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I also wonder if part of the problem isn't with the parents of the victims.
My wife and I were bullied in school. I was a nerd and so caught the typical nerd bashing that we all got for having the audacity of being different. My wife was the first girl in her school to get on the A/V club (up until that time a male-dominated geek activity) and so caught not only the nerd bashing but the bashing of all the girls who thought that such activities were beneath the notice of any self-respecting popular girl.
And while the bullying was pretty damn bad for the both of us, neither of us ever even remotely considered the notion of suicide. In fact we did what most of my geek friends did which was to avoid them whenever possible and do our best to violently ignore them.
Both my wife and I were taught self-reliance and that we needed to love ourselves no matter who we are. In fact my grandmother (who pretty much raised me for most of my childhood) used to say "The only person who has to love you *is you*".
That stuck with me and no matter who bothered me, I shrugged it off since I was pretty happy with who I was as a person. The rest of the universe could (again another grandmotherly quote) "pound sand up their ass".
My wife was not raised in quite the same way (and when we compare notes she has a lot less profanity laced in the self-reliance lessons than I did) but she had similar talks where she was taught to love herself and that the opinions of others didn't matter if we didn't want them to matter.
So I'm wondering if the parents of the victims aren't a factor here in some way.
My wife and I were bullied in school. I was a nerd and so caught the typical nerd bashing that we all got for having the audacity of being different. My wife was the first girl in her school to get on the A/V club (up until that time a male-dominated geek activity) and so caught not only the nerd bashing but the bashing of all the girls who thought that such activities were beneath the notice of any self-respecting popular girl.
And while the bullying was pretty damn bad for the both of us, neither of us ever even remotely considered the notion of suicide. In fact we did what most of my geek friends did which was to avoid them whenever possible and do our best to violently ignore them.
Both my wife and I were taught self-reliance and that we needed to love ourselves no matter who we are. In fact my grandmother (who pretty much raised me for most of my childhood) used to say "The only person who has to love you *is you*".
That stuck with me and no matter who bothered me, I shrugged it off since I was pretty happy with who I was as a person. The rest of the universe could (again another grandmotherly quote) "pound sand up their ass".
My wife was not raised in quite the same way (and when we compare notes she has a lot less profanity laced in the self-reliance lessons than I did) but she had similar talks where she was taught to love herself and that the opinions of others didn't matter if we didn't want them to matter.
So I'm wondering if the parents of the victims aren't a factor here in some way.
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