My sisters and I all experienced our fair share of bullying and ostracism while growing up. We were the objects of it both at school and at home. We all subsequently adopted bullying behaviors at various times as a result too (case in point, the superhero story).
In Lisa’s collection of stories, I think it was mentioned that Virginia, having excelled in school, skipped two grades and found herself in high school at the age of twelve. She was also on her own for years suffering our father’s disapproval and neglect, before the rest of us came along to provide a buffer. This, and I’m sure more stuff that I’m not aware of, would have been terribly hard to live with. I don’t underestimate Virginia’s pain, nor should anyone.
For Lisa and me, elementary school was hell. As Howards, that English last name in a French private school made for an easy target that the faculty would frequently use to humiliate us. Students followed suit, adding a degree of cruelty only children can, and Lycee Claudel quickly became a hostile social climate for us both.
Your mother recounts having suffered regular physical and verbal abuse. Quite true, and in fact, we both did.
Lisa and I had a couple of other issues that only made things worse. For Lisa, her small stature and her rotten teeth made her an easy target. Her struggle was very real.
In my case, in addition to an unfortunate name, I had a lazy right eye that drifted up. I also sported a huge gap between my front teeth that I could fit my thumb into. Like your mother, in my own grade, I was the dork, the weird one, the outcast, the loser.
But if that weren’t enough, the thing that really set me apart as a pariah was a kidney condition. Ever since I was an infant, I suffered countless infections and, by the time I started first grade, the scarring made it impossible for me to keep my urethra fully sealed at all times. This meant I was always leaking, so to speak. I had no control over it. As the day wore on, a wet stain would develop on my crotch, and it made me smell like piss. By the time the bell rang for us to go home, the wetness would have reached a good way up my underwear.
I remember being bullied daily for this. Name-calling, spitting, kids running away from me in disgust. And the teachers were no better than the students. The following little anecdote might give you an idea of how things went for me back then.
One day, after recess, we all came in from the snow, took our winter gear off and returned to class as usual. This particular day, though, the teacher, Monsieur Mingeot, started the class by summoning me up to the front. He then proceeded to accuse me, in front of everyone, of peeing on a classmate’s stuff. It appeared that my classmate, Thierry, had told him that when he’d come in from recess, he found a little puddle on the top of his cubby. He insisted that it smelled like piss.
The puddle was likely melted snow from a pair of mittens and not the product of some absurd juvenile conspiracy to soil a classmate’s cubby, Monsieur Mingeot nevertheless took the opportunity to make an example of me just the same. The teachers at Lycee Claudel had a seriously sadistic streak, as I remember it. I think that for them, any excuse to punish and humiliate would do.
We wore uniforms at the time, and he ordered me to strip down to my underwear (we wore undershirts in those days). I was allowed to keep my socks on, as it was the middle of January. He had me stand there like that, facing the classroom, until the bell.
In my class, I was made the example by teachers more often than most, but always for things like getting the wrong answers, or not paying attention (I did that a lot!), or not completing my homework. Lisa refers to these episodes of faculty volatility in her book too, although, being a much better student, I’m guessing she might not have been as often subject to it than I was.
For me, those scoldings happened so often, they’ve all just merged into one big blur of “Suzanne est une imbecile,” a message repeated often both at school and at home.
That day, however, really stood out because I was made to stand there in my underwear in front of my peers for the entire period. The memory of it is permanently seared into my brain. That degree of humiliation is hard to forget.
Years later, as an adult, I found out that I have ADHD. I always just thought I was stupid. My father, my sisters, my teachers, my classmates, all told me I was. But it turns out, school just bored the shit out of me. Too bad I didn’t know then what I know now, but hey, better late than never, right!