grew up hating him and now, in our 40's, he's nothing but a useless substance abuser living on the streets. What goes around, comes around, I guess, bullies always get their due.

kelly said...

This story brought tears to my eyes. I'm hoping that the bigger brother TRUELY is sorry! You can't take back the way you have treated people in the past... you can only move forward.

10-30-2010 @ 6:22PM

To NancyJill, who made my life hell said...

Nancy, you bullied me daily growing up, both physically mentally, and emotionally. You would beat me up everytime you were left in charge while ma went out and did who-knows-what. My life growing up next to you was pure hell. You had your "tortures" that you bragged about.like pinning me down and pouring water on my head until I couldn't take it anymore. Or tickleing me until I peed, and then mocking me for it. I hated you. You were so sadistic. I remember how you locked me in the celler with no windows, all the while convincing me there was a tanratula down there that had recently had babies-hundreds of them. You knew I was afraid of spiders, you heard my panic, yet you delighted in telling me they "eat the eyes first". I crawled into a rolled up rug, terrified, and later on that day when you heard the car coming back, you dragged me out almost comatose, frozen in fear.
And when I pleaded to be a substitute for Lori as our father raped her, you only faulted me for it, saying I was "stupid" to do it. I never could figure out how you could hear her pitiful cries, and walk away without trying to help her. I hated you most then. It wasn't until I was grown and moved away many years later, that I thought about you and eventually forgave you. I realized you were being abused as well. Some people grow strong despite the abuse. Some people become monsters because of it. You were my childhood monster. I hope that whebn you read this, you realize that I do forgive you, but I never want to see you again. Not out of hate. No. Only because I do not want the remembrance of you to taint the life I have now. A very good life. There was war going on in that house we grew up in, and we were both soldiers. Now, long after the war ends, if I were to look at you, I wouldn't see you. I would see only the war. I don't hate you at all anymore. You are just a reminder of hell. And I don't live there anymore.

10-29-2010 @ 5:22PM

millie said...

May God bless you for your strength! You're a better person than I ever could be. In fact you're probably a better person than most! I may not know you, but I admire you and I'm so proud of you!

10-29-2010 @ 4:57PM

I would like to add something to this story about bullying. The first, best teacher in life is siblinghood. Take an event in this story, for example. The big sister hit the little one. The little one got a belly full and then one day she bit the sh*t out of the older one. The older one cut her physical crap out, posthaste, and the little one learned that so long as you take it, somebody, somewhere, will dish it out. We no longer allow this natural course of behavior, and then when kids get to Elementary school, they learn the truth: Treat others the way you want to be treated is an IDEAL; REALITY is you have to be able to stand your ground, defending yourself if need be, or the mean kid in class will hit you every day.

Back in the day, parents used phrases like "Don't be a tattletale" and "Work it out yourselves" and "If I have to come in there and settle it, none of you will be happy." Sounds harsh, by today's standards. But siblings, and children as a whole, were happier and healthier then, and developed skills like playing together or you have to play by yourself, give and take, and worthwhile lessons, like rank has its privileges when an older sib got to stay up later because they were older, but you still had to go to bed half an hour earlier. Siblinghood used to be training ground for school, and ultimately, for life as an adult.

The case here seems to be the extreme, just as mine was, and parents have the responsibility to step in when necessary in extreme cases like this. But for the most part, parents should keep their noses out of it. And if parents do not intervene in dire circumstances, that prepares one for life in another way. This burdgeoning, and frightening, social trend of stopping all bullying is bound to fail. A childhood without challenges is impossible, and IMHO, undesirable.

10-29-2010 @ 5:03PM

spike said...

I had three older brothers.I will call them one,two and three.I was number four the youngest.My oldest brother # 1 had an irrational hatred for number three,beat him up,sometimes ridicules him always .
When the news was delivered to number three brother ,that number one had died.His reacvtion was;Thats the best news I ever heard.Bullying is devastating to the soul and evil beyond words..Don't do it.

10-29-2010 @ 5:04PM

a said...

I dont' think sending your sister this article will change anything. The damage is already done. All of those "hurtful" words she still feels in her heart. She has forgiven you, but she will never forget.

10-29-2010 @ 5:11PM

clay said...

growing up I bullied my sister and brothers because they bullied me. it's called growing up. so STFU and learn to deal with something you bunch of losers!

10-29-2010 @ 5:14PM

samantha said...

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!

10-29-2010 @ 5:27PM

And you are exactly the kind of person who will pass on, and approve of, such rotten bullying attitudes to your own children if you have any. I hope you don't. And, if you do, I pity them.

Yeah I teased my brother when he was like 3-6 years old. But I got older and started to tease him less. But I feel so bad because he was young, its just that he was so egotistical it felt like he didn't like me or something... But then I realized that teasing isn't going to help anything. I was aggressive when I was younger, mostly because I'm a little of an outsider. But MOVE ON SERIOUSLY. If you bring this up with your sister she'll think you want a sob story or something. Start warming up to her and don't bring up the past. Not all siblings can have that mutual benefiting relationship, or have connections (just like all other relationships) so you may just have to accept that. But make sure you tell her some of your insecurities... If she has any heart she will be able to see you in a better light and that your just human too and that we are all different... Maybe just go every year and invite her to lunch, don't talk much though, if she feels uncomfortable around you then maybe you should make her think that YOU are uncomfortable, and maybe she will start to OPEN up to you. Be a little submissive since it sounds like you were the aggressive one here. But if you force your friendliness it will kinda just serve as a FOIL for all the negative things that you did. Good luck.

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