In my body, my bedroom, my marriage..... - Page 3

[artemesia]

Horrible, horrible, horrible. Horrible for the boy, horrible for the mother.
While I can see that a really messy house would not be the greatest environment for a person who is alrady terribly depressed, it surely is not what drives a person to actually kill themselves.
I was bullied in school too, I know what it is like. I stopped going to school, was punished when I lashed out at those who tormented me, but my tormentors were never ever punished. Can't go punishing the star football player, or the cute cheerleaders just for picking on the wierd kid, afterall, kids will be kids right? Yeah, I thought of killing myself, I had violent thoughts (though I never acted on them). Yes, bullying in school can lead someone to desperate acts.

[sohj]

Free Association Mental Jazz Flight

Originally posted by kama'aina mama
Just make a note of it ladies:
1. It is ALWAYS the mother's fault.
2. Keeping your house spotless is STILL your most important job.

...and, as I was gathering from some of the posts on another thread in this forum, my primary purpose in life is to be a vessel for a growing fetus.

The riffs floating through my brain are reminding me of a greek novel I read in translation called The Murderess. She was an old woman who realized that all she had been was a vessel for children and that each of the little girls playing around a well in front of her were going to be that as well...and the little boys who were teasing them were going to do whatever they were good at, but the girls were going to be mothers no matter what...and she 'cracked' and tipped the girls into the well, killing them to 'save' them from becomming women and vessels. The rest of the book is about her walking off across the fields and people from the village chasing her down.

What's the point of that? Mmmmm, not sure. But my brain somehow thought it was connected.

My brain also came up with that scene in American Beauty where the boy with the camera and the plastic bag swirling around in the breeze takes the girl (daughter of Kevin Kline's character) to his spotless, Ethan-Allan-furnished house and introduces her to his mother...who is sitting terrified and sad at the head of a highly polished table, staring at the living room and says "I'm sorry for the state of things here." And the girl looks around slowly and apparently wonders what she is talking about.

Yeah, I'm getting worried about the state of things here and it has nothing to do with how tidy my house is.

Anyhow.... Can you say T-A-L-I-B-A-N?

Or, perhaps, Nazi Germany?

Are women going to get given medals now by the government for having a huge number of children and keeping the house clean spotless?

And I sure hope those medals are gold bullion, pure to 1/1000th. 'Cause I'm hoping that some women melt them down and buy the country back.

Of course, there is always the possibility that many or most women might be foolish enough to get brainwashed into thinking the medals are a great thing.

People love to gang up on the weak person. What is weaker than a woman who is a "failed mother"? To use an old saying: Let [s]he who is without sin among you cast the first stone.

It won't be me.

My house is clean because I pay someone to come in for four hours on Thursday mornings each week to do the deep cleaning and because I have a nanny who works 40 hours a week and seems to get bored when my pixie is napping and cleans everything again. (Even though I've told her several times that that is NOT necessary....and of course I thank her each time this happens, too.)

Note the important fact there : I PAY SOMEONE TO KEEP MY HOUSE CLEAN. I work outside the home for long hours and come home exhausted from being outdoors in the cold or heat, going up and down scaffolding or ladders or construction elevators and dealing with contractor issues all day. I used to keep my house clean myself....by spending all weekend doing it and the laundry and cooking for the week ahead. I decided that I needed to still have time for friends and that I had enough money to pay someone else to do stuff for me.

NOTE: My house is clean because I can afford it...not because I am a deeply moral person or because I am better than someone else. It is clean because I am lucky.



edited to add a comment about bullying: If you don't think that bullying alone would be sufficient to make someone feel miserable enough to commit suicide, then you haven't been bullied. Bullying can certainly cause people to have enough anger to hurt others (one of the subtexts of Bowling for Columbine) and can certainly make someone turn the anger on themselves.

