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Confessions of a Childhood Bully

Jo Parente — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 14:00:00 EST

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.

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Opinion: Parenting in Public is Perilous Business

Jo Parente — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Relatives, Opinions

They're watching you ... Illustration by Christopher Healy

There's nothing quite like spending 16 days straight with six family members and an additional guest to throw your parenting skills into stark relief.

Turns out, I'm a yeller short on patience who likes to bribe her kids with sugar and gives in to ridiculous demands from those under 4-feet tall in order to SHUT THEM UP ALREADY.

Good times.

Every summer I travel 3,000 miles round-trip with my family in tow from Flyover Country to the Very East Coast to spend time with my siblings, their kids and my mom. It's always great fun -- obviously, because I've made that insane road trip four times now -- but it's also very humbling from a parenting perspective.

Usually, I'm pretty good for about three days: I calmly issue time-outs, I say please and thank you when correcting naughty behavior, I tell my kids they have to sit and stay at the dinner table if they want to eat, thank you very much.

Then things start to devolve. Quickly.

Continue reading Opinion: Parenting in Public is Perilous Business

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Drunken Baby Photos? Not So Funny

Jo Parente — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:16:00 EST

Filed under: Weird But True, Opinions

Credit: Dentsu / Lunivers de Chocolat

Call me humorless, but I just don't see what's funny or cute about photos of babies meant to look like they're drunk. In fact, I'm offended.

I'll admit, when I first came upon this article from The Stir about chocolatiere Lunivers de Chocolat's drunken baby ad campaign for their whisky-filled chocolates, I wasn't immediately irritated. As an urban mom of two teenagers, who actually ask me to hang out with them and their friends sometimes, I like to think I'm cool and hip to modern culture. I wear Converse and rarely tuck my shirts.

So, when I read the bit about how there are three types of parents: "The ones who think it's hilarious to have baby pose with a beer bottle for a photo, the ones who have photos where baby looks drunk and they play that up, and the ones who think the other two types are borderline bad parents. (Read: Have no sense of humor.)" -- I naturally assumed I would never be the type who has no sense of humor.

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The van der Sloot Syndrome: When Moms Go Cold

Jo Parente — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: In The News

It's been a tough week for Joran van der Sloot -- and not because he seems to have officially come out as a serial killer. No, I'm referring to the fact that his biggest ally the last time he got into a sticky situation with a girl has essentially disowned him in front of an international audience.

As the latest surreal van der Sloot saga unfolded on the news, I was intrigued to see that his mother, Anita, was oddly MIA. Day one passed, followed by two, and then three. After what seemed like weeks, she finally made a statement and it wasn't terribly mother-like: "I will not visit him in his cell. I cannot embrace him."

This is a snub I know all too well -- except that I'm not a serial killer. Although you wouldn't know it based on the relationship (or lack thereof) that I've had with my mother for the past 32 years.

Continue reading The van der Sloot Syndrome: When Moms Go Cold

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Opinion: Don't Be Scared, Sandra Bullock; I've Been There

Jo Parente — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:02:00 EST

Filed under: Celeb Parents, Single Parenting, Opinions, Celeb News & Interviews

Congrats, Sandra. All will be well. Promise. Credit: People

Dear Sandra:

As I listened to the so-called experts on morning TV yammer on about how tough your custody battle is going to be, all I could think was, "Baloney!"

Like you, I adopted a baby with a husband who went rogue soon after. One sunny morning, three weeks after we brought home our daughter, Steve went to work and never came home.

I was completely blindsided (sorry for the unintentional pun, but I can't think of another word for it) and I can only describe the next few days as feeling like I was swimming underwater. Life became blurry, with a lot of feelings coming at me that I'd never dealt with before. It was the first time in my life that I couldn't eat.

Continue reading Opinion: Don't Be Scared, Sandra Bullock; I've Been There

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