It was called teasing. And it was, well, OK.
At least it seemed to be for 11 and 12-year-old boys back in rural Ontario about 20 or so years ago.
Today, it’s called bullying, and an admitted bully from those days has come to terms with his and his friends’ actions as Pink Shirt Day is celebrated today (Feb. 24).
Stephen (name changed) told the Richmond News that growing up in his neighbourhood there was a schoolmate who didn’t quite fit in with the friends he ran with. Yet that boy wanted to be included in the group and would try his best to associate with them.
“We were a group of really close friends who lived within a couple of blocks of each other,” Stephen said. “And one other kid in the neighbourhood was socially challenged, pretty meek, an outsider and an easy target. He would call up one of our friends to say he would really like to hang out and kinda invite himself over.”
When the rest of the group found out he was en route, they’d quickly hop on their bikes and scramble away.
“We’d be down the street and watching,” Stephen said, “and we’d see him knock on the door and all laugh.”
The “teasing” would be repeated as their “would-be” friend made his way to the next house while the group moved along.
“I’d suggest we were nice kids. I definitely would not have identified myself as a bully,” Stephen said. “When I look back on it now, I can see it was definitely bullying, but I am sure, at the time, we thought it was harmless fun.
“It’s kinda embarrassing to admit we did that.”
He does remember being bullied himself at a younger age, something that really bothered him.
“It was the same few kids that did it, and they did it to everybody,” he said. “It was them embarrassing kids in front of others to get a rise out of people and have a laugh.”
It wasn’t a laughing matter for the parents of the boy Stephen and his friends were bullying. When they found what was going on the reality of the “teasing” struck home.
“My mother had a really big problem with that, so I remember getting in trouble.”
Through their teenage years, Stephen and the rest of his close friends kept their bullying victim at arms length in terms of a relationship and the matter de-escalated. He can’t remember if true remorse for their actions was ever felt.
Then, a couple of years ago, their victim’s brother, who is a lot more assertive, went on Facebook and outed Stephen and a couple of other friends.
“He didn’t say straight out that we were bullies to his brother, but he literally said he hated our families. And it was there for all (on social media) to see.”
Stephen said he can only surmise that the brother, who his group bullied 20 years ago, had confided in his own sibling and maybe related the hurtful effects it had on him.
Asked if he felt today’s approach to bullying and the messaging that comes with annual Pink Shirt Day events would have affected his behaviour decades previous, Stephen was, at first, split.
“I recall knowing it was wrong to bully back then, but we didn’t see it that way, so it’s hard to say whether it would have changed the way we acted,” he said. “But the one thing I do know I will be picking up from all of this, is that when it comes time to have my own kids, I know that I will be telling them it’s wrong to bully.”