I got bullied...and I fought it and I was lucky enough (arrpgant enough?) to know that the person doing the bullying just wasn't loved enough or was just jealous or was just a moron and it had nothing to do with me. And, since it didn't "bother" me, they eventually stopped....because I don't give a $h!t what someone thinks about me. But, I have enough empathy, for all of my brass balls, to know that very few people have such an inflated opinion of themselves and do all kinds of self distructive things due to bullying:

--They bully others;
--They become anorexic/bulemic;
--They cut their skin in hidden places and watch the blood;
--They do drugs;
--They drink;
--They try and fit in and always feel a "little" insecure and have a midlife crisis thirty years later and who knows what the fallout from that will be;
--They kill someone
--They commit suicide.

Take your pick.

[StarMama]

From that CNN report it seems like she's being charged because she was responsible for her child smelling and therefore responsible for the teasing:

Judith Scruggs, 52, was found guilty of one count of risk of injury to a minor for creating a filthy home that prosecutors said prevented J. Daniel Scruggs from improving his hygiene

Ok, so moms are now going to be worried about going to jail if they don't buy their kids the latest hippest clothing? Or perhaps because their child inherits the dad's large ears? Or maybe be charged if their child gains a little too much weight and is the chubby one in class?

That's just how CNN seems to word it though. Other news articles don't neccisarily put it in that light.

I don't think a messy house is going to make a kid kill himself. I've never met an almost teenager who really cared if he/she lived in a clean house. Yes ok, this place was over the top, and I'm sure if it smelt that bad it didn't help this boy (his clothing probably smelled from the house being so messy) but jailing the mother for that is like jailing a mass murderer's parents for being abusive, or absent, or whatever you know?

It doesn't matter if this kid was 300 pounds, had 3 eyes, and smelled like a skunk, he shouldn't have been allowed to be bullied to this extreme. (Teachers and other School Officals not doing crap about bullying is a big pet peeve of mine due to how I experienced that as a child myself)

[Britishmum]

I'd like to know the extent of the 'mess' in the house. I would guess, having read the story, that the mess isn't the sort of mess that we are talking about in our own homes.

During my career, I visited homes where the 'mess' is beyond the pale, and yes, it was a form of abuse. It was a part of a whole neglect of the child's physical and psychological wellbeing. I personally have bathed children and taken them shopping for new clothes,. I have washed their laundry for them and redressed them in their cleaned clothes, and most of the time, their mothers wouldnt even notice. I've known families where children have one set of clothes (including underwear). Period. For a year or more. They wear them day in day out. One child I knew had his jeans cut into shorts each spring, to make them last through another six months. This is not a messy child. It is neglect and abuse.

I think that its all too easy to jump on a bandwagon because she is a single mother and see her as being persecuted. But a child who is soiling himself to avoid going to school is in serious psychological trouble. Everyone must bear some portion of blame, but the mother, who had full custody I believe of the child, was responsible for his health and wellfare. It seems that she failed miserably.

Someone should have picked up on this and given help, or removed the child if it was beyond help. Someone should have done something in school. But we cant' have our cake and eat it - a while ago everyone on mdc was up in arms at a child tracking system being started (in the UK) as being govt intervention and none of their business. If children are to be protected, social services need to be able to get involved and stick their noses in parental business.

It's a fine line, and this child was failed miserably by his mother and the school. But I don't believe because the school, and various other agencies, failed him, that his mother can be seen as just a victim.

Millions of women work 60 hour weeks. They don't have filthy homes and filthy children. They might have a mess, but there is a huge difference between mess and filth. I've seen it, and I can tell you, there's a difference. I bet if any of us had walked into that home, we would have been shocked. We shouldn't minimise the situation by calling it a 'mess'.

It's just sad that they didnt step in with cps involvement before, and if necessary removed the boy then, if she wasn't willing or able to change.

[candiland]

[shine]

just wanted to say...

sohj-- yeah. I hear ya. you are one very awake aware woman.

on a very side note: regarding the story you recounted about the woman and the well -- have you ever noticed that if a woman kills a child it's almost always by drowning? and so frequently when drowned, because of wanting to "save" the child? Do you ever wonder if there is some psychological breaking point that causes women to want to "put the baby back in" as in back into the waters -- amniotic waters -- the original sea? odd.

