What were you made fun of for at school?

[OneUmberJoker]

My big nose

Being overweight

For being short,fat, poor, clever, having wonky teeth, and then for having braces😂

Being a swot, wearing glasses, enjoying reading, being crap at sports, being cripplingly shy, going red easily, having older parents, not knowing the 'right' bands to listen to, having old-fashioned clothes (my mum was a big fan of M&S in the 80s).... basically my entire existence was wrong.

Being fat. I wasn't obese, I had lipoedema, and I was always "soft" and had a looseness to my limbs. It was always a them problem, not a me problem, and it meant I grew up knowing that the male gaze was not worth appealing to. Being fat is a very useful filter when it comes to finding out who is a genuinely nice person. I was like a canary, I would be the first to see the nasty side of someone come out ,

I was bullied for my curly hair and given a nickname relating to it. Even the teachers called be by it. One teacher in particular was really harsh about everything I did so I left school at 16. I met her years later and she told me that I was the best student she’d had and that she was picky because she didn’t want me to get a swollen head. What I did get was a belief that I wasn’t bright enough to go for the career I wanted in medicine and I ended up dabbling in various semi-skilled jobs.

My foreign surname. My ethnicity. 😢

For being a swot
For being English in Scotland

Big feet
Fat
Too tall
Spots/ greasy hair/glasses
Crap clothes, 2 pairs of shoes
My mum being angry at me when some "friends" called so she hit me and they left.
When I had my DD I lived in fear of her being bullied. She's everything I wasn't and I'm so incredibly proud of her. Huge friend group and very academic.

My skin, I had severe acne that required years of medical treatment.

My weight. I don’t think I was ever overweight but I started puberty relatively early and was short and definitely not slim. My parents couldn’t afford to replace my school uniform so it was oversized when I started secondary school and too tight to do up when I finished so it did make me look bigger.

I was so self conscious about both these things for such a long time, probably I still am.

I don’t really blame other children. Late primary school and early secondary school is a hard time for everyone but it does settle down. I like to think school is more supportive now and less tolerant of bullying.

It's not 'making fun of', its bullying.

Being tall.
Both parents were teachers.
My surname.
Had thick curly hair when I wanted flicks like Farrah Fawcett-Majors so brushed it out 😩 got called Brillo Pad.

Fabulous 🙄

Well said. Likewise, it's not "banter" either, it's bullying. It's time the bullies of the past (and present) owned what they did and the damage they caused, rather than trying to excuse themselves and pass it off as "fun" or "banter".

Being tall, being small. being thin, being fat, having ginger hair, blonde hair, wearing glasses, smelling, having buck teeth, picking your nose, having old parents, having young parents, talking funny, passing wind, walking funny,
having an old car, dancing funny, coming last in something, coming first in something, falling over, having odd socks, wearing a bra, not wearing a bra, having boobs, not having boobs, rubbish haircut. having a mole, big nose, mustache, bald patch, snotty nose, spots, one eye higher than the other.

Everything possible was up for ridicule when we were at school.

Even the teachers would call you names sometimes.

Primary school (private) - being weird, awkward and not quite fitting in despite trying hard to. (Decades later my eldest child was diagnosed with ASD and it dawned on me that I'm probably on the spectrum too.)
Not having fashionable clothes - my mum made all our clothes and they were like mini versions of hers. She was a good dressmaker but I longed to choose my own stuff from high street shops.
Being "poor". We weren't but my parents scrimped to send us to private school unlike most of the others who lived in massive houses with swimming pools etc.
Not going on holidays - Dad didn't like them (probably also on the spectrum).
My mum being fat - children are cruel and there was no body positivity then.
Being much taller than average and having to wear a bra early.

Secondary school (state grammar)- being weird and ... [see above].
Having spots, not that I could help it. Apart from the spots my height regulated and my looks were no longer a target.
Being "posh" and "stuck up" - an ironic reversal of fortunes.
To be honest secondary school was easier as I mostly blended in to the crowd.

Being ginger and my dad dying

I was the daughter of staunch catholics who forbade me from attending Religious education and assembly.

"Here comes the nun"

In my case, being a freckly, slightly overweight redhead.

@SerafinasGoose , I'm so sorry but you definitely 'won' in the end.

On another note, I read accounts like this and I think schools/teachers have a real nerve going on about the amount of 'school refusal' taking place amongst young people at the moment.

Schools that have problems with attendance should take a hard look at themselves and what they offer their pupils and how they keep them safe and well, before criticising pupils and families who are having problems with getting to school.

My accent - perceived as "posh" although it was actually just southern (parents moved us around a lot - I'd lived in five countries and fourteen houses by the age of 12 - and finally settled in the north of England, but my accent never really changed enough to blend in, but it changed enough to mark me as vaguely northern when I eventually went back down south...).
I got accused of being "not from 'round 'ere" absolutely everywhere I lived due to never having the same accent as everyone else.
It wasn't bullying though, just intermittent occasional teasing.

My lips. I have full lips and used to get teased at school. I remember thinking even then, you are barking mad, my lips are fab! Bet they are spending money on filler now too, lol

My name!

Having a scouse accent. I’d moved areas, and people thought I must be ‘hard’ and in to fighting because I was a scouser. They tried to pick fights with me…. I’m not a fighter, I never bit.

Nothing specific. The problem was a nickname that stuck. Christ I hated school. An Essex comprehensive in the 1980s was not dissimilar to a f-ing prison. My main memory is fear, followed by shame. To this day (I'm 48) I still enjoy September because I know I don't have to go back to that hellhole.

It wasn't just my school. I don't really think it matters where you live. Teenagers are just vile to one another, and if you are unlucky, and happen to have kids in your year who dislike you, life is hell. I was never physically bullied, thankgod. It must be utterly horrific to be beaten up. I can't imagine what it's like to have kids waiting for you and then literally punching you in the face while other kids laugh and gawp.

I was and still am shy, and find it hard to make friends, and I liked reading more than I liked whatever the current trend was, so I got bullied for it. My parents didn't used to have a lot of money so whatever toy, piece of clothing, or whatever was in vogue came along, I didn't have one, and I got bullied for it.

I also admired Nicole Kidman's curly hair in Days of Thunder, and got a corkscrew perm because of it. Got bullied for that too.

Having buck teeth and glasses.

It’s strange, I feel like I was miserable and bullied at school and definitely teased for wearing glasses, a posh name and being reasonably clever.

My DD has just been diagnosed with autism and I think all my experiences of being sad and struggling with friends is probably because I am autisitic too…. and maybe a lot of it is distorted memories and my rigid sense of fairness.