“Someone stole my magnets.”

I felt awfully sorry for the third grader who had created an amazing science project and then realized someone had wrecked it by stealing the key element. It is hard to fathom what one of the other students would find so compelling about a couple of magnets. But then again, I don’t often understand what goes through the minds of elementary school kids.

For example, what part of putting bird poop into a mud pie is so compelling? And why would you take a water balloon onto a trampoline? And don’t even get me started about food choices? I am frequently at a loss as to why my
daughter does what she does. It is certainly always a hustle to stay one step ahead of her.

Take the situation where she decides she wants to cuddle up with me in bed. One part of me wants to believe it is because I am so loved and appreciated. The other, smarter, side of me knows it probably has more to do with wanting to avoid her homework or bedtime. The eyes in the back of my head thing used to be so much easier when she was younger and I knew exactly what was going through her cute little brain. Lately, though, I think she is  outsmarting me more often than not.

She, like all kids, may not always end up doing the right thing. But I know she mostly tries, and that is enough for me. Just like the magnets stolen from that student, there is a terrible attraction toward doing the wrong thing and it isn’t always easy to turn our backs and oppose it. The good thing is that it might be more difficult, but it is never too late, to break the connection.

“It’s the evil crawfish explosion.” 

One of the joys of visiting Lake Tahoe in the summer is fishing for crawfish (aka crawdads) along the rocks of the shore. Yesterday we were hanging out at the beach admiring the bucket load a family had caught and they offered to give us one for our sand bucket. My daughter was thrilled…after finding a dead crawdad on the beach earlier, it was nice for her to see a live one.

Later that day, as we packed up to go home, I walked with her over to the rocks so we could set the little crawdad free again. Along the way we ran into the boys who had caught the original bucketful. They had set most of the little guys loose already. But, unfortunately for this one remaining crustacean, they had come up with a game where they dumped sand on top of it in the bucket then tipped the bucket over  and waited for the crawfish to climb his
way out.. I asked if they thought the crawfish liked this and they said he had already done it a lot of times and was
fine.

What had been such a lovely memory from my childhood became tainted by the sight of the poor crawfish struggling for freedom and, earlier, the dead crawfish sticking out of the sand. It reminded me of the recent YouTube video where the old woman was bullied on the bus. A fantastic writer, Charles M. Blow wrote a piece for the New York Times about how that event relates to the society we now live in.: (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/23/opinion/blow-bullies-on-the-bus.html). Somehow I don’t think Mr. Blow would be at all surprised by the behavior of these two boys.

He wrote… ”It is that part of society that sees the weak and vulnerable as worthy of derision and animus.” 

You would think that in a civilized country we would be teaching our children how to care for, not take advantage of, those who are weaker or less able. Instead, we live in a time when in order to maintain our own powerbase we model
disrespect and intimidation. It is pervasive…. In the video games we play, the political debates we have, and the resources we fight over. And sadly, I think many people have become immune and even callous towards these
actions.

There are ways to combat this though. Of course one option is to donate to the vacation fund set up for this bullied woman. But to affect it on a larger scale we can consider donating to an anti-bullying campaign (find some  resources for this here: http://ellen.warnerbros.com/2010/10/donate_to_the_anti-bullying_organizations_ellen_supports_1005.php).

We can also join many others in the bipartisan effort led by NoLables.com to restore civilized debate and discussion
(http://www.nolabels.org/about-us).

And certainly we can and should do some reading about the negative effects of violent video games (http://www.apa.org/research/action/games.aspx).

But most of all we can stand up for the little guy… every day, even when it is only in a small way, and even if it is
only just a crawfish.