Quote Originally Posted by KachineK View Post
What ever happened to teaching kids to be themselves?

Yep, I was picked on in school. First for being the smallest (by the age of ten, I finally hit about 4'6", wore a girls size 1 shoe, and weighted in at maybe 80 pounds dripping wet), then for being chunky when I grew out but not up, then for the hat I wore, and you know what? I never changed a darn thing. No, I didn't enjoy being picked on, but I didn't want to change either.

Today, I am still proud to be myself. The coat I wear is as loud as can be (covered with the Joker from the old Batman comics!), and it is even louder on me because there is still a lot of me to cover. I still wear the battered old hat my best friend gave me ten years ago. My hair has been cropped short, left shaggy, blue, red, purple, black... My personality has actually been an asset at work. Because they couldn't help but notice me, they started paying attention to my work, and within six months I was promoted to supervisor.

I like being me and I'm teaching my kids to like being themselves too, no matter what anyone says. And what is so wrong with a little boy wearing a pink polo shirt anyway? Or an Indiana Jones hat?

After all, if you can't be yourself, who else are you supposed to be?

Kachine Kolgon
LOVE IT! Absolutely love this post.

That's me in High School. I wanted to stand out and be an individual. My goal was to break the cliques and make people be like ME!

In my high school class - the lines between the nerds, the jocks, the cheerleaders, the chess players, etc were all smudged - the most popular kids in class (me being one of them) hung out with all of them. We had the tough guys - the "druggies" and such - but they had nobody to bully because everybody got each other's backs. They ended up bullying each other and when that wore off, they melded with everybody else and just became one of "us". I guess it helped that there are less than 100 kids in the entire class.