Prompt<\/p>\n
Mean Girls (and Boys)<\/p>\n
I\u2019m walking down the stone stairs in my grammar school,
gripping the wooden banister. The bathrooms are located in the basement and we\u2019re\u00a0all walking in a row. This is my first day of kindergarten. I\u2019m scared. I haven\u2019t\u00a0been around a lot of kids I don\u2019t know. I look over my shoulder at the girl\u00a0behind me, get up my courage and smile. She sticks her tongue out at me.<\/p>\n
This was my first experience of someone being mean, just\u00a0because. This was before we were hyper aware of bullying and the devastation it\u00a0causes. I\u2019m sure that girl was as scared as I was and making a nasty face had\u00a0no physical component, but it hurt my feelings. I had tried to connect and I\u00a0got snubbed. I didn’t understand and it made me feel unsafe.<\/p>\n
Lois was the smartest girl in our fourth grade class. One\u00a0day, we had a pop quiz and as usual, Lois aced it. The teacher made a big deal
out of her and at recess, a group of girls approached me. \u201cWe\u2019re starting an \u2018I\u00a0hate Lois\u2019 club,\u201d they said. \u201cDo you want to join?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay,\u201d I said hesitantly. I liked Lois. She was friendly\u00a0and we giggled during recess while we ate graham crackers and milk. But I didn\u2019t\u00a0want to be left out. Now I was the mean girl and I\u2019ll never forget the look on\u00a0Lois\u2019s face when she heard about the club. She looked me in the eye with\u00a0sadness and disappointment. I betrayed her. It was an \u201cEt tu, Andrea\u201d kind of\u00a0moment. \u00a0<\/p>\n
I felt guilty and when I got home and told my mother about\u00a0it, she wasn\u2019t pleased. \u201cThat\u2019s not a nice thing to do,\u201d she said. \u201cI thought
you liked Lois. You should stop the other girls from hurting her.\u201d When I got back\u00a0to school the next day and told the girls we were being mean, we dissolved the\u00a0club. I couldn\u2019t believe I\u2019d agreed to be a part of it. I\u2019d made a decision that\u00a0affected me so negatively, it\u2019s one of the few memories I have about the fourth\u00a0grade.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to do something you don\u2019t want to do so you\u2019ll be\u00a0accepted and included. But it\u2019s also easy to stop, take a breath and be kind,
even when you don’t agree with someone. I remember a time, not so long ago,\u00a0when we could have a healthy and stimulating debate with a member of a\u00a0different political party. Those days are mostly gone. Today, our discussions quickly\u00a0become militant, filled with animosity and aggression and accepting someone\u00a0with a different point of view has become next to impossible.<\/p>\n
I was once invited to a book club meeting where the members were
discussing my memoir. I was glad to have been asked, but it turned out to be a\u00a0disappointment. Not because they didn’t like my book. They did, but when\u00a0someone disagreed with the organizer\u2019s opinion about anything, she bellowed,\u201cNo!\u201d and went on to prove why they were wrong and she was right. She was being\u00a0a bully and a mean girl and the meeting wasn\u2019t a discussion. It was an angry\u00a0monologue by someone who was being a tyrant.<\/p>\n
This kind of domination is more prevalent than you might\u00a0imagine so maybe we could start changing that behavior. We could listen to each\u00a0other without trying to be right. We could stop talking and hear someone else\u2019s\u00a0point of view without interrupting or deciding what to say next before they\u2019re finished. We could see the humanity and like- mindedness in each other instead\u00a0of demonizing other people and focusing on our differences. You can be sure if\u00a0you’re feeling unsafe and confused, other people are feeling the same way,
whether they admit it or not.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a mean girl or boy inside each of us, a part of us\u00a0that gets jealous when someone else wins. A part of that wants to shoot someone\u00a0else down. A part of us that feels bad when we think someone is prettier,\u00a0stronger or more talented than we are. We all feel these things but we don\u2019t\u00a0have to act out. We can stop judging ourselves for what we don’t have and other\u00a0people for what they do have. It\u2019s all an illusion anyway. No one is the\u00a0perfect person they post on social media. No one is flawless and gorgeous without
spending hours with a glam squad. No one is a perfect parent or teacher.\u00a0Everyone is just like you and me. Strong in some areas, weak in others. Pretty\u00a0one day and not so pretty the next. Happy one moment and sad the next. Slim and\u00a0toned one day, bloated the next.<\/p>\n
If we get curious about someone else instead of jealous, if\u00a0we stop making up stories about other people and how much better they are, if\u00a0we stop picking at our imperfections and develop a sense of humor about ourselves,\u00a0we can embrace our mean girl or boy who is simply looking for love.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prompt Mean Girls (and Boys) I\u2019m walking down the stone stairs in my grammar school,gripping the wooden banister. The bathrooms are located in the basement and we\u2019re\u00a0all walking in a row. This is my first day of kindergarten. I\u2019m scared. I haven\u2019t\u00a0been around a lot of kids I don\u2019t know. I look over my shoulder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}