Less than a month ago, in the town of South Hadley, Massachusetts, a 15-year-old Irish girl named Phoebe Prince killed herself. Apparently, she’d been the victim of intense bullying, of both the IRL and cyber varieties, and two days before a big high-school dance, she committed suicide. Pretty miserable.
For me, it hits especially close to home because, well, it is close to home: South Hadley is right next door to Amherst, where I grew up.
Sadly, this doesn’t feel all that new—and not just because the bullying reminds me of the crap that I experienced as a weird little kid 25 years ago: the jap-slaps that knocked me to the ground in the hallways, the cruelty and negativity that I too often turned back on the two or three kids who were even more mockable than I was. (Sorry, Seth. Sorry, Leah.)
No, in my time too there were some pretty miserable outcomes. A friend OD’d on heroin, others committed suicide or were killed themselves, a teacher was busted for child porn possession. It all kinda sucked (though strangely, I have generally good memories of my childhood), but none of this, as far as I can tell, was related to bullying.
I don’t mean to minimize Phoebe Prince’s death, but I suspect there’s more to this than just garden-variety childhood bullying. I don’t understand what’s changed between the taunting of my youth and the bullying of today. Is it really that much worse? How does humiliation-via-Facebook (or whatever kids these days are using) differ from the old-school humiliation in front of the entire school? Were we stronger back then, or just more accepting of the inevitability that the bigger, richer, better-looking, more sociable kids would pick on us? Did we just suffer through it all only to develop even more fucked-up lives? And how did Uma Thurman make it out okay?
Anyway, in the immortal words of Big Fun:
I don’t mean to minimize Phoebe Prince’s death, but I suspect there’s more to this than just garden-variety childhood bullying. I don’t understand what’s changed between the taunting of my youth and the bullying of today.
I am with you. I suspect that there is more to the story. As a parent and a person this story breaks my heart. I wonder what kind of help if any she received from adults.
Did someone try to help stop the bullying or did they just let it go on and figure that it was just kids being kids.
Jack—Some of the articles I’ve read go into the difficulty schools face in policing bullying that happens in reality versus the kind that takes place online. It’s not an easy thing to do, especially when, according to stories like this one <http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1230523>, there are 30 kids to investigate. Two have been suspended, but I bet there’s more to come.
And here’s the best all-around version of the story so far:
http://www.truecrimereport.com/2010/01/phoebe_prince_15_commits_suici.php