The Myth of Normal 151

Angier in the New York Times, “The news bristles with reports that bullies abound. In one of the largest studies ever of child development, researchers at the [U.S.] National Institutes of Health reported that about a quarter of all middle-school children were either perpetrators or victims (or in some cases, both) of serious and chronic bullying, behavior that included threats, ridicule, name calling, punching, slapping, jeering and sneering.”[3] Similar patterns have been reported in Europe.[4] From Spain to Germany, England to the Czech Republic, public officials and school administrators have had to confront the issue. The World Health Organization estimated in 2012 that one-third of children report having been bullied by their peers.[5] These days we hear too many accounts of children or teens manifesting or, at least, feigning indifference at real-life suffering, even finding “kicks” in it. We read frequent reports about bullying or of sexual assaults being shared on social media by adolescents as if they were amusing bits of life, even though the pain caused has also led to suicides and self-harming. The 2019 overdose death of a troubled adolescent in a Vancouver suburb shocked the world. As the National Post reported, “On August 7, Carson Crimeni, a 14-year-old boy described in news reports as lonely and desperate to fit in, took drugs with a group of older teens at a skate park in Langley, B.C. As he grew increasingly incoherent, the older kids filmed him. They mocked him and laughed. They uploaded the clips online and spread them around. ‘12-year-old tweaking on Molly,’[*] one wrote over a video of a sweaty Carson. He looks tiny in the clip, in his gray hoodie and black pants. He’s ’15 caps deep,’ someone wrote over another clip, according to Global News. In later videos, his eyes pop and spin. He sweats through his sweater. He swipes at his nose.” Hours later, the boy was found near death, too far gone to be resuscitated. Even at that dire moment, reported the CBC, “another teen posted a picture of the ambulance on social media with the jocular caption, ‘Carson almost died LOL.’”[6] Very soon after, there was no “almost” about it. Carson Crimeni’s tragedy may have been an extreme case, but many children these days live under the shadow of peer rejection, mockery, or bullying—or may themselves become bullies. In such an atmosphere, a