From the time most of us are young, we know the stress of being invited to a party and wondering how we are going to act once we are there. It’s not something that we speak about openly, but it’s something that all of us have to go through at some time or another. The problem is, it’s not just that our friends are there but there are also likely to be children who may bully us. Those can even include children that we consider to be our friends. This is been a problem for as long as any of us can remember but in recent years, it seems to have taken a turn for the worse.
That fact was clearly seen in the case of a nine-year-old girl who was bullied in a way that is sure to break your heart. The mother, Nicole O’Shea posted the information on Love What Matters and talked about her little girl became a victim of bullying in a way that no little girl should ever have to deal with. She wrote:
“She’s 9. Nine years old and already learning what it feels like to have her heart broken by the unkindness of the world. She already knows what it feels like to have her peers comment on her body, her face, her clothes, her family.
She’s been called too stupid, too fat, too ugly, too poor, too loud, too huggy, too wild, too messy. She’s been uninvited because she’s not pretty enough, skinny enough, happy enough, funny enough, liked enough.
Those words don’t hurt me because I know they’re not true. I know she’s enough. What hurts me is how broken those words make her. What kills me is how she believes the naysayers of the world instead of her mama, the person who knows her best.
And that, my friends is why we HAVE to learn to love ourselves.
These babies are watching us. They’re learning how to love themselves by watching how we love our own selves. They CANNOT hear us when we tell them they’re enough because they’re too busy hearing us tell ourselves we’re not.
I vow to erase self-hate from my life. I promise to learn to appreciate who and what I am without exception. I will love me. Because me loving me is the only way I can teach her to love her.
If this hit you in some kind of way, I know it’s because you’re picturing your own kids and the struggles they’ve seen. I am one mom of one daughter and our story is not unique. It’s the story of every mother and the daughters they’re raising.