It Gets Better

I just watched the add for Google Chrome featuring Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project. I've seen this add many times now, but I stop and watch every time. I am so impressed by Google that their add barely even mentions Google Chrome, but instead focuses on this great website that you can visit using Chrome. If you haven't figured it out yet, this blog has become my medium for hashing through things on which I'm torn in different directions, and the It Gets Better project is one of them. When I watch the add or go on the website and watch the videos, I am encouraged by all the support expressed there for teens that are struggling with their identities, but at the same time, I am so saddened by the fact that this website needs to exist.

So many of us have felt or seen the effects of bullying. I was an intelligent, overly sensitive teenager who was not so great at sports even though I LOVED them. I've definitely felt the effects of bullying. I can completely identify with teens who feel like it will never get better and that they will be miserable all their lives. Now I am an intelligent, overly sensitive adult who is not so great at sports even though I LOVE them. Even today, I can still feel some of those pangs of nervousness and inferiority when I am in the company of more traditional "alpha males." No, there is no bullying of any sort, and my feelings of inferiority are completely self-generated, but it's hard to break habits and mindsets that were burned in through teenage trauma.

This lasting feeling is what saddens me when I watch the "It Gets Better" videos. Yes - it definitely gets better, although there will always be closed-minded people. I struggle, though, with the fatalism implied in that message. It gets better. That seems to imply that there's nothing we can do about the present. Dear bullied teenager - I'm sorry life is terrible right now, but there's nothing you can do but just wait it out - it will eventually get better. I know that is not, in any way, the message that Dan Savage wants to send, and his project is doing a lot to raise awareness and start the conversation that will hopefully lead to improved lives for teenagers who differ from their area's mainstream, but I can't help hearing that message myself. What can we do to take the message a step farther and say not only "it gets better" but also "we're going to make it better right now!"? As a parent and a teacher I hope that I am helping teenagers learn to love themselves for who they are and to stand up proudly as individuals, even if they are different from most people around them. All of my effort goes toward supporting the victims, though, just like the It Gets Better project. What can I do to change the bullies to make that support unnecessary? I think that is the next step in the process, but I don't know how to go about it. What do you think?

http://www.itgetsbetter.org/blog/entry/google-launches-ad-featuring-the-it-gets-better-project-during-tonights-epi/