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This is a very sad reflection of the state of our Western society, and it really hits home for me. My daughter was bullied, picked on, and assaulted in Junior High. She was also, to my alarm, being swept up the dominant secular materialist stream prevalent in our society.
I have always been close to my daughter and we do talk about many things, but I was losing her. Many "modern" Christian churches she and my wife would attend seemed to re-enforce what was happening though I'm sure it wasn't their intention, and she declined my invitations to come with me to the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual center I was attending.
Everything has worked out since, and I’m very grateful. She now has an ancient traditional way of life and spiritual grounding to help her handle these pressures and work through them.
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DaftChrisSpiritually conflicted. Not of this world.Veteran
I have an inquiry regarding this story.
Are we hypocrites for being sad over a girl who killed herself, but not over the thousands of people who die of starvation everyday? I've heard so many people use this as a means to dismiss the story as well as make fun of her.
Actually I was on Facebook and someone posted a "first world problems" meme and it said this:
"I want to do my laundry...but Amanda drank all of the bleach".
And people were laughing, liking the pic and saying things like "she deserved it, don't cry over a slut who kills herself, this is natural selection at work, etc.".
These people, who call those who feel sadness for her but not starving people "hypocrites", seem to have an aura of ethical superiority. Yet, when I see their comments, I don't see any shred of compassion or ethics.
If I care about one, it doesn't mean I don't care about the many. Besides, it's a story of bullying related deaths. Starvation comes under the economics category.
I observed how this anti-digital-bullying wave hit the media, people spamming Facebook with anit-bullying statements and groups. The next day I observed people verbally assaulting our Minister of Taxes (on his professional Facebook-page), celebrating his forced retirement due to changes in political balance with puns on his name, age, short career and so on: "HAHA fuck off stupid brat, finally rid of you" etc...
I shook my head a little, but there's nothing much to do about such things other than swear never to participate in it - at all. That means to not bully the bullies also
It's so sad, cyber bullying can be the worst, I have suffered one small case of cyber bullying but thankfully it was not nearly on a comparable scale to that.
The whole " bullying" thing is total bs and overplayed... the issue today is that we don't teach kids how to deal with life.. we try to fix life around the children and we teach kids that "government" or some sort of authority will "fix" things.. so then you have situations like this where kids don't know how to deal with bad stuff that happens in life. We have created the "everyone gets a trophy" generation with think skin and a total distorted view of reality, but it is not their fault, it's the parents.
In dhamma practice we know that our goal is to see reality as it really is.. we are doing a major disservice to the children today.
There have always been bullies and always will be, yes with 'cyber bullies" there is a new dimesion that those of us who were bullied as kids didn't have to deal with but then again we couldn't block or unfriend bullies back then..
the REAL issue behind this bullying and suicide thing is parenting and I'm glad this article speaks a bit about that but the article definitely has a certain slant to it. Also teen suicide is nothing new, are there studies showing there is some sort of mass increase from the past?
@Jayantha Do you have children? Have you ever had to deal with the downfall of having a child who has been bullied? Just like all else in life, some kids handle it better than others. Some kids, like my oldest, brush or laugh it off and put no weight on it. My middle son is extremely sensitive kid and takes the same type of treatment much differently. They are parented the same way, so how do you explain that my younger son has a much harder time with it? How does a kid who is 6 year old begin to understand when kids twice his age say stuff like "your dad is dead because he didn't want to be around you anymore. it's your fault he died, if you weren't his kid he'd have wanted to stay alive." and other such things? A kid that age is incapable of understanding what is happening or knowing what to do about it, yet they feel the emotional and psychological effects of it. Bulling has always been around, but we've made a society where kids can't fight back anymore, where when you fight back YOU are the one punished.
Some of it, I am sure, is due to parenting, but I put that blame more on the parents of bullies than the parents of victims.
At my school we had a bad case of cyber bullying. Two students set up a website called "The Bitches And Whores Of xxxx Middle School". It was pretty bad with rather daring photos and accusations, and cleverly, they had put it up on 2 different web hosting companies.
I called the police and they said that I couldn't do anything, because I was not the victim, and there was no evidence that the websites had been created on school property. That also prevented me from suspending the students who had set up the website.
But then I decided to call the web hosting companies, and both agreed to take the websites down immediately (literally within the hour). I told them I was a bit surprised they were being so cooperative, and they responded that with almost any web hosting company you check that little box that you have read the terms and conditions. And they said they enforced those standards when notified of a verifiable violation.
Can't say all companies would be so cooperative, but some are.
We also had a case where a teacher accused 2 students of putting her nude photo on a website, and although you couldn't tell for sure that it was or wasn't her, she wanted the students expelled. Again, she insisted the students be expelled, but the activity had taken place off school property. And, interestingly, the teacher refused to press charges (as the victim), which kinda made us wonder.
