Guest Kvetch: Don't Feel Bad for the School Bus Lady

This Guest Kvetch comes courtesy of my good friend Adam. Apparently there's a bastard out there even more heartless than me! 

So apparently this old lady getting bullied on a bus is international news today. You can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l93wAqnPQwk. It's tough to stomach, but to summarize, this 68-year old bus monitor is verbally abused for ten minutes on a school bus by a group of foul-mouthed school children. They call her “fatass,” make fun of her sweating, threaten to come over to her house and shit/jizz in her mouth, etc. America’s bright future on display.

The consensus reaction is to pity this poor old lady…she has since received over $160,000 in online donations from people all over the world (in just 24 hours…I assume it will be much more in the coming days). The money is to take a vacation, apparently. And I certainly don’t doubt that she could use it. And I agree that these kids are vile little brats, who could use a good smack in the mouth.

BUT…I have little sympathy for this woman.

First, she’s being paid by some New York school district to be a “bus monitor.” I have no idea what a bus monitor’s job description is, but I assume the main goal is to keep basic order on the bus. In this respect, she fails miserably. The bus is clearly a haven for meanness and bullying. On her watch, it seems particularly just that she be a victim of her own inability to keep some 13-year olds in line.

Also, how can a person who’s been on this planet for 68 years be so lousy at dealing with people? I have no love for bullies; this episode was all too familiar to me, having spent many a bus ride/math class/recess dealing with similar abuse. I can assure you, it is no fun. Then again, I was a kid. I didn’t know any better. At 33, I do now. If I get bullied these days, well, that’s my own fucking fault. This woman should know better than to sit there like a lump and take it, and if she doesn’t, why the hell did she take a job where the one requirement was knowing how to deal with kids? And when she realized her mistake, why didn’t she quit? 99% of jobs do not require you to sit on a bus with child bullies. Go work at the post office, lady.

And let’s ask something else. What if that bullying was directed at another kid sitting in the back of the bus? Does she march back there and set these bastards straight? I’m kinda getting the feeling that the answer is ‘no.’ If you’re too cowardly to stand up to bullies, fine. But you can leave the situation; the geek who has to take that bus home every day can’t. When you accept that job, then fail at it, you cheat that young bully victim of an adult supervisor who could actually use that position to help kids.

And there’s another thing. I’m just gonna come out and say it: She IS a fatass. You wanna spend your golden years with heart disease and diabetes? Go ahead, lady. But while you’re stuffing your fat face with Big Macs, poor kids in Somalia are dying of hunger, and my healthcare premiums are skyrocketing to cover the cost of your second bypass surgery. Now, I don’t expect you to care about that, but you can be damn sure that if anybody’s gonna point out your physical flaws, it’s unsupervised children on a school bus. You might have noticed that during your reported 20 years as a school bus driver or 3 years as a bus monitor.

I suppose a lot of people will say I’m being too hard on her…she’s just a sweet old lady. Why does being old and having a vagina make you beyond reproach in our society? Passive old women like this are nothing to be lauded. Every time I read in the news about some horrible guy who molested his kids for years, I think of what kind of wife could just sit there and let that happen. I’m not saying this woman is guilty of such things. I’m just saying the people who are guilty of such things probably sit there crying and doing nothing and hoping in vain that things turn out okay, just like this lady does. The one comment that is drawing the most sympathy is when one bully tells the woman that "you have no family because they all killed themselves because you're so fat." Very mean, especially because (unbeknownst to the kid) the lady's son actually did commit suicide. No doubt that brings a tear to many a reader's eye. But to me it says: This woman's OWN kid killed himself? Take a fucking hint, lady! You're not good at this!

I don’t think we need anti-bullying laws in this country. What we need is bully defense training. Children should be taught, from a young age, how to deter physical and emotional abuse. Sometimes it requires tough talk, sometimes a punch in the nose. Mostly it just requires making a minimal effort to show people you can’t be fucked with. This lady could have solved all her problems by just taking a strong tone and saying “Okay, that’s far enough. You can’t talk to me or anyone else like that. You do it again and I’m talking to your principal and your parents, and your lucky I’m not your age or I’d smack your smartass mouth. Now act civilized or walk home. We clear?” Or hey, here’s a novel idea: she could just learn how to make friends with kids. But no; in her 20 years of driving school buses, she learned a different lesson: Just ignore them. That’s why everyone hates school bus drivers, by the way. They just ignore the fuck out of you and don’t care what kinds of horrible shit are going on in those seats. She probably thought the career change to bus monitor would be the same, except she wouldn’t have to worry about watching the road any more. How dare those children not just let her do her job in peace…the job of sitting there and ignoring them for eight bucks an hour.

We need people on school buses and in classrooms who can teach good character through example. She can’t. All I see on that video is another case of the many, many adults across the country who work as teachers or counselors and have absolutely no business supervising young minds. Working with kids is about more than just sitting around and getting summers off. I have several friends, and a few teachers through the years, who were born to teach; but they’re the minority.

Bus Monitor Lady, I’m truly sorry you never learned the life skills required to deal with bullies. But you need to recognize your own shortcomings and address them. Enjoy the $160,000 in pity money. Wanna do yourself, and all those kids, a favor? Use it to retire permanently.