How we can, become, socialized to HATE someone, without, knowing the person, the observations of a mother, tapping into her own younger years of getting singled out by her teacher, her classmates as a young child, translated…
“Mommy, I HATE Huei Huang so much!”, my last year kindergarten daughter told me one time after school. I’d asked her why, she’d started, speaking in that high-pitched voice, “She doesn’t shower, she stinks, and she wore shirts with holes” “oh, and she’s, so stupid! She couldn’t answer ANY of the questions that the teacher asked her”, her twin younger sister also chimed in then, they’d, looked at me, with that look of, “see, what I tell you!”, waited for me, to agree with them too.
I thought of my self in the fifth grade———as, the LEAST popular kid in the class.
“Everybody, take a sheet of paper out, and write down the name of the classmate whom you think is the best, and draw a circle under it; and write down the name of the classmate whom you think needed the most improvement, and an ‘X’ under the name.”, although I couldn’t understand the purpose of this, but, thirty years ago, the teachers in the elementary school has total authority, and I’d, done what I was told.
“Shin-Shin Dong—check, Leopard Shue—X”, the teacher started, calling out the names, dragging out the last character of the syllable, started this, never-ending, torture, my name was read, over twenty times, with the X that followed. The teacher said, that this meant, that I have a ton of room for improvement, but to me, I’d, interpreted, that I was, just bad, noted by the entire class, AWFUL! And what’s worse was, I don’t know what I’m, doing wrong? What I’d done, to another? To make them all feel, that I was, such, an awful person.
I’d moved away as I went up to the sixth grade, but this, label of being the worst of the class, it’d, tagged along inside my mind. And, for a, very long time, I’d felt, that I wasn’t, good enough, worried that I may make a mistake, say the wrong things, feared, that nobody liked me, so I got used to, hiding my own thoughts from the rest of the world, and worked hard, to make others around me like me. And, this road to recovering, to patching my self up, it’d taken, forever, and I’m glad, that I’m, finally, this, brave, strong person that I am now, and knew how hard it was, all the way, to where I, currently, am.
“Maybe, something’s happened in her home, that wasn’t, of her willing?” I’d told my eldest daughter. “there are the things we’re good and bad all, each of us, maybe, she’s, just, slow to pick things up?”, I’d, looked toward, my younger daughter.
Every child has enormous, unlimited, potentials, no matter how different they may, appear to be right now. This is a long life that they’re on, I hope, that my children will, keep that gentle heart, that kindness for as long as they can, and, on the wings of, positive thoughts, head to wherever it is they want to go in their, lives.
And so, this mother has the empathy, because she was once, singled out by her own peers as a young child, and, she’s, trying, to teach the right kinds of values to her own young, to teach them, that they shouldn’t, judge someone by how they live, but by their, character, and it must’ve been hard, for this woman, to grow up being, bullied by her school teachers, and classmates like that, and so, she hoped, that no other child gets put through what she was put through in her elementary school years.
Life, the Obstacle Course 