I woke up to an email this morning from my mom which immediately brought me to tears.
Hi everyone, I saw a sad story on the news this morning. A high school girl in Massachusettes hung herself after being cyber-bullied by the mean girls at school. Her name was Phoebe and she had just moved here last year from Ireland. In honor of Phoebe I want to send a nice message to all of you. I know we are way past high school and we don’t say mean things, but how often do we say something nice. As “older girls” lets set an example to the young ones and send a nice message to your girlfriends today.
I’m glad you are all in my life and you do a lot to brighten my day.
You can read the story on GMA’s website.
This story made me cry because I remember being teased after moving to a new school in seventh grade. To this day I can still hear their words and see the dirty looks shot through the halls in between classes. They turned me from an outgoing teen to an introverted wallflower. I also remember the day, in ninth grade, when the principal came on the loud speaker and announced that our classmate Rebecca had died. She also hung herself because of bullying.
I can only imagine how much worse it is now when kids are still being bullied after school in their own homes through Facebook and texting.
So I’m going to take a cue from my mom and email my girlfriends to remind them how much they are loved.
If you’re extra amazing, the Boys and Girls Club and Big Brothers Big Sisters are always looking for role models/volunteers.
Comments (11)
Well, you know kids are so out of control nowadays, with no respect for God, authority and others? IT’S THE PARENTS!!
Mommy and Daddy are more interested in themselves, their careers (namely, competing with each other to see who can out-do the other), dressing like their teen-agers (and acting like them, sometimes), getting divorced in most cases for un-justifiable reasons, and, in some cases, adult versions of their children.
I have never seen a generation of immature adults in my life. When I was coming up, adults acted maturely and responsibly, and behaved sensibly in all aspects of their life. Now, Mommy and Daddy don’t want to grow up and act like adults.
Get the Bible out and read it cover-to-cover, parents of America, and follow its principles. Bring back some old-fashioned discipline also:
13Do not hold back discipline from the child,
Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die.
14You shall strike him with the rod
And rescue his soul from Sheol)
Beating is abuse; spanking is discipline. Save your children from the fires of Hades.
beautiful and sad, such a wonderful idea
Stories like these make me cry too. I don’t understand kids like these, and hope their parents haven’t instilled such horrible things in their children.
What a sad story. :( Thanks for sharing it and reminding us that no matter our age, it’s so important to treat one another with kindness and love.
Man, seventh grade was also such a horrible time for me. I remember these girls (including this one girl that used to be my “friend”) talking about me, in front of my face in “gibberish” — do you remember that kid language? — and then laughing because I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I remember going home and crying because I didn’t have any friends.
[comment removed] – Thank you for your comment. Whether she was taunted online or not it’s heartbreaking that ‘typical girl way’ of bullying ended in suicide. There should be no typical anything about bullying. Girls need to learn to treat themselves and each other with more respect. Hopefully some people will learn a lesson from this and stop treating others badly.
That is so sad. I just feel so bad for the girl that she felt driven to go to those extremes. :(
Wow, that is an unbelievably sad story. I can’t believe those kinds of things happen.
ugh, this is so awful.
i had buck teeth in junior high (before i got braces), and i remember a group of older girls approached me in front of everyone in the cafeteria, and handed me a huge carrot. when i just turned around and walked away from them, they threw it at me.
i also noticed you’re reading a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. it’s one of my favourite books of all time. it’s laugh-out-loud funny and cry-your-eyes-out sad. you’ll love it, if you haven’t read it already.
-e
sillygrrl Reply:
January 28th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
elle – that’s terrible! i can’t understand doing something like that just to make someone feel bad. i’m about a quarter of the way through the book and i love it already.
kids can definitely be mean. when i started public school in 5th grade this group of girls pretended to be my friend and would ask me to come over and would slam the door in my face. i literally threw up every monday morning because i didn’t want to go back to school.
i can only imagine how much worse it can be now with facebook and other social networking sites.
sillygrrl Reply:
January 28th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
ria – how can people be so mean? and now kids don’t even have to leave the how to be treated like crap. it’s so sad. kids need a self-esteem makeover so badly.