"Nerd Words", Bullying, Kids and the Culture of Deliberate Ignorance

Today at breakfast, as I washed some dishes and half-heartedly watched over the kids eating, Ethan suddenly began to derisively mock his sister with the chant, "Haha, you said the 'nerd word'!"

This got my attention and, as he said it again, laughing the whole time, I asked him what the "nerd word" was.

"'What' is the 'nerd word'," he replied.

"What?" I asked, not liking where this was going and fully aware that I was setting myself up, "Why is that a 'nerd word'?  What does that even mean?"

"I don't know," he responded, "it's what the kids on the bus say to me."

 "Just you?" I feared the answer.

"Yes."


Now, maybe I'm a little too sensitive to the issue because I worry about Ethan.  He's smallish for his age, he has a touch of strabismus and nystagmus, he's very bright, he isn't the most graceful kid or athletically inclined, and he has interests outside of the norm that he is very passionate about.  This is a dangerous cocktail of ingredients for public school.

Maybe I'm a little too sensitive about the issue because I remember all too clearly what school was like and how mean kids could be.  I was picked on in school because I was different.  I'd like to say that I'm well beyond that now all these years later, but there's no denying that it had an impact on my development as a person and helped shape who I am today.

Maybe I'm a little too sensitive to the issue because there has recently been a very vocal and public campaign to shine a light on bullying and its effects and to stamp it out.

Maybe I'm a little too sensitive about the issue because that particular insult, "nerd", is one me and my ilk heard countless times growing up and have reclaimed over the years as a source of pride, and it's painful to know that it is still being used hurtfully.

But here's the thing, I'm probably most sensitive about it because I want more than anything else to protect my son from the pain and embarrassment and humiliation that I, and countless others, went through.

He plays it right in that he tells his teacher or the bus driver when it happens, but what are they going to do?  Sure, they can reprimand the other children.  Maybe make them watch a video about the harm bullying does.  Perhaps, if it escalates, talk to their parents, but what does that accomplish?

He tells me or his mother about it, but what are we going to do?  I can tell him to ignore them.  I can tell him to just let it roll off his back.  That the other kids make fun of him because they're jealous and insecure.  That's all well and good, but it doesn't stop it from happening.

Every day he's on a bus and around these kids in school for more hours than he is me, and he's being taught that it's okay to make fun of someone for being a little different (manifesting itself in his redirecting it toward his smaller, younger, weaker sister).  Every day it's being demonstrated that doing what he's instructed, namely, informing an adult about the incidences, results in no changes except, I imagine, more mockery for "tattling."  And worst of all, every day he is forced to question himself because a group of kids makes him feel badly for just being himself.

Now, some of you reading this may think I'm overreacting, and maybe I am, but let's look at this a little more in-depth.

The kids making fun of him are mocking him for asking "What?"  What is the implication here?  The implication is that asking "What?" is bad.  Seeking knowledge or clarification is an undesirable trait.  The irony of this happening on a school bus in the process of transporting them to or from an institute of learning is, apparently, entirely lost on them.  

Wikipedia defines the term "nerd" thusly:

Nerd (adjective: nerdy) is a descriptive term, often used pejoratively, indicating that a person is overly intellectual, obsessive, or socially impaired. They may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, obscure, or non-mainstream activities, which are generally either highly technical or relating to topics of fiction or fantasy, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities. Additionally, many nerds are described as being shy, quirky, and unattractive, and may have difficulty participating in, or even following, sports.

They are condemning and ostracizing him because he is not only doing something healthy that should come naturally to everyone, but doing something I've tried my best to instill within him, questioning everything and trying to always learn new things.  They are, in their immature, thoughtless way, deriding intellectualism, and thereby promoting deliberate ignorance.  They are setting the hierarchy of the school or bus or wherever by labeling him as "uncool" and therefore placing themselves above him because they're "cool" and don't use "nerd words."

This is the part, I think, that upsets me the most.  Bullying is bad and all efforts should be made to be rid of it, and not to diminish its impact, but generations of kids grew up with it and survived and even thrived.  Ethan is, if nothing else, stubborn and hard-headed and I've every confidence he'll make it through school and grow up to be an awesome human being, but the underlying message of these kids' mockery is troubling.

Kids are sponges.  They absorb everything around them from language to behavior to style.  They are, by definition, impressionable.  I don't want to point fingers and suggest that these other kids' parents are instilling the wrong messages in their kids, but let's be honest here; a child's worldview is almost exclusively shaped by their parents/guardians.  They got the message somewhere that intellectualism was bad, and they're just passing that message along because that's what they know. 

Instead of celebrating intellectual achievements or encouraging intellectual growth, they're actively discouraging it by labeling it as uncool and "nerdy."

Of course, their undeveloped little minds don't understand the nuances and depth of their statements, much as they don't understand why calling people "gay" or "girly" implies that those things are bad and therefore undesirable, but on a subconscious level they, and their targets, kind of do.  They may not grasp the full effect of their words, but they do know that by using them as weapons as such they are gaining power in the eyes of their peers.

And this is where I feel helpless about it all.  I can teach Ethan what my father taught me; to just ignore it.  That in 20 years it won't matter a lick.  That one day those anti-intellectual knuckle-draggers will probably be working for him.  But that doesn't change the culture.  They will continue to think and act that way.  They will never come to realize the damage their words can do.  They will never learn to stop, and they'll grow from school bus bullies to high school bullies and then on to workplace bullies instilling the same behavior in their children so that they cycle can relentlessly and endlessly repeat.

I think we, as parents, need to do a better job in teaching our children the power of their words.  It's easy to dismiss it as "kids being kids", but, frankly, that is just being lazy.  Raising a child is hard.  No one said it would be easy, but this is something we cannot overlook any longer if we ever want it to change.