What exactly is wrong about this story from my childhood?
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For me it really boils down to, violence solves nothing. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Hitting someone in the face or throwing a blunt object at someone’s back isn’t heroic.
Good idea, don’t do chivalry. Just be a nice person with good manners who sees girls and boys and other genders as people and would help anyone out if they needed it and you could help.
I guess the message I got growing up was don’t pick on people. Especially not someone smaller than you. My parents weren’t pushing the idea that omg you never hit a girl but you can hit a guy. Fighting or hitting was bad regardless. If I hit my brother or he hit me it was equally bad.
“Maybe I should lay off the chivalry”.
Yes lay off it forever. I’m all for chivalry dying – women don’t deserve or want special treatment for being women.
Rather – be considerate, kind, and respectful to everyone. Stand up for the vulnerable, whomever they may be.
This event may be true – it was a little girl who needed help, you help, but when we tell stories, even true, we get to frame how tell our, what we highlight, what we edit for time.
If you drop all the shit about being a white Knight, about how you were taught to treat little girls like princess, you will likely get a better reaction.
You saw somebody who needed help, who was being picked on and how that wasn’t fair, and you were the one to step up to the plate.
And also, you’re not 8 anymore.
Its not acceptable to solve violence with violence. It wasn’t really then either, but…
Use your words now, pull in authorities if necessary.
Another nuance of this is that women don’t want to feel like the smaller and prettier they are, the more that men will want to be nice to them and help them out.
Just to be sure we’re on the same page, I’ll say it again. Her being a girl was not the reason I stepped in. It was because I finally saw how much of a jackass this kid was. I honestly think I would’ve still gotten pissed if I saw him picking on anyone else. Of course her being a girl did make me a little more mad, but I can assure you it was not my main reason for getting so pissed off an doing what I did.
Look dude – you’re not hearing *us*.
I will accept that you saw someone being bullied, you did something about it, the person was happy you stuck up for them.
But when we tell stories, even true stories, we decide on a particular narrative our stories will tell. We tell what particular values about ourselves, now, that reflect in our stories about ourselves in the past.
You chose in your initial telling to highlight that you decided to help her because she was a girl and you were taught to teach girls like princess. That’s how you chose to tell this story. These particular values about how you see women, now, that you use this story to highlight, are what are rubbing people the wrong way.
You can tell this story another way, that is just as truthful, that doesn’t have the white knight/girls are precious themes.
For gods sake you admitted you added edited the conversation about you being the white knight as being said in earnest to make yourself look “more cool”.
This is more about how you see women, and how you want yourself to be seen now, in current day, that is problematic. It’s less about disputing what happened then, more about what your key takeaways are today.
Hunter may not be making that distinction; he may have felt at eight that seeing a girl in trouble meant taking action because his family reinforced that message. It isn’t retroactively bad if he had those feelings and they played into his honest account. The bullied school mate may have bought into and encouraged Hunter to view himself as a boy doing his duty to protect a girl or reinforced that Hunter should feel proud about having a special desire to help out females, but you don’t need to share that part of the story. Those details are unnecessary to the theme of bullying.
Maybe there is some more takeaways that can be fleshed out in Hunter’s personal internal narrative. It’s part of growing up. One’s personal belief system about gender may be a lot different than how they thought about things when they were a kid (and he is still a kid).
What I would takeaway from the thread is to stop including the message about how you felt like a white knight because it isn’t as simplistic and innocuous to the audience as the memories feel to you. It’s more complicated now than when you were a young child. I know it can be confusing, but the story it isn’t coming across the way you would like for it to come across any longer, at least not here. And a lot of people tend to take a critical eye to to what might be or come across as a story being told to make the author feel good about themselves (unless it is a person they already kind of know and care about or someone they would welcome knowing more about, spoiler- that will not be the majority of people on the planet).
Yes – when you were 8 you may have been genuinely been motivated to help this little girl because you were taught it was wrong to pick on girls and you are supposed to treat them like princess. I’m not going to fault an eight year old for believing and acting on what he was taught.
BUT you’re not 8 anymore. You shouldn’t be so reductive anymore, you shouldn’t believe women are princess that need to be protected. You need to evolve beyond those attitudes *now*, and in retelling this story as you have been, you are reinforcing that you still feel this way.
You need to evolve beyond these attitudes. Stop highlighting, much less heightening, these aspects of the story, even if they were true at the time.
Damn. The reactions in this thread are flat out bizarre. God, knows we ALL wish somebody would clobber Trump with a baseball to the ass and then face, if not more…
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But my! Aren’t we the sanctimonious holier than thou group today.I just read all this thread. Yeah, I’m that bored. Most of the comments suck. DW’s forum is filled with joy, grace and serenity. Or maybe not. Are you people being that judgemental on real life? I probably wouldnt pick so harsh on a child (yes, 16 is still a child).
Look, I dont know if your story is real or whatever, but I can say that is nothing of relevance today. I mean, it happened 8 years ago and it wasnt the big deal. I dont know why have you felt the need to embelish the story, though. Wendy’s comment is on point, pay attention to it.
