Reasons

I have gotten to the bottom of why Michael left the house to go to the base Friday night. He has been bullied all year by various kids. We have tried hard to get him involved in activities and help him make friends, but he has struggled to fit in. At school, he has been teased and made fun of for various things. One, he struggles in reading and writing, so the kids tell him he is a baby. Nice, huh? On Fridays, they have "Fun Friday" where they get to bring toys to play with from home. He has been told he has "baby toys" on two separate occasions. Once, he took his beloved teddy bear and once after Christmas he took his new remote control truck. (It was a cheap one, the ones that have a wire that connects the controller to the truck. It wasn't a "Baby" one, but because it wasn't a nice, expensive one, he got teased.) On another Friday, he set his new Star Wars lego toy on the table just long enough to get his backpack to go home. When he returned, it was gone, never to be returned to him. I would bet I know exactly who has the new Star Wars lego ship. We had him join Cub Scouts (which, for the most part, has been positive) but he was teased there as well. He was teased when he couldn't run as fast as the others (all Bears, a year older than him) and told that he throws like a girl. Too bad they didn't come to the pool where he could rub their noses in the fact that he could swim circles around all of them. Then, was teased because his pinewood derby car was slow. (Which, by the way was my fault, not his, because I didn't know I was supposed to put graphite on the wheels.) But, kids don't care that it was the parent's wrong doing. At swimming, he was teased and called "bikini boy" because he was the only one who had a traditional speedo. In Longview, that was what all the kids (except the overweight ones) wore. Here, they don't even have regular speedos, only "jammers." Chalk it up to another one of those cultural differences. All of this combined to make Michael feel compelled to listen to this boy and walk to the base to prove himself brave and worthy of being a friend. I never understood the tight grip that the bullies had on Michael, nor would I ever have predicted that a bully could nearly crush our family. Beware of bullies! Michael, I love you! You are wonderful just the way you are. I know it's hard (believe me, I know), but someone like that is not a friend and never will be (no matter what you do or don't do.)