“I never, ever said explicitly mean things to anyone’s face. I only said it because I felt sorry for you! You know the kind – those Gretchen Weiner-type girls who feigned shock when one of their friends said something hurtful, but then giggled about it anyway.”
‘If you’d asked me back then if I was a bully, I would’ve given you an emphatic, ‘No Way! As if?’: Woman realizes she was a ‘background bully’ who ‘stirred the pot’
‘Kids can be so mean. Schools are breeding grounds for cliques. Teach them to be inclusive. Teach them not to judge, not to bully.’: Mom urges other parents to ‘teach your children to be nice’
“Our kids’ teachers have the math, reading, science, arts, and writing covered. And, Lord knows they make up for the parenting mistakes we are making at home. But, my goodness, what a ginormous favor we can do those educators, and the world, if we teach our children to be nice.”
‘I see you,’ he’d text me. We rode the same bus. The stop was in front of my house, so he knew where I lived.’: Woman recalls 3 stalking encounters that still leave her in fear, ‘I constantly look for the closest object I could use to hit them if they were to attack me’
“Growing up, I always heard, ‘it’s the quiet ones you have to look out for,’ when it comes to people stalking you or committing gruesome crimes. While I’m sure this isn’t always the case, it was the case for me. My mom always told me to be nice to everyone, even if other people are being mean, so that’s what I did. I felt bad no one ever talked to him, so I made an effort to be nice to him.”
‘Wives and mothers are constantly judged. Someone is always lurking in the background to remind you what you’ve done wrong. You don’t have to be one of them.’
“We should have each other’s back. We are the only ones who really know what you’re going through as a woman, a wife, a mother, a widow, a working mom, a stay-at-home mom.”
‘To the woman in the Target parking lot, five years later’
“Did I wave my thanks as you drove off? Or did you wait in your car to watch as we disappeared inside?”