@Jayantha Do you have children? Have you ever had to deal with the downfall of having a child who has been bullied? Just like all else in life, some kids handle it better than others. Some kids, like my oldest, brush or laugh it off and put no weight on it. My middle son is extremely sensitive kid and takes the same type of treatment much differently. They are parented the same way, so how do you explain that my younger son has a much harder time with it? How does a kid who is 6 year old begin to understand when kids twice his age say stuff like "your dad is dead because he didn't want to be around you anymore. it's your fault he died, if you weren't his kid he'd have wanted to stay alive." and other such things? A kid that age is incapable of understanding what is happening or knowing what to do about it, yet they feel the emotional and psychological effects of it. Bulling has always been around, but we've made a society where kids can't fight back anymore, where when you fight back YOU are the one punished.
Some of it, I am sure, is due to parenting, but I put that blame more on the parents of bullies than the parents of victims.
I am the father figure to my nephew and live with him, but no I don't have children of my own thankfully or else I'd never be able to be a monk . I fail to see how the initial question matches what you said though and your response appears to back up what I said. You explain how you appear to appropriately deal with your children and teach them how to manage life's issues but then you back up what I said about how society and parents have created this issue where children can't defend themselves because " the authority" will deal with it.
Parents, out of fear (because they love) for their children cede more power over to a faceless bureaucracy( schools, police, government) and now the nanny state makes decisions and performs actions parents use to,
you sound like a parent struggling to raise children within the crazy confines of this "new normal" that will make me a scared older man when these poor kids start to run the country .
We also had a case where a teacher accused 2 students of putting her nude photo on a website, and although you couldn't tell for sure that it was or wasn't her, she wanted the students expelled. Again, she insisted the students be expelled, but the activity had taken place off school property. And, interestingly, the teacher refused to press charges (as the victim), which kinda made us wonder.
that is interesting.. you kind of wonder how students got a naked picture of a teacher in the first place.. unless she worked for playboy or something.
My kids are doing alright now, the then 6 year old is now 10 and doing fine compared to the little boy who was just getting on with life after his dad died and then had to suffer so much torment at school (and an administration reluctant to do anything about it) that I removed him from school for 6 months. I couldn't even get the name of the kids, or parents, who were hurting my son (verbally and physically) yet my son was punished repeatedly for fighting back, even though his version of fighting back meant leaving his bus seat to find a safer one. Your post came across much more as "Parents of bullied kids baby their children and if they didn't and taught them how to deal they wouldn't react with suicide or other such things" which isn't true and I find really unfair to basically blame parents for the deaths of their own children. Perhaps I just read it wrong because it's a sensitive issue for me and I get really tired of comments insinuating that little kids need to grow a pair while the bullies and their parents get off scot-free of judgement.
Feeling particularly upset about Amanda is just human nature, because we've been exposed to enough information about her and her circumstance to identify with her and see her as a person and not just a statistic. It's just the way our minds are hardwired. We can feel compassion for others and know that many people are suffering and killed every day without it affecting us as deeply, because our emotional triggers aren't being pushed. That doesn't make us hypocrites. It makes us human, and that's why charities make sure to get the image of the starving child or abused dog or cat on the screen when they make the appeal. Without being able to put a face on it, the issue is about numbers and money. It's the face we see that makes it about a suffering being.
And the posters that take the opportunity to make fun of someone's suffering are just trolls, delighting in the anger they cause you and other more mature readers while knowing they're safe behind the anonymous internet. In other words, they're the eternal bullies and cowards doing what gives them a little thrill. They have their own problems and deal with them by giving the world the finger, so to speak.
My kids are doing alright now, the then 6 year old is now 10 and doing fine compared to the little boy who was just getting on with life after his dad died and then had to suffer so much torment at school (and an administration reluctant to do anything about it) that I removed him from school for 6 months. I couldn't even get the name of the kids, or parents, who were hurting my son (verbally and physically) yet my son was punished repeatedly for fighting back, even though his version of fighting back meant leaving his bus seat to find a safer one. Your post came across much more as "Parents of bullied kids baby their children and if they didn't and taught them how to deal they wouldn't react with suicide or other such things" which isn't true and I find really unfair to basically blame parents for the deaths of their own children. Perhaps I just read it wrong because it's a sensitive issue for me and I get really tired of comments insinuating that little kids need to grow a pair while the bullies and their parents get off scot-free of judgement.
I think in this last paragraph you summed up my post better then I did and I apologize if my post came across in that way. It reminds me of a story when I was substituting when i did something I could of gotten fired for.
I subbed for 5 years in the first half of the last decade and I often saw what you said.. innocent kids getting screwed and not being able to defend themselves. I was in for an 8th gym teacher and I witnessed an altercation between a nerdy kid and a jock, both of whom I knew from being in that school near every day. In the locker room on that day I think the nerdy kid had had enough and puched the jock.. the jock kid comes up to me and says " he called me an asshole and punched me".. I said " you are an asshole now go to the nurse".... I saw a way for me to kind of defend this kid... if I was a full time teacher I don't think I would of ever done that.. would of been my ass... but the nerdy kid thanked me.
There are many many ineffectual CYA types in school administration that don't do justice to the kids.. just the way it is these days mostly because of the fear of lawsuits.
I think more awareness and compassionate understanding of the human condition needs to be developed and nurtured in us all rather than discriminating between this or that.
