Biological Snooze Button

Newsflash! Kids can be horrible! I don’t know what’s happening these days, but I’ve really gotten fed up with how rude children can be. Lately, whatever biological clock that may exist in me has had the Snooze button pressed. Seriously. Kids are brutal these days, and I can’t handle it yet.

I was at my parent’s house last night, hanging with two of my perfect nieces, Annabelle and Eve. I love them desperately and feel very protective of them. So, Annabelle is 5 and in pre-school. She is, quite possibly, the girliest girls ever to wear a tutu to the grocery store. Her favorite color may as well be Glitter. And that Girly Girlness is a great trait on her. It suits her. Anyway, she came home from school and told my mom this story. Apparently, some snot-nosed punk of a kid told Annabelle that she “was a boy, because she had a boys backpack”. Eksqueeze me? That definitely touched a nerve with me. I too was called a boy by a bunch of bullies. The kicker? I WAS a tomboy, and it SHOULDN’T have even BEEN an insult, but it was. Anyway, so this girl sneers that Annabelle is a boy. Who does this girl think she is? Annabelle knows the difference between a Kate Spade bag and “regular” bag. Suck on THAT, random-person’s-daughter-who-I-don’t-know.

So, I heard this story and was heartbroken over it. I asked Annabelle what her backpack looked like. Instead of her usual pink-and-purple-feather backpack, she had used a different backpack for a day that was “red with black writing on it”. She explained this to me while standing on a chair to be eye-to-eye with me. I told her, “Annabelle, when I was little I LOVED the colors red and black and white. I wanted to splatter-paint my room those colors. My favorite sweater was red, black, and white, and I wore it for 3 years.” Then that adorable little girl cupped my cheek and half-whispered, “Do you think that your sweater will fit me??” I have been googling “Black, red, white scottie dog sweater” all day to no avail. I would SEW that sweater for that girl if it meant that she didn’t have to take some other kid’s crap about a backpack.

I asked Annabelle what she said back to the girl, and she said, “I just tried to tell her it WAS NOT a boy backpack!” I couldn’t believe how furious I was about that girl. It also doesn’t help that I live down the block from an elementary school where kids frequently scream at each other “SHUT UP! YOH A BASTUUHD!” They can’t even say their “R”s but they can call each other bastards? Where are they LEARNING this?! Are kids not disciplined anymore? If I had EVER said something like that when I was young, you can bet I’d be holed up in the bathroom digging Dial Soap out of my teeth. That’s how it should work, people.

Okay, back to my point. Annabelle seems, as of now, pretty unfazed by this after hearing about my awesome sweater. But geez, it’s not long until she’ll be in middle or high school and dealing with those kinds of bullies that constantly harass and terrorize other kids. Is this bratty little pre-schooler, like, Bully Zero? Is that where it starts?

See? That’s my point. I’m waaaaay too, um, volatile to raise another human being right now. I’d freak out and be like “Oh yeah? She doesn’t like your backpack? Tell her that her disgusting split ends are giving you a headache and then smack her.” Yeah. I just don’t understand how to correctly deal with child politics. I don’t get how one human can totally insult another to her face and not have to deal with any consequences. I don’t walk up to a stranger and tell them they need a nose job or something and then bounce on out to recess worry-free. If I did say something like that, I’d run away screaming, afraid she’d come after me with a rusty knife or something.

Well, call me crazy, but I think kids should be nice to each other. I think they should be kind and lovely and innocent. And if they are rude and condescending to each other? Bar of soap. In the mouth. Case closed.