In elementary school, I was an easy target for teasing. I was a girl, but I liked to play sports and I didn’t really like wear dresses; I usually had my big, beak-like nose stuck in a book, and my clothes were second-hand hand-me-downs. I remember coming home and telling my mom that someone had called me a nerd or a geek during class or someone else had told me that I couldn’t play baseball with them at recess because I was a “nerdy girl” and “nerdy girls are no good at playin’ ball.” Every time my mom would look at me and say, “Remember, Sara, sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.”
I always took these words to be words of wisdom, encouragement, and motivation. These words would rattle around my head each morning as I pulled a second-hand tee over my head to get ready for school; they would stay with me on the playground when kids would tell me they didn’t want to play or be friends with me.
As tears brimmed the edges of my eyes, I remember sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
I continued to remember these words as I moved out of elementary school and into middle school (junior high?). I repeated these words as my peers told me I still didn’t belong, as I sat in the library reading and making friends with the librarians. When I told my mom, she’d remind me, “Sticks and stones, Sara.”
Not much has changed as I’ve moved through middle school, high school, and college. I like to play ball with my daughter and climb on playground equipment with my son. I’m still not a fan of wearing dresses (though I do wear them on occasion), and I can still be found with my nose stuck in a book. But now, at 25, I am comfortable with who I am. I proudly wear clothes from thrift stores and secondhand shops, and I have started embracing the parts of myself that I’d always been teased about -- particularly my bird-beak nose, which people still comment on. But it took over a decade for me to begin to embrace and love myself, and I continue to struggle.
Every word we say has a tremendous impact on the person hearing them. Whether it’s a compliment or an insult, the truth or a lie, those words have consequences. As an adult, I’ve come to realize that that phrase -- sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me -- like many phrases we are taught as children, has lost its meaning, its encouraging nudge. It is meant to teach children that the things people say don’t matter and that what they say won’t hurt them. And though its message is meant to be encouraging and inspirational...it’s just a lie. Words can hurt. Words do hurt, and to continuously tell children that words can’t hurt them is, ultimately, doing them more harm.
I know I’m not the only person who has dealt with being bullied and harassed throughout school, and I know I’m not the only parent who feels the way I do. I firmly believe that, as a mother, it’s my job to support and guide my children through life. It’s my job to encourage them to try new things and to cheer them on when they embark on new adventures. But most importantly, it’s my job to be honest with them, to teach them that despite all the hardships and the troubles they’ll encounter throughout their lives they will be successful. To do that, I need to abandon the phrase that my mother used to encourage me.
