When a kid is bullied in school and elsewhere, this is not only traumatic for the child but also difficult for the family to deal with. The heartrending video of the nine year old Australian child, Quaden Bayles has caught the attention of people; including many celebrities. He has a form of dwarfism which has resulted in relentless bullying and finally this video. That little boy is now going to Disneyland thanks to the many that empathised with him. This seems to be a story about bullying – but with a happy end.
In the video is Quaden, who has Achondroplasia (a kind of Dwarfism) who is crying and talking about wanting to die. The distraught child must have been repeatedly bullied and humiliated for him to feel like this; to have attempted suicide more than once.
There has been a groundswell of support for little Quaden; for what he has gone through. NBA player Enes Kanter expressed his support for the boy who appears to support Kanter’s team.
Actor Jeffery Dean Morgan also came out in support; asking Quaden to hang in there because 9 year olds can be terrible and because things do get better. The message has clearly gone out; while the original video has over 41M views, this one has 1.9M views.
The fact is that children often don’t know how cruel they are being; now scarring their behaviour can be. Kids can be educated to develop empathy and understanding of how bullying harms people.
Hugh (Wolverine) Jackman also expressed his support for Quaden and sent out the “bullying is not OK,” message. You're stronger than you know, he says to Quaden; asking everyone to just be kinder to each other.
A lot of people acknowledged the terrible potential consequences of bullying; how it can result in the destruction of one's self esteem, permanent mental trauma and actual lives lost.
His twitter bio describes him as “Father/Husband/Comedian/Part time dwarf”. As someone who also has dwarfism, he clearly has insight into the situation. He pledged to collect money to send Quaden to Disneyland.
The GoFundMe page now had $436,968 raised of the original $10,000 goal at the time of writing this. It is evident that people have shown their support by putting their money where their mouth is.
There were some people who tweeted that Quaden is actually an actor, that the video was posted just for publicity. They claimed that he is 18, not 9 as the video says. Some posted happy social media pictures of Quaden to demonstrate that he has neither unhappy nor traumatised. However, this was countered by several people who posted links to a YouTube documentary about Quaden and his condition; which also verifies that he is 9 years old.
Whether or not Quaden Bayles is a rich actor is immaterial. Whether or not there are others who are more deserving of a crowdfunded trip to Disneyland is also immaterial. What is important here, is that the subject of bullying received some much-needed attention. Watching the little kid cry; perhaps a few kids learned a little empathy. Hearing the pain of a parent; perhaps other parents learned that it’s not OK to negate the suffering of others by excusing their own kids’ behaviour. Perhaps a few more people in the world learned that it’s not OK to say kids will be kids and wave away behaviour is mean, malicious and damaging.
Do you have something interesting you would like to share? Write to us at [email protected]
