The One Time My Mom Helped Me Deal With A Bully
By: Danika Bloom
Tags: Kids, This Happened To Me, Advice, Family, Parenting

I was in Grade Five. Joanne was new to the school and to Canada. She was from England.

I assume she made friends quickly since it wasn’t long before she was throwing a taunt at me that I was used to hearing:

Rich Bitch.

How perceptions created my reality

It wasn’t a fair label but to outsiders, our family certainly looked wealthy. We lived in one of the biggest and oldest houses in town. Three stories, brick, Victorian, built at the end of the 1800s.

What kids saw was that we had a big yard

It was so big my dad mowed it with a ride-on lawnmower. Our back yard was filled with a huge vegetable garden that my mom and one neighbor planted, weeded, and picked. And there was the tennis court.

What people didn’t seem to consider was that the house had been in my dad’s family for three generations and that it had needed so much work to bring the kitchen and bathrooms into the 70s, which is when we moved in, that ten years later, with the giant mortgage they had to take to make this old house a home, dad had to declare bankruptcy when his floating mortgage suddenly jumped to 18%.

What kids saw was that I wore interesting clothes to school

Clothes that weren’t bought at the local department store. Clothes that probably looked like Montreal haute couture to the country folk I grew up with.

What people didn’t seem to notice was that Mom and I were usually first in line at most of the church rummage sales that took place in the dozen churches in and around our town. My mom was an incredible seamstress who could take old clothes, bought for a-dollar-a-bag, and turn them into the unique items I wore.

What everyone knew was I had the same last name as the second largest company in town

The JJ Bloom Company had been started by my dad’s grandfather and passed down to his two sons. When those two men died, my dad and his cousin each inherited titles in the company. The cousin, who was ten years older, became the President, Dad VP of Sales. Dad didn’t last long in his position since he and his cousin didn’t get along. At all.

What people didn’t know was that our branch of the family didn’t reap any of the benefits of being Bloom, no shares, no salary, no nothing.

It was for these reasons, Mom figured, that I was labeled a Rich Bitch.

Back to Bully Joanne and my mom’s terrible advice.

It was winter in Quebec which meant when we kids went out for recess we all wore mittens. Mom gave me a horseshoe-shaped magnet, one of those red and black ones that everyone had in a kitchen drawer in the 70s. And what she said was,

“Put this inside your mitten and when Joanne bullies you, give her a good punch.”

That’s all she said. She didn’t explain whether the magnet should go into my palm or over my knuckles and since I was not skilled in the art of tossing punches, I made the wrong choice.

I put my hand inside the magnet, across my knuckles and when Joanne called me a Rich Bitch the next day I hauled back and planted a punch onto her snowsuit.

I don't think she even felt it. I, however, went to see the school nurse, convinced I’d broken my hand.

That was the last time I asked Mom for advice.

And to be 100% clear — I know that that was terrible advice now!