Mean girls or about emotional bullying

I was discussing, as thousands of others at the time, that Meghan Markle interview with guys at work when one of them smirked at me. “Come on”, he said. “It was the International Women’s day only a few days ago, and you are being mean about another woman?” 

That logic always fascinated me. It is like when people also say “do you not like children?” Well, to me children, just like women, are people. With their own individual personalities. And some of them can be nice, others are… well, not necessarily so. I would think that much should be obvious to everyone, but clearly, it isnt. Meghan…well, this posting isn’t about her, but in short, my position is that just because she says certain things on a sensationalist TV program, doesn’t mean she is being genuine.

 

Neither does it of course, mean she is necessarily lying, either. It may or may not have happened, and to be even more honest…I don’t really care. What I do care about is people losing their jobs for expressing an opinion that they did not believe her. That, and the whole easily outraged woke culture does piss me off.  

But that’s a separate topic, altogether. You may think Piers Morgan might be a tosser, or not…I don’t really know or care. Just like I don’t know or care about Meghan. But I think is amusing how people think is ok to abuse him and call him a bully, and a racist pig, when they don’t really know him as a person, but get shocked when he suggested Meghan wasn’t being genuine. Like they know her. Is that just because she is a woman? I am curious. Or is it because she is playing a victim so well? What valid reason do millions of people have to believe her? 

Anyway. What I wanted to talk about today, is bullying. And you think how is this all connected? Here she is, trashing poor lovely cutie pie Meghan, and then comes up with this bullying topic. Ironic, isn’t it. well, yes. It is connected. 

As I said, women, just like men, just like children…can be nasty and mean. And fake. 

I wanted to share my recent unpleasant experience, which to be honest, I never imagined I would, as a mother, get to experience. My little girl went through a heartbreaking bullying in our compound, when a group of nine-year old girls decided she wasn’t cool enough to be a part of their gang.

When it started happening, I didn’t even see the signs, didn’t even see it coming, the whole extent of it, to be honest. And only now, looking back at certain things they said or did to her, I realized, with heavy heart, that it was in fact, a proper emotional bullying that my child was subjected to. Which, as I am beginning to read up more about it, is the most common, most damaging form of bullying. 

And, as I was explaining to my mother this morning, I learned, in this painful for any mother way, that it doesn’t happen to the kids they usually show you in movies. That is why it came as such a shock. My daughter is not the usual type you would expect to be bullied.

Only recently I saw a Netflix series where a couple of geeky boys told their friend to stay away from them as they didn’t want any trouble from bullies at school. 

The characters were so typical, it made me laugh. They were geeky, quiet, shy…not attractive, socially awkward. Those are the types who suffer from bullying, right? Now, I know I am biased. But my child isn’t the type. She can be bossy, and spoiled, she spends too much time on her iPad, and doesn’t follow orders from other friends…But she is far from shy or awkward, or weird. She is pretty. She is cool, in many ways. She doesn’t always want to brush her hair, but I doubt that was the reason. However, as I am learning now, it isn’t always the case. Is not necessarily someone shy, or unpopular who gets bullied out. 

In fact, it is more popular, pretty or confident children who fall victims of emotional bullying, as the bully gets threatened by them and seeks to “destroy their credibility among their peers”.

 

My teen daughter argued that her sister simply didn’t like the things the other girls liked doing. Yes, I see that. She isn’t into the hip hop/TikTok culture the others seem obsessed with. However, only a few months ago, she was still playing with all those girls and everything seemed fine. 

But, suddenly, things went wrong. Doors got locked. “They are hiding from me”, she would come home and say, looking confused. “I know they are inside, but they are hiding”. They saw me coming and shouted, “she is coming, hide!” That’s a weird game, I thought, but it will surely, pass. The worst part was that we, her parents, who didn’t realize how bad things were for her, would push her to go back and get involved. Don’t be difficult, we would tell her. Go and play with your friends! And she would follow our advice and go back out and try to be part of the group that suddenly started pushing her away in a heartless, unexpectedly cruel way. 

As a grown-up woman, I have experienced way too many times how mean other girls can be. I saw jealousy, gossip, lies, fake smiles…I was myself sometimes suddenly excluded when I believed people were my friends…but I am old and ugly enough to be okay about that. But when it is my child…well, I think it affected me more than it affected her. 

Every time I think my daughter will be fine, and she will just learn from this life experience, I then remember some small nasty details, and I get upset. 

They are only nine, ffs I think to myself. How can they be such a stereotypical mean girl group? At such a young age? 

I realized how scary and scarring bullying can be. You don’t really know it till you experience it. You don’t ever think it would happen to your child. Now I understand why schools are so strict about this, and how important it is to recognize the signs and act to stop it. Sadly, in social setting like that is a compound life we expats live in, stopping emotional bullying is impossible. Is difficult to catch, impossible to prove. 

All I could do is stop my girl from contacting the group again, from trying to be part of it. You don’t go anywhere near that group, I told her. Thankfully, she is not short of other friends.

 

Interestingly, most of those girls individually are quite nice. However, what I suspect happened was due to the pack mentality. Once their leader decided one of them was no longer welcome, the others followed. It is either that, or get pushed out yourself. As this article points out, social exclusion works exactly in such a way, where one person intimidates the others from interacting with the victim, to exclude them from the circle. 

As I sat there one night, plotting a master-level phycological revenge, I asked my daughter if she wanted to invite just a couple of the nicer girls from the gang for some amazing day of fun. To teach the mean ones a lesson. She looked at me, baffled. 

“But then the others would be excluded?”, she said. “That would be mean, wouldn’t it?” 

Well, that shut me up. What was I thinking? I can’t teach her to be mean when I judge the others for being mean towards her. So how do I protect her, how do I teach her to handle such situations in life, without teaching her how to become a total bitch? How do I teach her to be proud, to be strong and to grow a thick skin, while still remaining a nice person? 

Look, I said. You’ll have other friends, but unfortunately, some people will always let you down. And wait till you start dating boys! I am so not looking forward to that stage. 

When they were babies, I thought parenting was hard. Turns out it only gets harder as they grow up.

And no, I don't think i should pretend to like someone or think they are genuine just because they are girls- children or grown-ups, regardless.