Sticks And Stones

 Whoever said that "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me" did not grow up on my street. Nor do they live in my head where I can still recall the epithets that were hurled my way as I grew up. One particular "friend" had a rehearsed litany of nicknames for me, none of them complimentary, that he used to greet me on the off chance that I might have forgotten them in the hours since we had been apart. I was comforted on numerous occasions by the comparison of sticks and stones to words by parents, teachers and peers. Each time I took this sage wisdom and went out to do battle with the casual slings and arrows hurled in my direction. Not the physical, but the verbal. 

Something I learned along the way: There are those who, once they are ignored, will resort to physical abuse once the verbal has missed its intended target. That idea about turning the other cheek is great if you have more than two, or if you're a real fast healer. Otherwise, you end up with a lot of bumps and bruises. And scars. 

Inside and out. 

Now it's my job to try and mitigate the damage done to the self-esteem of elementary schoolers as they seek to assert their dominance over one another. At my school, I am fully aware of just how much our kids have lost in the empathy department after being away from one another for a year and a half. During that year and a half, they have been witness to models of the most egregious sort of behavior. From adults. Our elected officials seem quite content to make their case for their side by degrading and demeaning the other in the most aggressive way possible. And all the while, the wife of the twice-impeached former president and game show host used her lofty position to run a campaign called Be Best. From their website, regarding their second pillar of "online safety" comes this assertion: “By teaching our children uplifting, positive, and respectful online interactions, we take them one step closer to the safer lives and incredible futures that await them.” This might be a good place to point out that her husband's online presence was redacted because it was neither positive or uplifting. 

And yes, I understand that I am walking a very thin line by talking about a former chief executive and his wife in this way. I am not able to simply ignore or diminish such hypocrisy. In the same way that I am not able to ignore the ugly way that partisan politics is being carried out on a national stage with members of Congress calling one another names and posting threatening videos and generally behaving in a way that would get them suspended from any public school in this great land of ours. 

So, maybe it's not so great. Maybe the path to making America greater does not come from diminishing one another and wearing red baseball caps. We need to dig a little deeper and try to hold off on that pithy putdown, even if it comes as a response to being poked even harder. We have lived through a dark time where the War of Words turned physical. We are scared of one another and our reaction to that fear is causing that gulf to widen. 

We need to show up as better role models for our children. Before they discover just how devastating words can truly be.