Strollerderby : teasing

Case Made In Defense of Teasing

Kelly Mills — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:32:00 GMT

Fears of bullying and violence and discrimination have led many schools to adopt very strong policies against teasing. And lord knows most of us could probably dredge up a painful school year or two when the taunts of classmates made our lives hell. In our important relationships, we are encouraged to avoid poking and instead honestly share our feelings. And don't even get me started on the workplace... I mean, you'd be hard-pressed to defend teasing, right?

Hmm, during a difficult discussion with my sister about some serious tension between us, I said, "I think at least we can both agree the real problem here is you are a bitch." She laughed.

This is part of the point of a great New York Times article in defense of teasing. The arguement is that while bullying and harassment are acts of aggression, other forms of teasing can actually serve to build bonds between people, alleviate tension, and allow us to deliver messages to each other in a less direct form. For example, couples who teased each other during discussions about loaded issues came away from the conversation feeling closer than couples who engaged in only direct discussion. And teasing can also help signal what behaviors are okay, and help establish social status. By prohibiting kids from teasing, we are discouraging an important kind of social interaction, one that can even help teach us not to take ourselves too seriously.

At least that's the case made here, and me and my bitch sister would probably agree. But what do you think?

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That Name Is So Gay!

Miriam Axel-Lute — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:31:00 GMT

Choosing a baby name that will not get your child taunted in later life is clearly higher on some parents' priorities than on others'. But certainly when you expect your kids might run into some hard times on the playground for other reasons—such as, for example, their parents are gay—it might jump up a notch or two on the list and start to compete with things like easy to spell and pronounce.

Not, honestly, that I thought about it in those terms when we were picking our daughter's name particularly, but perhaps I should have. Way Out Parent's guide to gay baby naming points out, for example, that naming a girl Billie Jean, shortens to BJ, a fact which will escape no teen boy. Despite what I think of as my innuendo-alert mind, I would not have thought of that one. Guess I'm not a teen boy. Phew.

I'm not sure what I think of all of Way Out parent's advice. I definitely question whether sons of lesbians have a need to be blessed with definitively masculine names more than sons of gay men. (We're talking taunt reducing here, not challenging stereotypes.) And suggesting such a short list of icons to name daughters after seems like, if heeded, would lead to those names starting to (1) be way overused and (2) scream "My parents are gay!"

But perhaps I take this humorous post too seriously. In fact, I almost certainly do. That's what happens when humor hits close to home. But really, any parents who have come to stalemate over their naming choices could use a dose of humor and a break from books full of 15 million inadvisable and outdated names. And maybe a bunch more Ellens and Marlenes in the world wouldn't be such a bad thing.

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Kindergartener Suspended From School For Sporting a Mohawk

Kelly Mills — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:35:00 GMT

Ah, in a day and age when many schools are instituting programs to combat children teasing other children about their appearance, one school has decided to put the bullies out of a job by doing their work for them. Six-year-old Bryan Ruda was suspended from charter school Parma Community School in Ohio. Um, because he has a "mohawk," which in this case does not mean liberty spikes but that he has the sides of his head shaved and his hair is longer on top. The school has a dress code that does not prohibit mohawks specifically, but says students have to be properly groomed. Whatever that means.

Oh, but the rationale for the suspension is classic: Administrators say the hair was "disrupting the educational program" and that other students commented on it, making them disruptive and more difficult to control. I guess that's powerful hair. And this was a "third offense," meaning that Bryan's mom was warned about the problem hair before when it had product in it, and while it was growing out things were sort of okay. However, a re-shaving threw the class into chaos, I suppose. The school board decided over the weekend to suspend the kid, which makes me think they must have zero educational issues at all, since they have time to debate the merits of a kindergartener's style. Nice.

Photo: Peggy Turbett/The Plain Dealer

Kids are Fat Because of...Politeness?

Karen Murphy — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 13:53:00 GMT

Back when we were kids, the "fat kid" was the exception. And unless the "fat kid" was also the "smart kid" or the "funny kid", he was also the kid with no friends. Which is a lot of peer pressure on any kid. And likely it either made those fat kids slim down eventually or go into therapy (or both). Was that a better system, in the end, than the acceptance and political-correctness we have now? In other words, did teasing create healthier kids?

Today, there is safety in numbers. Increasingly sedentary, kids today are fatter than in previous decades, and they have plenty of supersized adult role models to look to. Fatness, despite our constant cultural striving for thinness, has become far closer to the norm than ever. "It’s interesting ... that whereas being overweight was once socially risky, now it’s more or less just one of the norms of student life."

Not that I'm necessarily suggesting that we encourage our kids to get all Lord of the Flies and reduce their fatter members to puddles of blubbering blubber, but what about it, really? If kids (and parents) knew there was a steeper social price to pay for scarfing down a steady diet of Doritos and Twinkies, would they start to think more carefully about lifestyle choices? Could a whole social revolution begin right in the classroom, when just-teased kids go home and demand a change?

Or would that just set kids up for a lifetime of perceived failure and ridicule?