It Gets Better (With a little help from mom)

I hear a lot about bullying on the news these days, and I hear about how schools are trying to stop it. That's very commendable, but sometimes simple is better.

I was talking to my mom on Sunday and she related a story to me that had me rolling. It wasn't that the story was out of her character, because she was always one to stand up for her children. No, it was funny because it was the definitive mom that I know, and have known. Way back nearly forty years ago one of my little sisters was having a problem with a boy spitting in her hair and hitting her on the way home from school. Mom said, "Fine, I'll pick you and your sister up after school tomorrow." Now my mom had a good twenty four hours to think about this, and I'm sure it was irritating her more and more to know her sweet child was being harassed. So at the end of school that day she rolled up in the gigantic Ford station wagon, and picked the girls up. They were about three blocks from the school when my sister piped up, "That's the boy who spits in my hair." pointing to a knot of boys walking on the sidewalk. Without hesitation mom gunned the engine, sped across the little drainage ditch between the road and the sidewalk, onto the sidewalk, and stopped inches from the little punk. She then got out of the car and told him that if he ever picked on her child again she would not stop next time. He would be road kill.

My sister was never picked on again, by anyone. The word was out, her mom was crazy. I called my sister to verify that story, and it was true. in fact she says she ran into that boy, now a man, and he remembered that day. He said it terrified him. So all the school anti-bullying programs are nice, but sometimes having your mom threaten to kill the little bastards works too. The only down side to that are the monthly trips to see mom in prison.