Reese Witherspoon says that she hopes that her kids get teased and bullied.
Speaking about her new film, Penelope, about a girl named Penelope, who ends up with a pig’s nose and ears as the result of a family curse, Reese said:
“We all sort of deal with that in our own childhood or raising
children. I wouldn’t want my kids to miss out on any of that teasing
and bullying. It makes you who you are–when you don’t make the soccer
team and you can’t… The thing that drives me crazy today is everyone
wins the award. Everyone wins an MVP. No. They’re not! I distinctly
recall the two weeks of crying because I didn’t make the volleyball
team. It made me interesting.
I like Reese Witherspoon, really I do. But I think that she may be a little confused here. Not making the volleyball team? That's a childhood disappointment (and for the record, I agree with her statement that children need to learn to cope with such disappointments.) Getting teased and bullied, especially for one's personal appearance, on any kind of consistent basis? That can be a childhood trauma, and one that no-one should wish on anyone. Character-building, my ass: being the bullied scapegoat in childhood or adolescence can leave lasting scars.
It's a bit trite to say that it's just too easy for a beautiful, wealthy young mother - who almost certainly never got bullied herself, and whose kids really are unlikely to get pantsed in the schoolyard every week for having pig's noses - to wax philosophic about bullying, but I'll say it anyway: someone for whom the most distressing moment in childhood was not making the volleyball team? Does not have the necessary perspective to say that a little bullying never hurt anyone.
Source
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