Pink Shirt Day

This post will probably not be all that popular, but I've been thinking about this Pink Shirt Day thing. Yesterday, as many of you know, was Pink Shirt Day--or the local, official anti-bullying awareness day. As my kids are homeschooled, they needn't participate in the local show of wearing a pink shirt to school to prove that they oppose bullying. Mind you it's not just schools which make a point of supporting this campaign either. I saw plenty of grownups wearing official campaign t-shirts today which you can get at the local shop for about $10, and the adverts around town have been up for weeks. I suppose I could have taken the opportunity to play along with this seemingly recent agenda and given the kids a lesson about bullying. But something about the whole thing distinctly bothers me.

It's not that I don't think bullying ought to be weeded out or attended to by teachers and peers. It's not that I don't believe bullying is a serious problem in schools these days. As a matter of fact a lot of people I know who have considered homeschooling did so out of a fear of their kid being bullied.  And while fear of bullying certainly wasn't my reason for choosing to homeschool, I acknowledge that it is one of the many disadvantages of the mainstream system and the digital revolution seems to have sent it out of control.

I myself was bullied rather badly in 7th grade and let me tell you, 13 year old girls are really, really good at it. They have a knack for forming tight groups of friends and picking someone outside the group (or occasionally from within the group) to exclude. Sometimes in very nasty, demeaning, hurtful ways. And they are good at it because, while it's easy enough to catch a big kid beating up a smaller kid, it's pretty hard to catch a group of girls choosing not to like someone else. Especially if they are using their cell phones to make their feelings clear. I mean--what are you going to discipline them for? Not being BFFs with every girl in the class? And they have probably been practising this kind of us-and-them behaviour since they were 4. I have seen it already in my own daughter's circle of friends and even had to give my daughter a serious talk about why it's important not to be unkind and exclude one girl whenever she is playing with another.

But the lesson isn't easy, especially when you have a classroom of 30+ kids. They're all going to like each other equally? Of course not. Nor should they. Kids naturally form groups of friends with whom they share interests. For CS Lewis that was the definition of friendship: two or more people finding something that they can share and enjoy together, be it stamp collecting or Justin Beiber. Friendship, by nature, is exclusive, which is why it is always awkward when someone who doesn't share the same interests as the group presses to be included. Suddenly the mutual interest or pursuit of the group has to be put on hold for the sake of not leaving someone out. Where friendship goes wrong, however, is when it ceases to be about anything in particular and becomes about the group itself. When the focus is shifted from stamp-collecting to "being friends" or more accurately, defining who counts as part of the group of friends and who doesn't.

And I think this is what I find bizarre and maybe a bit ineffective in this whole anti-bullying campaign: everyone has to do the same thing to prove they oppose bullying. "Support diversity!"... by wearing the same shirt as everyone else. Huh? One parent on my mom-list had trouble with a teacher not counting her daughter's shirt as pink enough. Other parents were stressing about making sure their kids' pink shirts weren't too girly or finding enough of them for each kid. Am I the only one who thinks it's weird to oppose bullying by forming a group that you have join or risk feeling excluded? 

So my question is what sort of example does this event really set for kids? Does it actually teach them to be kind to their enemies? To stand up for themselves in non-violent ways? Or perhaps more importantly, to feel confident even when they stand alone? To seek friends they can share things with and who value them as they are? To disregard the unkindness of people they can't share things with or to meet it with kindness and understanding?

Or does it rather teach kids that it's not ok to stand alone? That they need a gang to stand behind them in the face of difficulty? That they have a right to their own group of friends who will stand up for them? That confidence comes from a politically sponsored show of unity against invisible "enemies" rather than from within themselves?


How about this for an anti-bully campaign: teach your kids that they don't have to be included. That friendship is about finding people you have things in common with, not about being accepted by people you don't. Teach your kids that kindness matters and that you don't have to like everyone, but you do have to be kind to everyone. Teach your kids that feeling small or scared or alone is part of life, but that being yourself is more important than fitting in because when you accept yourself you control your own happiness rather than depending on other people for it. Teach your kids to understand that if someone at school is being mean or picking on them that that person is probably really unhappy with themselves and wants to feel bigger and better by making someone else feel small and useless. Teach your kids that they have to be kind even to the bullies-- in fact, especially to the bullies, not to form a clique of anti-bullies and bully right back.

Of course all this is probably assumed by the anti-bullying agenda. I doubt the intention of the movement was to form an anti-bully gang. And maybe they cover all that in the various anti-bullying programs the campaign is designed to raise money for. But when "Love your enemy" has more or less disappeared from modern wisdom, an anti-bullying campaign seems to amount to little more than a tremendous amount of peer pressure to join the club whose motto is ironically "no bullying". That's not how you change kids hearts or actions.

I didn't survive grade 7 because I found my own gang of friends to make me feel good about myself. I didn't cope with the hurtful words because my teachers or parents stepped in to defend me and make them all be nice. I survived grade 7 because I learned to be comfortable and confident on my own. Because I learned to accept myself and not to let my happiness be dependent on acceptance from others. I survived because I learned to find friends, not to defend me or affirm me, but to share the things I happened to enjoy already. And, much, much later, I avoided the scars of being bullied because I learned to forgive and let go of the people who tried to hurt me.

That doesn't mean we ought to turn a blind eye to bullying when we see it or not do our best with anti-bullying programs. It means the power to overcome bullying lies within ourselves and I am not sure that an event like Pink Shirt Day, or any anti-bullying program can teach children that, because it is the sort of lesson that begins at home and takes practice, time, and maturity. Not to mention parental awareness and example. It is the sort of lesson that isn't helped by the self-esteem movement which insists everyone be included and prevents children from learning to cope with failure and difficulty and exclusion. And above all it's the sort of lesson that requires we remember the best way to fight human darkness is with love, not strength in numbers.

As homeschoolers my kids are at an advantage of course. It's not as if they won't encounter bullying in their lives--anyone with siblings can tell you that. But as homeschoolers they won't be part of a system that puts 30+ kids of the exact same age under the supervision of one adult in an institution in which they are all expected to do the exact same things, at the exact same times, in the exact same ways, and then tells them, ironically, to support diversity. As homeschoolers diversity is just a normal part of my kids lives. They play and converse with people of all ages and races and their way of learning is inherently varied, not only kid-to-kid, but day-to-day. The idea that everyone is different and that being different is normal won't come as a such a tough lesson. They are already free to be who they are with confidence. As a parent, I hope that teaching them to love others comes just as easily and naturally as teaching them reading, writing, and arithmetic.