A little rant about online bullying

I thought long and hard about what to write here, about whether to talk about this or not. Families are always complicated, add in step families and it gets even more difficult. Yet ultimately, this isn’t about family.

This is about bullying.

On Friday I got caught up in some Facebook drama. My eldest had left a comment on a family member’s Facebook post. A comment meant in jest, the same as she would {and often does} write on my posts, her sisters, her dads, varying other family members. A comment that was not rude, or offensive, no bad language, no name-calling. Yet the response was shockingly appalling.

If that family member had come to her (or me), publicly or privately, and said “that comment hurt me”, she’d have apologised straight away as no harm was meant.

Instead, she got bullied. Bullied by adults who should know better.

The family member’s husband told her to “go f*&^ herself”. The family member herself called her a bitch. Two of her friends joined in and left a comment after comment calling a 16 year old all sorts of vile names, accusing her of bullying, when I told them to stop, they turned on me. The comments were vicious. And more than uncalled for.

The family member to be fair to her, did later message me and say sorry for calling my daughter a bitch. Though she hasn’t apologised to her direct. I replied telling her no harm was meant, and that if she was upset it would have been a better option to speak to us than allow and join in an attack on a 16 year old. Though her husband has offered no apology.

The fact these grown ups thought it acceptable to abuse in public a teenager shocked me. No matter what she had written, she certainly didn’t deserve that, nor did I for asking them to back off.

Internet bullying is horrific. It is right there in our homes, there is no getting away from it. No shutting the door and escaping. Thankfully, I knew what was going on, and made sure she knew she wasn’t in the wrong, and she’s a tough kid. But it is easy to see how kids can take this bullying to heart, to let it affect them, how they can easily doubt themselves, believe the words of the bullies.

What shocked me most wasn’t the bullying but the fact it came from adults, and not other teenagers. Adults who you would expect to know better. Adults who are family, who you would never expect to treat your child in such an awful way.

I was so angry, and even more angry when it came to light on Saturday that they’d run and told tales to my Dad and his wife, and he’d obviously decided that it was my daughter to blame. That even though I explained what had happened, he obviously wasn’t listening, or didn’t want to listen, and had already decided where the blame lay.

Bullying is learned – children see their parents treating other people like shit and think it’s OK to do the same.

My children are learning that I will defend them, have their back, stand up for them and support them. They see that I don’t condone bullying of any kind, that I believe kindness is the most important thing. That I’ll expect them to apologise if they hurt someone’s feelings, intentionally or not YET still defend them against the backlash.

Times like this make me despair at human nature, at how cruel some people can be, at how nasty and thoughtless humans often are. That strangers feel it is OK to join in attacks on a child they don’t know, make personal remarks about others and call them names, yet still claim they are not the ones doing the bullying.

We’ve learned lessons from this, we’ve learned that blood is not thicker than water, that family doesn’t always count for very much at all. Yet I’ve also learned that my family, my kiddos are my very reason for being, that I can be a big, bad Mama Bear when needed and I’ll go to the ends of the earth to make sure that they know they can always count on me.