CKNW Editorial
for December 21, 2000

I got some flack … and some praise … for telling off an atheist yesterday morning when she complained that atheist kids got hassled in school. I told her that was too damned bad and I meant it … but I think a little more explanation is necessary.

First off, I am not a violent person and my revulsion at the violent has increased as I get older. I think boxing ought to be banned in the name of public safety and I no longer watch hockey games.

Secondly, I support the rights of people hurt by violence to be compensated.

Thirdly, I strongly believe that schools ought to teach non-violence and do all within their power to see that violence doesn’t occur for any reason.

What does get my hackles up is this notion that what was roughhousing or shoving with a bit of punching a couple of decades ago is now portrayed as a beating. We heard the atheist yesterday (and I received a similar complaint by email) complain that they were beaten up for their views.

First off, this leaves the impression of a poor helpless child lying in the midst of a pool of blood with their face mashed to a pulp.

Secondly, even if that were true it is no excuse to excise Christianity or any other religion from children’s pageants and sing songs. It is a reason for more vigilance with bullying.

But let me go further. And in what I’m about to say you will understand that I’m not in favour of any bullying whether by male or female, be it physical or mental. But there seems to be an attitude prevailing that children should be shielded, throughout their school years, from all reality. It ties in with the loony left notion that there should be no competitive games and that children should not be graded.

I was bullied as a kid … so was almost everyone I know. Moreover, I saw much worse bullying than I got. And I wish I had never been bullied and that no one else had either. But being bullied and seeing others being bullied was part of my life experiences. I don’t condone it … and I certainly don’t want our teachers condoning it … I just want kids to learn to take it because they’re sure as hell going to have to sooner or later.

I saw things in school I daresay most of you were spared. I saw public floggings – on two occasions – at the private school I attended. Of all the bruises my psyche took, seeing boys beaten with 15 lashes of the cane while draped over a gym horse in front of the entire school would head the list. And I wished it hadn’t happened and I wish I could forget it. But my point is that one has to have some trauma along the way so one can learn to bear the much bigger traumas than come later in life.

There will always be some kids who are more hurt by childhood trauma than others. And that is indeed regrettable. But it is also all but unavoidable. And it is also part of growing up.

Bullying has a useful side to it. Accepting that it is, unhappily, natural, it provides the opportunity for very graphic counseling. This is what didn’t happen many long years ago when I was at school but is something that, thankfully, happens now.

There is this assumption that all children are incapable of handling any trauma. This just isn’t so as all of you can attest. Just as the teaching of tolerance of homosexuals doesn’t turn kids gay, violence can be absorbed and dealt with.

I suppose it could be argued that all childhood trauma, however slight, leaves some emotional scars and that we should move heaven and earth to prevent that. No doubt many mental health problems of adulthood can be traced to childhood grief. But all I’m saying is that while we as a society of fathers, mothers, school teachers and so on must do all in our power to prevent childhood trauma that does not mean that we expunge from their lives all that might upset our children. We teach them not to bully, hassle or shun but we also teach them how to handle those things when they happen. In doing that, we help equip them from a world that on many occasions will be viciously harsh requiring the adult to be made of pretty stern stuff.

Finally, I know from experience, that I will be misunderstood in what I have said by those who would like to think I am insensitive and favour violence. Not so. I just think that as our society moves headlong down the path of compensating everyone who has ever been hurt and of forgiving all manner of anti-social behaviour because of past trauma that we ought to get the lawyers and psychiatrists out of the picture long enough for us to look the real world squarely in the eye once in awhile.