Recently I have been thinking quite a lot about children. It’s so amazing that out of the love of two people, a new person can be created [I'm not that naive, I know it takes more than just love ;) ]. It’s still hard to grasp this concept because it’s so overwhelming.
It’s only in the past few months that I have started to think about it in a more serious way. I’ve been married for over a year now and it feels right to start thinking about building our own small family. Of course these feelings are mutual with my other half.
But then something happened which made me think about it from a whole different angle, a bad one, I guess. Yesterday we had a very nice family dinner at my parents’ house. My sister was there with her husband and 2 kids, she told us about an incident that happened to her colleague.
So this colleague (who is a judge) told her that her 10 year old son told her that a few kids from his class in school opened a group on Facebook which basically boycotts him and says really nasty things about him. Lord, what a cruel world! Kids can be so cruel and vicious! So at this point my sister said that had this happened to her kids, she would have freaked out and didn’t know what to do, I mean it’s so painful and upsetting when someone says bad things about your kid. I thought the exact same as my sister, I would freak out, probably cry and want to ‘hit back’ on these vicious children.
And then my sister said that her colleague dealt with this situation in a whole different way. Of course she was upset and angry, but she was much more calm and cool about it. She immediately phoned all the children’s parents, told them about the incident and asked them to immediately talk to their children to close this Facebook group. All parents agreed with her, but some told her that her child is sometimes hurting and insulting other kids. She didn’t argue and just politely asked them to first terminate this group and then they will sort everything out by talking.
WOW. That’s how I felt after my sister told me this story. I was overwhelmed. When I was 10, obviously I didn’t have Facebook, nor was I that cruel to organise a boycott on someone else. But I guess kids do that and used to do it in the past in other channels. This story made me feel sad. I’m thinking about bringing a child to this world, but at the moment of truth, will I be brave and strong enough to know how to cope with unpleasant things which may occur in his life? You want to give your child the best; you want him to feel protected. You don’t want him to read nasty things that are written by his class mates on Facebook.
That poor child, he must have felt so bad. I hate Facebook and this is just another reason why I don’t use it, one of so many. I’m still thinking about this incident, about this little boy, his mum and about myself. How do you become such person who can deal with such a complex situation in such a calm and responsible way? I want to be that person. I don’t want to be afraid, I want to be brave and one day be the best that I can be for my child.
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