I use “gear” and not “protect”. I have to face the fact that I can’t always be around my baby to be able to protect her against bullying and any abuse from her peers. And the mere fact as well that she has to run to us to be safe from bullying wouldn’t help her in the long run and would probably be even one of the reason why she’d be bullied.

I say “gear” because we want her to be equipped emotionally, physically and intellectually against any type of bullying. Of course it goes without saying that part of that “gearing up” is for her to be not the bully herself.

Why am I jumping to the bullying topic this early? This morning, Hubs told me about a junior high school student near Kyoto who committed suicide by jumping from the 11th floor of a building because he was being bullied by his schoolmates. The news insinuated as well that he tried to ask help from his teachers but the teachers even participated in the bullying albeit this is yet to be proven as the teachers, of course, are denying the allegations.

Hearing this news reminded us of this very pressing problem regarding bullying. All the way to Church, we had our brows furrowed with worry.

But no, we don’t have any concrete idea yet how to go about gearing up our baby. But this definitely will be one of our “main projects” from now on.