As you know the Buddha was raised a warrior, certainly well adjusted by worldly standards, with all his needs taken care of by his father, but he saw that life ultimately as unsatisfactory so he left in search of truth. He didn't blame his father, wife, child, or society but left out of love for them. The Dharma is his answer for human condition and its suffering.
Comments
I have always been close to my daughter and we do talk about many things, but I was losing her. Many "modern" Christian churches she and my wife would attend seemed to re-enforce what was happening though I'm sure it wasn't their intention, and she declined my invitations to come with me to the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual center I was attending.
Everything has worked out since, and I’m very grateful. She now has an ancient traditional way of life and spiritual grounding to help her handle these pressures and work through them.
Are we hypocrites for being sad over a girl who killed herself, but not over the thousands of people who die of starvation everyday? I've heard so many people use this as a means to dismiss the story as well as make fun of her.
Actually I was on Facebook and someone posted a "first world problems" meme and it said this:
"I want to do my laundry...but Amanda drank all of the bleach".
And people were laughing, liking the pic and saying things like "she deserved it, don't cry over a slut who kills herself, this is natural selection at work, etc.".
These people, who call those who feel sadness for her but not starving people "hypocrites", seem to have an aura of ethical superiority. Yet, when I see their comments, I don't see any shred of compassion or ethics.
The next day I observed people verbally assaulting our Minister of Taxes (on his professional Facebook-page), celebrating his forced retirement due to changes in political balance with puns on his name, age, short career and so on: "HAHA fuck off stupid brat, finally rid of you" etc...
I shook my head a little, but there's nothing much to do about such things other than swear never to participate in it - at all. That means to not bully the bullies also
In dhamma practice we know that our goal is to see reality as it really is.. we are doing a major disservice to the children today.
There have always been bullies and always will be, yes with 'cyber bullies" there is a new dimesion that those of us who were bullied as kids didn't have to deal with but then again we couldn't block or unfriend bullies back then..
the REAL issue behind this bullying and suicide thing is parenting and I'm glad this article speaks a bit about that but the article definitely has a certain slant to it. Also teen suicide is nothing new, are there studies showing there is some sort of mass increase from the past?
Some of it, I am sure, is due to parenting, but I put that blame more on the parents of bullies than the parents of victims.
At my school we had a bad case of cyber bullying. Two students set up a website called "The Bitches And Whores Of xxxx Middle School". It was pretty bad with rather daring photos and accusations, and cleverly, they had put it up on 2 different web hosting companies.
I called the police and they said that I couldn't do anything, because I was not the victim, and there was no evidence that the websites had been created on school property. That also prevented me from suspending the students who had set up the website.
But then I decided to call the web hosting companies, and both agreed to take the websites down immediately (literally within the hour). I told them I was a bit surprised they were being so cooperative, and they responded that with almost any web hosting company you check that little box that you have read the terms and conditions. And they said they enforced those standards when notified of a verifiable violation.
Can't say all companies would be so cooperative, but some are.
We also had a case where a teacher accused 2 students of putting her nude photo on a website, and although you couldn't tell for sure that it was or wasn't her, she wanted the students expelled. Again, she insisted the students be expelled, but the activity had taken place off school property. And, interestingly, the teacher refused to press charges (as the victim), which kinda made us wonder.
I am the father figure to my nephew and live with him, but no I don't have children of my own thankfully or else I'd never be able to be a monk
Parents, out of fear (because they love) for their children cede more power over to a faceless bureaucracy( schools, police, government) and now the nanny state makes decisions and performs actions parents use to,
you sound like a parent struggling to raise children within the crazy confines of this "new normal" that will make me a scared older man when these poor kids start to run the country . that is interesting.. you kind of wonder how students got a naked picture of a teacher in the first place.. unless she worked for playboy or something.
And the posters that take the opportunity to make fun of someone's suffering are just trolls, delighting in the anger they cause you and other more mature readers while knowing they're safe behind the anonymous internet. In other words, they're the eternal bullies and cowards doing what gives them a little thrill. They have their own problems and deal with them by giving the world the finger, so to speak.
I subbed for 5 years in the first half of the last decade and I often saw what you said.. innocent kids getting screwed and not being able to defend themselves. I was in for an 8th gym teacher and I witnessed an altercation between a nerdy kid and a jock, both of whom I knew from being in that school near every day. In the locker room on that day I think the nerdy kid had had enough and puched the jock.. the jock kid comes up to me and says " he called me an asshole and punched me".. I said " you are an asshole now go to the nurse".... I saw a way for me to kind of defend this kid... if I was a full time teacher I don't think I would of ever done that.. would of been my ass... but the nerdy kid thanked me.
There are many many ineffectual CYA types in school administration that don't do justice to the kids.. just the way it is these days mostly because of the fear of lawsuits.
I think more awareness and compassionate understanding of the human condition needs to be developed and nurtured in us all rather than discriminating between this or that.
As you know the Buddha was raised a warrior, certainly well adjusted by worldly standards, with all his needs taken care of by his father, but he saw that life ultimately as unsatisfactory so he left in search of truth. He didn't blame his father, wife, child, or society but left out of love for them. The Dharma is his answer for human condition and its suffering.