By Donna Shea & Nadine Briggs
There is a young girl I know who is close to my heart. She is one of the kindest young people you might ever meet. She, like me, struggles with the “why” of purposeful meanness on the part of other people. She finds herself caught up in the roar of the relational meanness that girls are so capable of and finds herself limiting her friend pool to those she feels she can trust to be real. She hates the drama, but like so many other kids her age, finds it nearly impossible to escape. Fortunately, she has a village of caring adults she can turn to, where other kids might not. I told her that both of us may never make sense of it because there is no sense TO it.
I love talking to her about life. She is so open and so accepting of everyone and everything and all heart. She turned me on to watching the Netflix series “Anne with an E” as she deeply connects with the character of Anne and how she perceives the world and all of the colorful, unique and amazing people in it. Like both this girl and me, Anne is hard on herself sometimes, but a soft place to land for her friends and the people she loves. Even though the series is a period piece, it tackles many of the issues that we humans struggle with today. She asks me, as I ask myself, “Why are people so mean? Why can’t we all just live and let live?”
I wish I had that answer for her. Don’t we all, at our core as humans want the same things for ourselves and our children? If you sat us all down as individuals, I think we would find ourselves in complete agreement. Why is it, that as groups, large or small, we turn to meanness?
I know that there is also no immediate answer to her question. But I talk to her, and I talk to other young people, and I have hope. I have hope that acceptance and kindness can become the norm. I have hope in humans that we can still evolve and learn to work together. To quote Anne, “Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it yet.”
