A great story by Heidi Stevens in the Chicago Tribune today told this story:
11-year-old kid named Rebecca asked South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg for advice on dealing with bullies.
“Everybody who’s different can be bullied,” Buttigieg answered. “And the secret is, everybody’s different in some way.”
Good answer.
It gets even better.
“Turn to a bully and ask if they’re OK and they won’t know what to do with you,” he told Rebecca. “Remember that you’re bigger than they are, that you have a bigger heart, and to try to find a way to show that. And to remember that there’s a person in there too, probably a person who’s been hurt in some way, which is why they’re turning around and hurting you.”
The next part is what really got my attention.
“Sometimes you just want to give it right back,” Buttigieg said. “But you have control. You have control over whether that bully makes you into a worse version of yourself or a better version of yourself.”
Heidi then riffed on Pete’s advice and applied it to how parents react to irritable kids in the morning. Having a High Schooler who is incredibly difficult to get up in the morning, Heidi’s take really resonated with me. She explained:
I decided to shrug off the little slights that come from under slept kids or hungry kids or overwhelmed-by-the-day-ahead kids. I decided we’ll be late sometimes. I decided to accept that socks will continue to be forgotten, maybe indefinitely.
It’s my bid for a tiny bit of ownership. I can’t control what happens after we say goodbye for the day, but I can control the tenor of the morning leading up to that goodbye.
Mayor Pete’s advice helps.
As I read this, I nodded in agreement. And then I realised that I was reading an article in a major newspaper advocating that a 37 year old gay man with no kid’s advice should be applied to parenting. Times have really changed for the better.
P.S. I’m not claiming that Pete is some sort of zen master sitting on a mountaintop whose advice can solve all personal problems. To the contrary, he’s really up front about his own personal doubts and struggles. (Warren, I hear, is dispensing relationship advice if you need it.) We could probably make a drinking game out of how many different situations we could apply Pete’s advice to (certainly how to react to Trump is the one that leaps to mind). But, the fact that Pete’s run yields articles like this in major newspapers is something to see and appreciate.