Regarding bullying -- yep, me too. And I wasn't bullied the worst -- in my neighborhood there were a couple of young males -- 12 years old at the time -- who bloodied a number of other children over and over again, tried to rape me several times. Suicidal? from time to time it seemed like a good idea.

I also have another idea about this young boy -- he sounds bipolar. My husband (also named Daniel) is bipolar and the hygiene issues and deep emotional pain sound very familiar. Without meds bipolar disorder can be crushing and for a 12 year old who is being tortured at school.... well, we can see the damage. This child may well have had a psychiatric disturbance (which could have been passed down from the father -- he clearly had his own problems) that was as yet undiagnosed. The mother was obviously making the attempts to get help.

[Greaseball]

My house is often very messy. Weird smells and everything. Not because I don't have time to clean it, but because sometimes I just don't feel like it. If I don't want to do it, dh will. If he doesn't want to, I will. If neither of us wants to, it just doesn't get done. When people come over unexpectedly, we don't tell them that if only we had known they were coming we would have cleaned up, because it's just not true.

Not only am I a fit parent, I am the best parent my children could ever have. And no, it's not a suicide risk.

[SpiralWoman]

prosecutors

judges

these are the 2 most important words in all these posts, IMO. If we don't start paying attention to our ELECTED local prosecutors & judges this crazy crap is gonna keep happening. Also, school boards are also elected!

[Tracy]

This is not exactly on topic but it is not exactly off topic....


I have never, ever been satisfied by the news regarding the bullies. After Columbine I saw one interview after another of the parents and friends of the people who died. And believe me I felt horrible for them. Just horrible.
But I never saw an interview with The Bullies. Or with The Bullies parents. No one came forward and owned their part of the puzzle. Everyone was quick to lay all the blame on the two killers and yes, of course what they did was horrible. But I felt at that point there would have been a great opportunity to get a discussion about bullies. The discussion that came out of it was zero tolerance in a lot of schools for bulllies... but really, where was the culpabillity of the bully? And what makes the bully...and are those parents proud that their children bullied those two boys? And now in CT, are those parents proud that their children bullied this boy? And all the other stories.
There would be such a breath of fresh air in all these stories if we finally saw someone from that side take their responsibility in this mess.
I guess this is my own frustration with the news that they never seem to pursue that position.

[Potty Diva]

Originally posted by Celestial
Sometimes I wonder if this is a fall out from the whole "No one can make you feel bad. YOU make you feel bad." and "No matter HOW bad your situation is, you should NEVER act badly in return."

In other words, the blame lies with the person in the crappy situation, and their response to it. Not with the fact that they have been bullied and beaten, and people have allowed it to go on.

Ya know. I have found this applies to all crimes involving a victim. Rape, theft, bullying. If the victim would have dressed more modestly, acted differently, locked their car/house *this* wouldn't have happened.

When a women is raped, ,it's blamed on her dress.

If a person doesn't lock their door and is burglarized, it's THEIR fault the door wasn't locked, not the theives fault that he has a problem or lack of respect for people.

When a child commits suicide or kills another after being bullied to this point, its THEIR fault it came to this. Not the fault of the school or parents for not instilling respect of others or in the children themselves, and preventing the deaths in the first place.

Very frustrating.

[sohj]

Free-Association Jazz Riffing Again, this time on trabot and Celestial and Potty Diva

It seems we've always been searching for ways to keep blaming the victim.

Yeah, I want to see the bullies' parents. I'd like to see them confronted. If a parent is blamed for her child's misery, why can't we blame the parent for her/his child's bad behaviour?

Oh, whoops, I forgot.....WE DO! But only if the "bad behaviour" is "asking for it" and getting raped and/or bullied.

When I was a child, I thought it was really unfair how the biggest stick my mother would hold over me was "Don't make me look bad". I repeatedly said, "I have free will and, logically, you have no way to control me, therefore you are not responsible for my behaviour therefore you cannot be blamed." (Yes, I really talked like that : ...I was a snotty little intellectual .) On the other had, I saw how my intelligence (or lack thereof), good manners (or bad ones), appropriate ambitions (or totally cracked ones), and smart-aleck mouth all reflected on my mother in other people's eyes. It reflected on my father, too, but as quite a few people in his circle seemed to be vaguely afraid and occasionally protective of my father, they would never have said anything about it to him. There is a case to be made for family resemblance ("chip off the old block", genetics, etc.).

