Feelings: The world needs to man up a bit

I suppose I should say that United States needs to because I don't really know about the rest of the world. Mostly when I see repeated stories about everyone being "traumatized" by bullying and now they want some sort of award because they were able to "survive" that, I just roll my eyes and groan a bit in my recliner in my living room. It seems like every time I turn around there is a new story about how bullies are out of control and seriously impacting our children... things like that.

Although I don't watch the show anymore, never really did, and don't even know if it is still on the air, but all of those X-Factor, American Idol, and The Voice type TV shows always seemed to feature some performer who has some sort of sob story about their childhood and how they were able to get past it by the majesty of song or something along those lines. Some of these performers make it much further in said competition than I believe they ever should based exclusively on this sob story. It gets to the point where a strategy of the competitors is to have a really tragic backstory before they even come on the show so they can have an edge over the competition based on how "horrible" their childhood was.

I hate to sound like a "get off my lawn" old man here, but having some tough times as a child is nothing new and I believe it is mostly things like social media fragility that is making people unable to handle any sort of stress that exists in their lives.

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When I hear these sob stories about someone being bullied at school and how it impacted their lives I just think back to my own childhood and how on occasion I was also bullied. Then I think about all the other people that were bullied. If you were bullied in your school I want to ask if you are aware of who else was bullied because I know the answer: Literally everyone else.

Bullying has become such a common word now that it has lost all meaning. If anyone ever makes fun of someone's shoes, clothes in general, a messed up haircut, how they performed in gym class, or some other thing that is basically harmless badgering, now they are guilty of a hate crime it seems. When I would get picked on, which happened a lot just like it did to almost everyone else I knew, you took this as a chance to accidentally grow. You face adversity and you come out a little bit smarter or tougher because of it. The world is not a sterile and friendly place so for us to pretend that no one should have to face adversity in life and actually turn them into a bit of a hero for not doing anything about it, we are doing kids a tremendous disservice in life. Perhaps this is why so many of the last decade's kids are turning into wimpy adults with super fragile egos that are offended by everything.

But if eliminating bullies in schools is what the desired outcome is... I have a solution that the Federal government would probably agree with. Let's set up "Bully-free zones" in all schools!

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Seriously, this is a real thing that schools have actually implemented as if the lack of a sign was a reason why kids were being kids.

I truly believe that most people are about as mean as they are going to be in their entire lives between the ages of 10 and 16. For some reason or another, most kids tend to taper off and get some form of empathy after that. Getting picked on for things, even things that you are unaware of, was a part of social development in my upbringing and I think was the same for most other people my age. At one point there was this one kid in my 6th grade class that kept talking about my "high waters" and how i must be "preparing for a flood." His buddies would snicker at me but eventually I got in his face and told him that "I dare you to make fun of my shoes one more time!" He was confused. High-waters, as it turns out, was a term for someone wearing pants that don't go all the way to their ankles and since my mom generally would pick my outfits for me at that stage in my life, I had no idea. We both laughed and became friends after that. Would have this situation have ended up better if I had reported him to the school's anti-bullying officer and he got suspended for it? I can guarantee that it wouldn't.

We are molly-coddling kids too much these days to the point where anytime they face adversity or even a different point of view, they react in an almost submissive manner because they never developed the skills of standing up for themselves anywhere except online where they can remain anonymous.

We've all seen the movies where the parents of a kid, instead of getting the principal involved, will teach their kid how to stand up for themselves. I understand that this is just a movie, but it is (or at least was) reflected in real life. I really believe that if we keep extending the childhood of the youth, that none of them are ever going to actually grow up. Then they'll get on anti-depressants and just be useless for the rest of their lives.

Again, I don't think that childhood should be a free-for-all battle, and the kids that engage in actual violence should be punished. It has been my experience though that once the violence actually happens, the kids involved are remorseful and things return to normal and both kids involved usually end up becoming friends based on their mutual experience. They also grow as individuals in the process.

Life is not a series of only good events that are going to happen to you. For the most part, it is the opposite. If we keep trying to train kids that nothing bad should ever happen to them we are going to "get what we pay for" in that most people are going to be incapable of handling adversity when it comes their way. It's time for people to return to courage and be willing to accept that bad things are going to happen every now and then... and it is how you handle these situations and learn from them that will define you as a person.