April's Fool

I have a lot of stupid shit that I pay attention to on a daily basis.
Family.
Friends.
My gastrointestinal tract.
How to make a good martini.
Music.
Literature.
The Biggest Loser.
Art and Science.
Facebook Scrabble.
Tim Horton's makes bad chai tea yet I drink it every day.
What I eat.
What you eat.
What I don't eat.
The dog.
The neighbours.
International politics.
The list goes on and on and on.
Some things I sort out and pay more attention to and some things I just don't really ever get around to giving a second thought. Still others, I just can't figure out ever.
It's not that I don't WANT to solve all of the problems of the world, figure out how to bring the soldiers home from Afghanistan or stop the spread of HIV in the US prison system or determine what to make for dinner - but I don't have all the tools, the experience or the information to do it all.
Its the same for the little issues as for the huge ones.
I don't know HOW to do stuff sometimes.
Tonight I have 2 meetings.
One at 5pm with the Principal, Vice Principal, Teacher and another parent to talk about our kids and bullying.
Then one at 6pm to finalize plans for the school's biggest fundraising event of the year - the Move-a-thon.
Yes people, Ben is still being bullied.
There is a group of kids that are consistently picking on him and have been since the second week of school. When they pick on Ben he doesn't fight back. He tends to just stand there and take it. However, his friend Tyler doesn't. When he sees the kids picking on Ben, he fights back. He has started, at the advice of his father who is a police officer, to take matters into his own hands, and THUMP the kids that are beating on Ben.
This is great on one hand because it shows that Tyler is a good friend and has good character for standing up to bullies. But now Tyler is getting in trouble.
Tyler's Dad wants us to present a united front to the school and say, if you don't protect our kids from bullies then we will allow them, whatever the school rules, to protect themselves.
The whole mess makes me sick to my stomach.
I've mentioned here before how I find it just so awful to see that my son doesn't or doesn't want to stand up for himself. The fact that he now has other kids standing up for him because he won't is too terrible.
He has the size to defend himself (which is likely why he's being picked on). He has the skill to defend himself from the almost 2 years of karate. He has the intelligence to know that this is bullying.
He does not have confidence.
He's smart and funny. I wish he saw himself as we see him. Because, if this is him at 10 - how will he be at 20?
If anyone has any idea how to fix this once and for all - please let me know because although I understand the politics and psychology of bullying and all the psycho-babble bullshit that the powers that be and pop culture magazines preach to overturn it, nothing and I mean nothing seems to work.
And then at 6pm I will meet with the 3 other parents that volunteer to help raise money to support all the programmes and shit that allow our sadly underfunded school to function.
I will volunteer my time - yet again - to run around and do crap that the parents of the other 599 kids in the school just won't do.
I will volunteer my services to supervise a dance because we can't possibly have the teachers to that.
I will make fruit kabobs and make sure no kids stab each other in the eye with the sticks.
And I will count the money we raise.
Then I will vote on how best to equally distribute the funds even though I really want fans put into the classrooms so that my kid who has asthma will be able to breathe come June. By the way, I have been trying to get the fans for 3 years now and I am constantly out voted in favour of other things that need to be paid for first. First - before my kid who can't breathe....
My points in this whole confusing mess of a pile of crap blog are this:
1. If I can't solve the world's problems, who can?
Seriously. If we had stopped someone like George Bush from being a mealy mouthed rat-bastard snot-nosed bully when he was in grade 4, could we have stopped him from invading other countries as an adult? If we sit by passively and watch while the US beats the living crap out of Iraq are we not enabling a bully? Who can stop a bully - especially one who is stronger and more powerful than you?
2. If I can't solve the my kid's problems who can?
Who gets to be the one in charge of a kid's life? Really.
When my kid is at school, who's responsibility is it to protect him? Himself? His teacher? His friends? The school board? Me? Where do the lines get drawn?
Where the flaming fuck are the parents of the bullies?
3. How involved is too involved in my kid's life?
A friend said that he HATED it when his parents came to his school - for anything. Now, is my involvement in the kid's school and on the pta and meeting with the teacher, etc. - AM I MAKING THIS SITUATION WORSE FOR HIM???? Am I causing part of this by mortifying the poor child?
4. Why don't more parents give a rats ass about their kid's education?
5. Why does ANYONE have to raise money to buy fans for the classrooms so that the kids can breathe?


I'm full of questions and I don't have any answers. I apologize for barfing up worry and crap - but like I said, I have a lot of stupid shit I pay attention to.