Our stereotypical image of a bully is an outsider, a stranger, a mean kid at school. But that wasn’t Jonathan Curelop’s experience.
With the recent publication of a novel of mine, called TANKER 10, I have been fielding a lot of questions about bullying and brotherhood, because that, in part, is what my story is about. Were you bullied as a kid? What have been the long-term effects? Are you and your brother close now?
You see, most of the bullying I suffered as a kid came at the hands of my older brother. On my tenth birthday I received a tee shirt with the number 10 on it. One day I made the mistake of wearing it in front of my brother and…well…my nickname, Tanker 10, was born. And it’s not like my experience was easier because the abuse came from my brother. You hear people say things like, “Well, you overcame it, no biggie” or “Come on, it was just your brother.” But in many ways that made it worse. Remember, he was my older brother. He was supposed to protect me, not hurt me. Didn’t he know the meaning of the word brotherhood? Didn’t he understand that every insult was another betrayal?
Although Tanker 10 proved the most durable nickname (it lasted well beyond my tenth year), it wasn’t the only one. For instance, my name is Jonathan. The last syllable is than, but is sounds like thin. So instead of being called Jonathin, I was often called Jonafat. Also, my Hebrew name is Yonatan. The final syllable of Yonatan (tan) sounds like tun. Yonatun. So in Hebrew school (and outside of Hebrew school once it caught on), I was called Yonaweighsatun (Yona weighs a ton). My brother did not invent these names, but once they reached him he put them to good use.
When writing the story, I felt once again the anxiety I felt as a child. Afraid of being seen on the street – not only by my brother, but his friends, as well. Sometimes I got it from kids I didn’t even know. Make no mistake, the bullying in the novel (and its repercussions) is far worse than what I experienced in real life. In fact, at some point along the way, my brother became a thoughtful, sensitive man and today we’re very close. My goal in writing the story was to explore what happened in my childhood and use it as a way to layer the characters with as many conflicts, challenges and obstacles as possible. Not just the character who gets bullied, but the bully as well. When it comes to bullying, even the victimizer is the victim. That was another goal: to sympathetically and humanely see through the eyes of the bully.
We often see tragic results in the wake of bullying – accidental death, suicide, emotional trauma. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case with my brother and me. As I mentioned, our relationship ultimately moved in the other direction. Not only that, it was during the bullying that I started transforming into the adult I would become. Sure, getting bullied colored the way I saw myself as a kid; it forced me to be an outsider. To see myself in a negative way. To aspire to be popular, or at least to be someone who wasn’t harassed on a regular basis. And I didn’t like surviving day to day on tenterhooks, petrified that the next kid I saw might tear into me with his best shots.
I must, however, acknowledge that fear of being bullied heightened my survival skills and honed the way I coped. Essentially, I kept my head down. I found myself reading books. And not because I had to! I wanted to. I escaped into them. I visited the school library and the nearest branch. I became a regular at the card catalogue and ordered books that the branch didn’t have. Stories thrilled me. Not just books. I started bugging my parents about movies. I even developed an interest in the theater. I searched the newspaper for productions that were being mounted at various high schools and junior colleges in and around our town.
Is it possible that my brother’s bullying played a positive role in our overall relationship or my overall development? Like any long-term relationship, don’t we have to overcome issues in order for the ties to become stronger? Can bullying be a good thing?
My God, what a vile notion! Bullying is cruel and inhumane…period. Every child who is not bullied needs to stand up for every child who is bullied. Talking about bullying and actually starting a conversation about it are very different things. Every grade in every school must establish an open dialogue about bullying. The aggressors talking to the victims; the victims talking to the aggressors, until everyone not only sees, but understands the ramifications of bullying and explores how it can be eradicated. No kid wants to walk down back alleys or through distant woods to get to and from school. No kid should have to pretend to be sick so he can duck into the nurse’s office for 15 minutes of calm.
So no, bullying is not a good thing. Did bullying make my relationship with my brother what it is today? No. Had I never been bullied, would my life (and my relationship with my brother) have been different? I’ll never know the answer to that, which is sad.
Photo—Phillip Hammond/Flickr
my older brother was the only person who bullied me also. I didn’t have to fear any kids in school or made to feel small by strangers. My older brother was the ONLY person who treated me this way… and I’m assuming a lot of older brothers do this.. I would NOT have a boy as the oldest child. (if I have kids they’ll be adopted so I can actually make sure this happens) When my girl friends were older than their brother, they would ignore them or be indifferent to them. When my girl friends were the younger ones,… Read more »