Can a girl be bullied to death by Mean Girls?
Think it can’t happen? Think that someone needs a weapon to kill? Nope, just a bad attitude and no empathy or respect for anyone else– not even themselves.
Bullying happens. Believe me I know. As you may have read in past articles or in the Patriot Ledger the other day, I was a victim of bullying and the now called “Mean Girls” when I was in fifth grade. Perhaps you’ve been a victim too. You know it was a problem. You know it was poorly handled. You know how alone you felt.
After reading the Boston Globe yesterday, I was back in that place. Truthfully, I felt like I was going to throw up. I could literally feel my stomach churning. An article on Phoebe Prince, a 15 year old girl who was bullied to death by Mean Girls. No traditional weapons required.
They followed Phoebe around, calling her a slut. When they wanted to be more specific, they called her an Irish slut. The name-calling, the stalking, the intimidation was relentless. Ten days ago, Phoebe was walking home from school when one of the Mean Girls drove by in a car. An insult and an energy drink can came flying out the car window in Phoebe’s direction. Phoebe kept walking, past the abuse, past the can, past the white picket fence, into her house. Then she walked into a closet and hanged herself. Her 12-year-old sister found her.
These Mean Girls certainly need some counseling and some consequences. But, as it often is with relational aggression, how can anyone prove a thing? Where’s the smoking gun? So Phoebe is dead and the Mean Girls go along as if nothing ever happened.
You would think this would give the bullies who hounded Phoebe some pause. Instead, they went on Facebook and mocked her in death. They told State Police detectives they did nothing wrong, had nothing to do with Phoebe killing herself. And then they went right back to school and started badmouthing Phoebe. They had a dance, a cotillion, at the Log Cabin in Holyoke two days after Phoebe’s sister found her in the closet, and some who were there say one of the Mean Girls bragged about how she played dumb with the detectives who questioned her.
We have painted the picture but nobody is looking. Or, they are looking but refuse to connect the dots. What more has to happen to these kids to show us that there is a problem? I would BET you that the teachers, just a few days before this happened, would have denied that there was a problem in their school. How could I assume that? Because of the many teachers I’ve spoken to, they tell me that it doesn’t really happen in their schools, that they have a zero tolerance policy, that they don’t see it at all in their classrooms. Nope. Not in their classrooms– in the halls, on the streets, outside of the school.
A candlelight vigil was held in Phoebe Prince’s honor. I can’t help but wonder if the Mean Girls were there to mock Phoebe– or if they stayed home and just watched Gossip Girl.
So…who’s responsibility is it? Between classes– at recess– coming home from school– are these places just “no man’s land?” Is the truth that as long as it is not in front of an adult’s eyes, it isn’t really happening?
Tell that to Phoebe Prince.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I am an adult with aspergers. I have been bullied by words my entire existence. Centering yourself around people that are mean is impossible not to avoid. People are mean. Mean people are the most common type of person I come across. Is it a force against me? I do think people pick up on weak souls and sad souls and they are drawn to us to hurt us and build themselves up. I am a weak soul socially, I never know what to do to handle it. But as a mother of two and a graduate student in the special education program I plan to develop a program to teach the skills and awareness for both the weak souls and the mean ones.
Excellent blog. I was there too — not at this particular one, but 25 years ago when I was 15 years old growing up in Michigan. I was bullied from the time I was in elementary school right on up into high school. And NOBODY would help–not the parents, and certainly not the teachers. (And for goodness sakes, some of the teachers in elementary school even seemed afraid of the bullies themselves. And to add to that, my dad worked at my school, and still nothing was done.)
As adults it’s easy to laugh off the taunts of somebody… or just leave. But children don’t have either luxury. As a child, the taunts *hurt* but my parents didn’t understand. “So what if they said that to you,” and “just ignore them,” my parents would say. As if that would actually help a 10 year old. And I certainly couldn’t leave; I was forced to sit in the same classroom as these people day by day.
Now grown, my sister was faced with the same problem with her daughter being bullied; she took action and began home-schooling her daughter. I’m not sure that’s the answer either, but at least it got her away from the trouble.
But what I don’t understand is WHERE are the parents of the bullies? Do they honestly not care that their kids are doing this? My boy is in kindergarten and he’s a very nice boy, but once he picked on another kid. I got word of that and I sat him down and explained very carefully why that’s naughty and we don’t do it. That’s all it took at his age; he felt really bad, and he was fine after that, and it was never a problem again. But for the teens who continue to do this, they’ve obviously moved way past that and need some serious help.
Stories like this just break my heart. I feel so bad for the girl’s family. She had not seen her dad in several months and was supposed to go visit him soon. I can only imagine the trauma they’re experiencing right now.