Ergo, though it may only be humanity's mythology to allow us to continue the authoritarian social control thought "necessary" for the "survival" of the group from those ancient clan days: WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO CONFRONT THE BULLIES' PARENTS. THEY CAN BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

It is easy to kick someone when they are already down. That's why we blame the victim. If we got the bully, we might have to work to do it.

And, yeah, these pop psychology ideas with a grain of truth ARE contributing to the victimhood.

[Greaseball]

When I was in middle school, other kids slapped me, grabbed my body and pulled at my clothes. They threatened to rape me and attempted to purchase sexual favors. This went on in front of teachers and other school employees, who did nothing. One day I tried to tell the principal and he told me that because once I had called one of the boys a "geek" he could not do anything to them. They were just "getting back" at me, and maybe I should think about what I had done, he said.

There was nothing I could do about it there, so I got myself expelled. I transferred to another school in another state, where the same thing happened all over again. This time the teachers said if I hadn't been "such a slut" none of it would be going on. The boys saw something in me that made them act that way, she said, rather than what really happened - they chose to act that way and then to blame the victim.

It's a good thing that when I tried to buy the gun in school, the guy got arrested, otherwise I could have been one of the first school shooters. (Actually, my plan was just to scare people with it.) I think that anytime someone brings a weapon to school - especially if a girl does it - she's in a really desperate situation and needs a lot of people to help and support her. No wonder so many people drop out of school - often, they fear for their lives!

[cottonwood]

Oh my god! This is complete insanity! A filthy house may not be pleasant, but it is not necessarily negligence. And it is really a stretch to make out that the mother is responsible for the boy's anguish because she didn't force him to shower, thereby being responsible for his body odor, thereby being responsible for the torture (I think "bullying" doesn't do it justice) that this boy endured from his schoolmates. WHATever.

I have to say a little more about the boy's living conditions. CNN reported: "Prosecutors presented evidence that showed there was barely room to move around her home because of clothes, boxes, papers and other debris that littered the floor. The kitchen was full of dirty dishes and spills and stains. The bathroom floor and the bathtub were covered with clothes, and the toilet, sink and tub were soiled. Prosecution witnesses also described a foul odor. To get an idea what it was like, one officer suggested sticking your head in a hamper full of dirty clothes and whiffing garbage at the same time."

My mom and dad's best friends were a spry, elderly couple who lived in a dump, collected junk, and never bathed (not exaggerating.) They were two of the most delightful people I have ever known, and I loved spending time in their home. Nothing suicide-inspiring there, trust me. My own mother was a packrat and allergic to housework (still is.) I don't think I have ever seen her kitchen clean, except when I did it myself. I can't ever remember having seen her clean a toilet. There are constantly piles of junk, cardboard boxes, magazines, and papers all over the place (and lots of silverfish.) Nothing suicide-inspiring there either.

But get this. I was bullied in middle school, not to the extent that this boy was, but still enough to cause severe anguish and pain, and I can still tell you with all honesty that I would have thought it the height of absurdity if someone had tried to blame any of that on my living conditions.

And horrified if someone were to judge me in the same way for my (sometimes) current living conditions. Now, sometimes my house does look pretty good. I do in fact aspire way more than is probably healthy to be Martha Stewart. But sometimes, for whatever reason, it gets away from me. Yesterday, for instance. Dirty dishes covered every surface in the kitchen. I had made the mistake of leaving water in the sink overnight, so there was a foul smell from that. I'd put old lettuce and broccoli in the compost pail and not taken it out before bedtime, so that reeked too. We have a damaged foundation beneath our house, so this past week we've been dealing with the stench of something that got in underneath our laundry room and died. We also have an exposed section of sewer pipe outside our house (we try to keep it covered with dirt but sometimes it washes away) and *that* smells right now. So basically, our whole house stunk, inside and out, and I had urgent errands to run and couldn't deal with any of it until much later in the day.

