Sarah & Ian Hoffman

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6: Parents

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This is the sixth post in a series about my son’s recent experience with bullying at school.

After our inspiring meeting with the school counselor, we picked out a handful of the awesomest parents we know at our school and wrote them this email:

We are writing to ask for your help in making change at our school.

Our third grade son, Sam, has been bullied for his differences since he started kindergarten. Primarily he’s been targeted for his gender expression, but recently it’s also moved to body type and other issues. Sometimes it’s his classmates harassing him; other times it’s children in higher and lower grades.

We have attempted to work with the administration for the past four years, requesting both immediate help for Sam and a school-wide anti-bullying curriculum. The school responds effectively to acute problems—the classroom teachers, especially, have been fantastic—but there has been no effort to do the work necessary to prevent the bullying from happening in the first place.

To give you two examples of what Sam has faced: he has been kicked and yelled at in the bathroom by younger students who were alarmed to see someone in the bathroom they didn’t think was supposed to be there. Sam was forced to show his genitals to an older student in the boy’s room, to prove he had a right to be there. These things are not the fault of the kids involved. They are the fault of an administration who—alerted to Sam’s previous problems in the boy’s bathroom—did nothing to teach kids how to respond appropriately to this situation.

In recent weeks, the bullying has escalated for Sam, and he is now being harassed by kids in third grade who have never bothered him in the past, in addition to kids who have a history of bullying. We don’t fault these kids, or their parents. But we wonder, just how bad does it have to get for Sam before the administration thinks it’s important to address the problem on a larger scale?

Kids are bullied for many different reasons; Sam is certainly not alone in the world, nor at our school. Bullying affects every one of our children, and every one of us as their parents. None of us want our kids to be bullied, to bully other children, or to stand idly by as their friends are hurt. We have, for the last four years, considered Sam’s bullying to be our own private issue. A friend and fellow parent pointed out recently that this is not the case—that we are all affected, that we can reach out to ask for help, and that asking for help—to a broader group of people than we have in the past—is the right thing to do. Not only to protect our child, but to help build a more loving, accepting community.

This morning we met with the school counselor to discuss our options. He was incredibly supportive. To our surprise, he recommended that we convene a group of parents to discuss how to move forward with bringing anti-bullying curriculum to the school, and he offered to host this meeting.

We are inviting you because you are parents who we believe are concerned about this issue.  We are not so much interested in discussing specific instances of bullying, but rather brainstorming solutions to help the school develop policies and procedures for future bullying prevention work. We also need fellow parents to help the administration understand that this issue is important not just to our family, but to the whole community.

And you know what? Every. single. one. of those parents wrote back with words of support, encouragement, and/or a commitment to get involved.

My heart is just about a-bursting.

 

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Thank You, Jenna Lyons

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In addition to the email I wrote to J. Crew and the comment I left on the Fox News site, I’ve written a note directly to J. Crew’s Creative Director Jenna Lyons. I encourage you to do the same. I’m sure she’s getting lots of hate mail, and I hope we can balance it out with love mail. Her email address is jenna.lyons@jcrew.com.

Here is what I wrote:

Dear Ms. Lyons:

I am a writer and the mother of a “pink boy,” a long-haired almost nine-year-old boy who wore pink nail polish and dresses when he was younger. For magazines, radio, and my blog, I write about the joys and challenges of raising a boy who is different.

I want to thank you for your brave, bold choices to celebrate your son’s penchant for pink, and to publicly show your support for who he is. I am sure you are well aware of the double standard in our society that favors masculine girls and demonizes feminine boys.

Parents from around the world write to tell me of their struggles with school bullying, rejecting family members, and the health and mental health consequences of such challenges. And men who were pink boys when they were young (now gay, straight, or transgender adults) write to share their lonely, painful experiences growing up in even less accepting times than these–making me thankful for all the change we’ve seen in recent decades. Thank you for what you have done to make the world a better–and safer–place for boys who are different.

I’ve written a blog post about the controversy surrounding the ad (and my gratefulness to you and J. Crew!).

Thank you. What you’ve done means so, so much to many, many parents around the world.

All the best,

Sarah Hoffman


 

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The Unitarians and I

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I am honored to be speaking this Saturday afternoon at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley. Rev. Chris Holton Jablonski and I will be leading a facilitated discussion about supporting our kids in being their authentic selves, and working to build safe schools and communities. You are all invited.

I love the Unitarians. If I weren’t a reform Jew who is already Unitarian-ish anyway, I would become Unitarian. Unitarians believe in compassion and social justice, in the worth and dignity of each individual, in acceptance of other people even if they are different from who we are or who we expect them to be. They value learning from, and deepening our relationships with, people and situations who challenge us to think or act differently than we usually do. And they believe in actively making the world a better place for not just ourselves, but everyone. See what I mean? Don’t you want to be a Unitarian too?

Here’s the workshop description:

When Sarah’s son asked at age four if he could wear a dress to school, she and her husband weren’t sure what to do, fearing he would be teased by his classmates. Now, at age eight, Sam continues to defy gender norms, and faces new social challenges. How is it possible to let a child be who they are, but also protect them from society’s judgment?

Parents of gender-nonconforming children face particular challenges as they grapple with their own beliefs and biases as well as those of our culture, and as they see their children become victims of bullying at school and in our communities. But these challenges raise questions for all parents: how can we support our children to be their authentic selves? How can we work together to ensure that our schools, communities, and places of worship are safe places for our families? How can we turn our challenges and questions into means to broaden our sense of our deepest values?

Our children—whether gender-nonconforming or gender-normative, special-needs or typically-developing—push us to expand our thinking. What is acceptable? What does it really mean to accept our children as they are, not as how we expect them to be? How can we be ambassadors in the world for our children?

Sarah will share her own story as well as insights gleaned from parents across the country to illuminate the particular challenges faced by gender-nonconforming children and how these challenges relate to universal issues for all children and parents.

Please join me!

Saturday, March 12 at 5pm

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley

1 Lawson Road

Kensington, CA 94707

(510) 525-0302

 

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