11
Nov
Toddlers and Bullies Have a Lot in Common
As both a Miami Dolphins fan and a not-exactly-physically-imposing writer type, I am really torn on this whole bullying scandal.
Bullying is deplorable, and, despite being raised in an era (not all that long ago, really) when the default suggestion for dealing with bullies was to fight back and expose the bully as the coward he truly is, fighting fire with fire is no longer an acceptable tactic. But judging what goes on in a football locker rooms by the same standards with which we judge “the real world” is a little insane. I’m not defending Richie Incognito’s actions, but context is important, and I don’t think we have all of it. It’s impossible for non-football players to understand what it’s like in that environment, but I am relatively certain it’s less like your cubicle farm and more like The Hunger Games.
That said, I always find it obnoxious and condescending when someone tells me I can’t possibly know what something is like because I haven’t experienced it. And then I thought about parenting. And I realized most parents take the same attitude with non-parents, and it’s equally obnoxious and condescending.
But that doesn’t make it false. And the inability of outsiders to fully understand what the day-to-day is like is just one of the ways parenting a toddler is like being on the Miami Dolphins.
