“When I was in kindergarten, my bibi (grandmother), would walk me to school everyday. The short distance I walked towards my classroom by myself (I was a big girl after all), was long enough for me to have my first bullying experience. I had been pushed down by two older girls and called “paki.”
Sadly, this wasn’t the only time growing up that I heard those words. The racial slurs that I didn’t quite understand as a child, were common to hear growing up in Malton, a suburb of Toronto that had a lot of Indian immigrants such as my family. While the the scars of hearing these words have faded slowly, one thing that stands out clear in my mind is how my parents, specifically my mother, reacted.
Her strength, determination and intervention paved the way for how I try to deal with bullying now that I am a parent, because the sad reality is that bullying is very common. Bullying Canada.ca says that 1 in 3 youth report being bullied recently, that doesn’t even account for all of the incidents that go unreported.
Read more on Masala Mommas where I write about the role parents play in Bullying.
