"Boys don't like girls who argue with them." Hah. I would say that this is the advantage of dating men instead of boys, but my own personal counterexamples started when I was...um...3 years old, I think. So I just knew that was stupid. (Also, Dad clearly liked Mom, and Grandpa clearly liked Grandma, and Uncle Rudy clearly liked Aunt Doris, and Uncle Phil liked Aunt Ellen and...so teachers who said that were just wrong.)
But also, "He's only mean to you because he likes you." No, that particular "he" was only mean to me because he was a vicious little sadist who was permitted to be mean to anyone he pleased. The boys who "liked" me at that age gave me squashed dandelions and invited me to have rollerskating races with them.
"You're going to have to take an interest in football if you want to have friends." I left Nebraska. Problem solved. (But even before I left Nebraska, I had plenty of friends, some of whom liked football and some of whom did not but none of whom required it of me.)
"She's not going to learn to stick up for herself if you always fight her battles for her." No, the immigrant kid is not going to learn to stick up for herself if you teach her that the other (white!) girls are allowed to gang up against her but no one is allowed to gang up for her. What she'll learn is to hide and to placate bullies and to be ashamed of her ethnicity. Hell with that.
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Date: 2007-03-27 06:54 pm (UTC)But also, "He's only mean to you because he likes you." No, that particular "he" was only mean to me because he was a vicious little sadist who was permitted to be mean to anyone he pleased. The boys who "liked" me at that age gave me squashed dandelions and invited me to have rollerskating races with them.
"You're going to have to take an interest in football if you want to have friends." I left Nebraska. Problem solved. (But even before I left Nebraska, I had plenty of friends, some of whom liked football and some of whom did not but none of whom required it of me.)
"She's not going to learn to stick up for herself if you always fight her battles for her." No, the immigrant kid is not going to learn to stick up for herself if you teach her that the other (white!) girls are allowed to gang up against her but no one is allowed to gang up for her. What she'll learn is to hide and to placate bullies and to be ashamed of her ethnicity. Hell with that.