I grew up with strict parents and was taught to respect authority without question. I was the type of child who did everything "by the book" 99% of the time. Sometime this worked but a lot of time it didn't.
The first major problem I encountered in life was being bullied at school ranging from name calling to social exclusion to actual physical violence. Typically I asked parents and teachers for advice and got answers like.
*Just ignore them.*Just keep away from them.*Don't ever retaliate. *Just stick up for yourself.*Nobody will hurt you on the school bus as there are too many witnesses.
I was often given advice by parents growing up that was probably good back in the 1950s but made absolutely no sense a generation later. They operated under the assumption that the teachers at the school were as strict as they were back in "their day" which they certainly weren't.
None of the "advice" I was given actually worked. How do you "just ignore" someone in a tight knit village school. How do you "just stick up for yourself" without actually fighting back.
For every incident where a bully ended up in detention there were 20 that he got away with. When I eventually hit back I would often end up in more trouble than the bully ever got into. Even after months and years of reporting the exact same problems I'd keep getting the exact same responses. It was like trying to have a conversation with an automated voice recording instead of a human being.
I'd even say to the teachers point blank "You have been saying that for years, it doesn't work". I just watch them stutter and mumble something about the bullies "will be in big trouble one day". It was like dividing a number by 0 on a calculator and getting an error message. Since then I have seen countless futile actions like wearing anti bullying wristbands or writing anti bulling poetry.
I was never encouraged to do anything that would have actually worked like joining martial arts classes or taking part in afterschool sports groups. Things that would have vastly improved my self confidence and expanded my social circle.
My parents only cared about academic performance, getting bullied was only a minor issue to them. Likewise every (all female) primary school teacher said that it didn't matter if I wasn't good at sport.
Eventually I got so sick of this that I rebelled which did actually work but at the expense of my academic performance.
