Those of us who were on the smaller side as kids were well acquainted with school bullies who found great joy by terrorizing us at every opportunity and who often felt immune to retribution for shoving us into lockers and block walls, just because they could.
Childhood stature mattered back then. Weaker unprotected kids were always easier prey to those who towered over us and threatened us with physical harm. We didn’t have to do or say anything to instigate the contact. We were just there within easy reach and away from protective adults at the time.
Now in grade-school being a natural cry-baby myself to the verbal and physical battering, I whined to mom and dad about it. How unfair it was, how besieged I felt. Mom was all angry and spouted, “I’ll go down to the school right now and tell them this has to stop.”
Dad was all, “No, this stops when SHE makes it stop; and this is what you are going to do about it.” He said pointing at me.
So dad being dad, he took me out to the garage and said, “You have to learn to defend yourself. You have to learn how to fight back and MAKE THEM stop bullying you. That’s the only way they will leave you alone. You have to MAKE THEM STOP.”
I assume now that he had learned this first hand from his own childhood because he was only 5’9” as an adult and was fairly slim built.
He stood me, all of three-and-a-half foot tall at that age, a couple feet from him and said, “Make fists, like you are going to fight.” I did as best I could. He pulled my thumbs down around my fingers to make a better fist and squeezed them tighter like little clubs. Then he maneuvered me around a bit, straightened my stance, pulled my left fist out toward him and pushed my right fist back toward my right shoulder, and said, “Spread your feet apart for better balance. There. That’s it. That’s how you get ready to fight.”
Still whimpering, I looked at him and said, “But I don’t want to fight. I want them to just leave me alone. Why can’t they do that?”
He snorted and bent over me saying directly into my face, “Because they are bullies. That’s what bullies do. They pick on little people—they pick on people they can push around—but you aren’t going to let them push you around anymore, …are you?”
I looked into his weathered face and chocolate-brown eyes that seemed so certain of what he was saying and said, “I guess not.”
“No, you’re not.” He said more to himself than to me. Then he poked a dirty-looking, mechanic’s finger in my face and said with conviction, “No one is pushing you around anymore. It stops NOW!”
I sniffled and nodded. He then ‘schooled me’ in throwing gut-punches and countering blows to my face coming at me. Once he was satisfied that I could at least hold my fists correctly and swing a punch with some force, he said with finality, “There. You’re good now. No one’s going to push you around again!”
Yes, with me at ten-years-old, dad became my boxing coach that day. And he was right. After I developed a mean, right gut-punch, the bullies I had previously known did in fact back off from me completely. But it took me fighting back to make it happen.
So, parable-of-the-day being: In today’s political sparing ring for those of us under siege at present I suggest learning to throw a good, solid gut-punch to back off the main bully currently trying to steal your lunch money (or your social security). In my experience it seems to be the only deterrent that bullies do recognize.
FINDING YOUR TRUTH 