Sticks and stones...

Kids can be cruel. We all know this. Hell I'm sure everyone has a story from their childhood of naming calling or a physical altercation with another kid. I know I do. For a brief period in my childhood I was bullied.

More, now than ever we see the stories on the news of children who have chosen suicide as their only option to end their suffering and every time their stories break my heart. I read one today about Cora Delille, 15 year old girl from Ohio that did the very same thing. She believed that her only way out was to end her own life.

There were other factors also, this isn't just a bullying issue. The story reads that she broke up with her boyfriend and her parents were getting a divorce so you have to of course take these into account but what the hell is happening to our children? What turns my stomach the most that even after this poor girl had died, they still continued their attacks on her. Posting comments about her in various internet forums. If a guy can make a joke about an airport being blown up on Twitter and face criminal charges then why aren't these little bastards being dragged to a police station. Even if nothing comes of it, a short sharp shock might do them good and make them think before they post a nasty comment on someone else's Facebook wall or send someone else a disgusting text. They should not be allowed to think that this is acceptable behaviour. What the hell happened to personal responsibility? They should bring back the fucking cane for shit like this.

I see time and time again on Twitter and Facebook, young adults bleating about hard life is and crying about trivial dramas. Most of the time I just want to scream at them "Welcome to the real world cupcake! Fun isn't it? Now a grow a fucking backbone and a thicker skin and stop fucking complaining" Its all too easy to see them as spoilt, whiny little bitches. Its difficult to remember that they live in a very different word to the one we grew up in 20+ years ago. They are constantly bombarded with images and information from a young ages. Most children now can work a computer before they learn how to make a sandwich. Ive lost track of the amount of under 5's Ive met who already have iphones.

Its easy to to sound like old Uncle Bill at a family reunion and say "back in my day..." but I find myself doing it. Back in my day we could switch off. When we went outside to play with our friends. We didn't permanently have a cell phone glued to our hands, we just played. Our brains got that down time from TV and learning at school and we used them more creatively. We used our imaginations, we had sword fights with sticks, we built forts and tree houses... Hey, I'm not saying that kids didn't kill themselves back then... I know for a fact they did but I would challenge anyone who disagrees that there isn't a link between the amount of information we now take in daily and the state of our mental health. 

Last year a study was done into how Facebook causes depression (no this is not me doing my usual FB bashing) I'm not normally one to listen to the various studies that are released what seems like every frickin week. One minute they're telling you to eat chocolate, then they're saying that chocolate causes cancer, then they're saying drink more wine, then they're telling you that you'll grow gills if you drink too much... bleh... come on! Why don't we just stop breathing? What will that do? Were all gonna die eventually anyways so I will eat as much chocolate as I like and drink as much wine as I like and then at least Ill be able to swim to America twice a year and it'll save me fucking fortune on flights!!!

But back to the study... They claimed it also caused  the “fear of missing out.” Made people feel inadequate when their friends posted pictures of vacations or had been on a shopping spree or even pictures of their children or as they put it "adorable children." So if you wanna make your friends jealous you cant do it if your kids are ugly? Makes sense I guess. Sorry but I am not one of these people who thinks all children are beautiful but I'm not bitch enough to recoil in terror when I meet you first born for the first time and he/she has a face like Sloth from The Goonies.

Maybe that's it, maybe that is all we need to instill in our children... the age old saying "If you cant say anything nice then don't say anything at all" because it seems that "stick and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me" has failed. 


Read the full story about Cora Delille here -

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ohio-teen-penned-suicide-note-reading-thanks-pain-article-1.1799847