Of course the answer is Yes. But I really want the kids in my son's year to know just how spiteful and hurtful they are, and how lonely he is. He is the sweetest boy, with dyspraxia and Ehlers Danlos syndrome, and now depression, and he has had to endure the most vile behaviour. This is what I want them to read. I'm tempted to go to every bloody bus stop and noticeboard in town and pin it up. I'd genuinely be very grateful to hear if anyone has any ideas about how to make a whole community kinder???
You can be wonderful, passionate and inspiring. I've seen you march for refugees, denounce racism, support Gay Pride and change your Facebook pictures in solidarity with victims of appalling atrocities.
But I know your Facebook pictures because my son shows them to me, and we know that man of the same people who appear to stand up for the most vulnerable are the very same who have made his life unbearable by bullying.
Sometimes I don't think you even recognise what it is that you do. Do you never stop for a minute and wonder what it must be like always to be laughed at in one of those 'Hot or Not' videos, to have your life turned into a bloody nightmare because the spiteful rumours are just too good not to spread (no need to bother with whether they're true or not), to be called 'weird' and 'retard' and 'freak.' (You're not very imaginative - it's the same bloody thing over and over again.) You probably think you're not a bully, if you don't actually go round beating people up or stealing their stuff. But most of you join in. You sit there laughing, smirking, encouraging the others. The worst among you, the very worst, are those who used to be friendly, but who have now decided that it's too much of a risk to hang out with the boy that everyone leaves out because he's 'weird', or the girl who doesn't dress right or behave in the way that you think is OK because it's 'normal.' I veer between hoping no other person ever has to know the kind of loneliness you've condemned my child to, and wishing that you could know just how bloody miserable it is. You have punished him because he's just different enough to deserve this kind of misery, and yet you would be outraged if anyone accused you of attacking the disabled. Did you know that children with special needs are vastly more likely to be bullied and marginalised in school? Did you know that in most cases it only takes two bystanders to intervene to stop a bullying attack? And almost all of you choose not to. Day after day after day you could make a real difference to someone right there in front of you in your class with the simplest, most basic act of kindness. Day after day you choose not to. So change your profile picture if you want to, but don't think that that is enough to change you into a decent person.
There's no point in asking you to imagine how you would feel if it happened to you, because most of you know damn well that it won't. But maybe you could think about how you'd feel towards somebody who treated your little brother or little sister in the same way. What would you think of those who laughed and joined in while people shouted insults at them, locked them in the loo in the bus and wouldn't let them out until they'd admitted that they were a 'retard'? And if, god forbid, anyone treats your own child like this in the future, then you will finally understand just how deeply parents like me hate people like you.