Now, also we had made several purchases over the weekend and the living room and dining room were littered with boxes and packing materials, in addition to the kids' toys and dirty dishes that they'd left in front of the TV, and my daughter's pee on the floor (she is two, old enough not to be in diapers all the time, but young enough to still have accidents,) piles of books that I am trying to go through and sort out, pieces of cut paper EVERYwhere (hey, the kids like to cut,) magazines strewn all over (my 2-year-old had decided to have a bit of fun with my carefully stacked piles,) mouse droppings (we live in an old house and are waging a losing battle with the mice,) tons of dirty laundry, clothes on the floor in the living areas, poo in my daughter's potty chair *and* on the floor (she missed,) the toilet hasn't been cleaned in weeks (not a pretty sight,) there is dirt and dead flies around the bath surround, towels and clothes all over the bathroom floor from when I cleaned myself and the kids before going out, being in too much of a hurry to straighten up, and geez, I could go on. It was a disaster. And I don't even work outside of the home 60 hours a week! So who of you here is ready to call the authorities on me? None of you? Wait, you sure? Because you might want to compare my description of my house to the following before you decide:

"there was barely room to move around her home because of clothes, boxes, papers and other debris that littered the floor. The kitchen was full of dirty dishes and spills and stains. The bathroom floor and the bathtub were covered with clothes, and the toilet, sink and tub were soiled. Prosecution witnesses also described a foul odor. To get an idea what it was like, one officer suggested sticking your head in a hamper full of dirty clothes and whiffing garbage at the same time."

C'mon, now. There is no reason to assume that the true problem was the mess, as described, but there is plenty of evidence that there was no one perceptive enough to see the damage that those kids were doing to that boy, or caring or brave enough to do anything about it. For that, maybe the mother *was* as responsible as the school and the other kids. But let's not pretend it's about dirt. That's nonsense.

Yeah, I know, there are people who habitually live in filth that poses a health danger, who don't ever wash their children's clothing, who leave garbage and food sitting around the house rotting for weeks on end, and yes that could be pretty damn depressing and a symptom of neglect. But neither situation above as described has anything to do with that kind of neglect. You are assuming that it was much worse than described. Which you are free to do. But you could certainly be wrong. As could the prosecutors.

[eilonwy]

I too live in a wreck of an apartment. Though it's not as bad as when I was growing up. My mother's idea of doing housework was yelling about an impending inspection. : It doesn't contribute to a healthy soul, but it doesn't cause the misery. Quite to the contrary, it can be very soothing; if you're sitting in a huge pile of laundry, you're protected. It's soft, no one can see you... you're safe.

And Greaseball... I think I'm a little older than you are, so I probably would have been the first school shooter. *sigh* The only thing that stopped me was the fact that I was a total nerd. Thus, when I attempted to purchase a gun, no one would sell to me because they thought I was a goody two shoes and therefore a narc. :LOL I can't understand how anyone believes that bullying cannot, in itself, be a cause for suicide... though I always wondered what happened to happy, popular kids when they grew up.

[Greaseball]

Don't the popular kids end up fat and divorced? In my high school where the gun guy got busted, the norm was to marry right after graduation and have a bunch of kids. I'm so glad I didn't last there. It was a total redneck culture. People wore cowboy hats and belt buckles and chewed tobacco. Their homes were filthy, too!

I had never even seen a gun before, so I'm just really, really glad it didn't work out. I'd probably have been disarmed, since some of the people I was trying to "scare" were 6 ft, 200 lb football players and I was 5 ft tall.

Later I transferred back to my home state into the most liberal school around. Boys often wore skirts to school, there was a daycare center for students' babies, and the sex education classes were all taught by other students. The women won the weightlifting competition. The school was so big that no one noticed me and I could be as socially inept as I wanted and no one cared.

Bullying is probably one of the biggest fears I have about dd going to school. I know if she does, it'll happen. Hopefully not severely, but I think it's inevitable and always will be until school employees stop seeing it as just a normal part of school that one has to deal with. If someone worked in an office where he was punched in the face every morning, he would quit! Kids don't have the option.

