Although it’s the year of 2021 already and it looks like we’ve been doing our best to make things right, humanity still has a long way to go when it comes to eradicating bullying.
Sadly, being abused, called names, and not accepted because of different reasons, such as your looks or your points of view, is not that uncommon. Bullying can take place anywhere and it can affect people from all ages, but when young children who are helpless at defending themselves experience it, they can be affected for life.
Nicole O’Shea is a mother of a 9-year-old girl. This woman is trying really hard to help her daughter put up with the bullying she experiences on a daily basis, but it looks like no matter what she does, she fails each time.
Recently, she posted a touching letter at Love What Matters, and it touched the hearts of many. This is what she wrote:
“She’s 9. Nine years old and already learning what it feels like to have her heart broken by the unkindness of the world. She already knows what it feels like to have her peers comment on her body, her face, her clothes, her family.
She’s been called too stupid, too fat, too ugly, too poor, too loud, too huggy, too wild, too messy. She’s been uninvited because she’s not pretty enough, skinny enough, happy enough, funny enough, liked enough.
Those words don’t hurt me because I know they’re not true. I know she’s enough. What hurts me is how broken those words make her. What kills me is how she believes the naysayers of the world instead of her mama, the person who knows her best.
And that, my friends is why we HAVE to learn to love ourselves.
These babies are watching us. They’re learning how to love themselves by watching how we love our own selves. They CANNOT hear us when we tell them they’re enough because they’re too busy hearing us tell ourselves we’re not.
I vow to erase self-hate from my life. I promise to learn to appreciate who and what I am without exception. I will love me. Because me loving me is the only way I can teach her to love her.“
Nicole wants others to imagine how it would feel like if it were their kids in her daughter’s place.
“If this hit you in some kind of way, I know it’s because you’re picturing your own kids and the struggles they’ve seen. I am one mom of one daughter and our story is not unique. It’s the story of every mother and the daughters they’re raising.“
But we aren’t here to dwell in the heartache. We’re here to breed confidence and resiliency in the hearts of our babies. With that in mind, I want to hear from the mamas and the aunties and the grandmas and the teachers, and all the women who have little girls looking up to them …
I want you to picture that little woman you’re helping to shape and promise me right now you’re going to start loving yourself the way you want her to love herself.”
We truly hope that no other child or even an adult ever experiences what this 9-year-old has. We need to fight against bullying together, because no matter how harmless and fun it seems to those who practice it, it can destroy their victims’ self-confidence for life.