[Tracy]

T


today one of my park-mommy friends told me that her son has started preschool. he goes half day for three days a week. He is 3. I asked how it was going and she said that the first couple of weeks were okay but there has been a bit of a set back. I asked 'what caused the set back?" She said, "there is a bully in class." She then said, the bully went after her son two weeks ago and made his life miserable and he is just barely getting back into the swing of it becuase he felt so tormented by the bully.

The bully is three year old. She then said that the mother of the child in question had a beef with the school for labeling her son a bully. My parkmommy friend said the child is totally a bully, the teachers know it is a problem, they keep trying to work with the family, they work with the other kids, they are constantly dealing with him, but the mom evidently, thinks there really isn't a problem. Just focuses on the school labeling of him.

Right there, right there at age 3..why would this get better if the parent's are not getting it?

[AnnMarie]

Originally posted by candiland
Sorry, I will have to be the lone voice of dissent here.
A 12 yo. *most likely* would not kill himself just because he was being bullied in school. I would bet my last tax dollar that he has had a crappy home life from the very beginning. If all 12 yo's who were bullied relentlessly killed themselves, we would probably have lost 15% of our American population. A strong, loving home life *can* buffer a person from some of that

This was more than just being bullied. He was tortured by those kids in school, and yes, a child could kill themselves over that.

Having been bullied and teasted often in school I thought of it many times myself. My parents weren't terrible people, school was terrible.

[Curandera]

Originally posted by trabot
Right there, right there at age 3..why would this get better if the parent's are not getting it?

Maybe it is the Kindergarten not getting it?

I believe my son is a bully in Kindergarten. He came late last year to this Kindergarten and was a sweet boy who only wanted to play and be loved - but he is smart - and learns quickly. There was an already established clique of boys who were going throught some rough times at home and were mean to my DS - pushing, hitting, excluding - and calling him names because of the Iraq war (we are not living in the US) and we are Americans. After 3 to 4 months of him allowing, albeit apparently wanting to be hit (to get some kind of attention) we told him he was allowed to hit back - but not in the face and at the same time saying "don't hit me!"

Well, this year, most of the old crew is gone, and now DS is the big boy - and he was looking forward to having a new chance to prove something. But the heirarchical structures are so profound in the system here - from the teachers through the kids (they relflect what they live) - that, again, DS was labeled a problem - so he is an outcast. Out of frustration - he hits. It is a complicated problem, which I think is systemic. I'll bet that once that child gets out of that Kindergarten he'll no longer be a bully. I just met another mother whose son was a bully in a former Kindergarten, who is now a gently happy soul in school. He also is a sensitive child, who was frustrated by being labelled at such a young age and not understood.

I really think that labeling children bullies is a scapegoat for people not wanting to look deeper into possible systemic problems, because they may have to change their system. I think if there is bullying going on, one has to look at the situation more intensely - who is bullying, who is being bullied - and how to we challenge the social unit in oreder to help all the kids become more understanding of each other? But what happens IRL? "We have a system - he/she doesn't fit into the system - lets do our best to separate ourselves from the Bully or the strange one who doesn't fit in by bullying him/her out of our sight - so we don't have to be challenged" What needs to be done is to have more forced "group therapy like" experiences in order to get to know the otherness and accept the otherness - not just label and accept thte status quo. Isn't that also as important as academics? Couldn't it be that the kids would be more able to advance in the adcademics if they didn't have to deal with such overwhelming social problems in the school? Maybe regular group therapy classes should also be a part of the curriculum! Teachers complain about the problems and abuse they are experiencing - the kids complain - the families complain - but labeling and walking blind into the social mire with tongues and fists ready with steroetypes of false social norms , only creates deeper and deeper social problems.

OK - I'm just rambling off the top of my head here - don't know if it makes sense.

[Greaseball]

I also experienced my fair share of being a bully in elementary school. I saw it as a way I could escape everything that happened at - guess where - school! I was always in trouble for fighting.

Bullies are not always the fault of the parents. It's a fact that overcrowding in prison causes violence - why do we think overcrowding in schools won't do the same thing?