Category: Relationships

Walking Away From Mean Girl Energy at Any Age

For as long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to wrap my head around the mentality of a mean girl. Having been a spectator to the many ways a person can be affected by this form of bullying, I have learned the hard way how even the smallest things can trigger repressed pain. Cruelty that can never be allayed by the words “I’m sorry.” Choices made without ever realizing how you’ve made another person feel. It breaks my heart to think about how prevalent this is in our world and how the widespread use of social media has made a bad thing worse.

Are Mean Girls Born or Are They Created? 

Throwing out the question of nature versus nurture leaves me baffled. I have always believed that children are born a blank slate, slowly becoming influenced by genetics and experiences. And yet, even in preschool settings you can find examples of girls who act naturally kind and inclusive, while others exude selfish and boorish behavior. Is it possible for a 3-year-old girl to innately possess and display such hurtful conduct, or are they mimicking behavior they learned at home? For this reason, it’s so important we teach our children empathy at a young age. 

Unsavory Experiences Have Stayed With Me

As a young girl, my family moved many times during my middle school and high school years, always putting me in the position of being the new kid. Each time I started a new school, the same scene would take place. The girls would give me the once over, assessing whether I was worthy of their friendship. Did I wear the right clothes? Was I cool enough? Which group would I best fit into? Meanwhile, all I wanted was to find someone to eat lunch with so I wouldn’t have to eat alone.

Seeing My Kids Be Victims Was Much Worse 

I thought I had it bad until I saw the 21st-century version of this behavior inflicted upon my own children. Social media brought to light everything they were missing out on: Parties they weren’t invited to, weekend trips they were left out of, and even girls they thought were their friends suddenly deciding there were much better people worth spending time with. Having to live with snubs and disappointments can leave a child with cumulative pain, especially when a hurtful scenario repeats itself over and over again.

I Realized Mean Girls Turn Into Mean Women

Now that I am in my 50s, I have come to the realization that the only path some mean girls will take is to turn into mean women. My mother is almost 80 and she is still dealing with some of this all-too-recognizable behavior. Groups of friends excluding an undesirable woman along with the timeless practice of talking behind her back. And if that weren’t bad enough, when my then-90-year-old grandmother moved into an assisted living facility, the first people she encountered were the mean women who would not allow her to sit at their table to eat her meals. So if any of us think there is an ultimate cure for mean girls, I think we might be deluding ourselves.

Surviving Mean Girl Energy 

Age can often bring wisdom, which was much appreciated when I woke up one day and decided to embrace my power in choosing who I wanted to be friends with. At that point, the bullies in my sphere were probably more of the passive aggressive variety, but it was time for their bad energy to go. No more drama. Only people who were non-judgmental and fun. Friends I could laugh with and who accepted me for who I was. And as my circle of friends changed to fit the new me, it felt great to discover that I had women in my life who could be supportive and kind. No more settling for anything but a mature and healthy female friendship because it turns out that having the right women in your life can actually be quite awesome.

The Bottom Line 

Sadly, some mean girls are here to stay. Even if you are somehow spared in childhood and adolescence, one could be lurking around the turn of any decade. It might help to remember that a lot of this behavior stems from insecurity — theirs and yours. Time is supposed to be a helpful factor, but some will never break free from the desire to make themselves feel better by hurting the people around them. That’s why it’s so important to grow from the experiences and find empowerment on the flip side of the pain. Because when you get to the finish line of owning and controlling your own life, a mean girl will never be able to hurt you again.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Posted on by Shari Brauner 0

How My Grandmother’s Legacy Lives On In Her Chicken Soup

August 13, 2005. The night of my 39th birthday. Instead of a happy celebration, that day became consumed with fear that my birthday would forever be known as the anniversary of my grandmother’s death. At 88 she had been in failing health, with many a scare that her last breath was fast approaching. On that Saturday night, I could hear the collision course in my head. My beloved grandmother was going to die on my birthday. 

Hours after a family Hibachi dinner, my parents would head to the assisted living facility that had become Mama’s happy home. The pact became “No matter what the clock says, Mama is not going to die on August 13th.”Thankfully, it never came to that. She died at 3 a.m. on August 14th, which in my world was still too close for comfort.

To have a grandmother in your life for 39 years is a blessing most people can’t relate to. As I tried to cope with my grief, the words of consolation to just feel lucky that I had her for so long fell on deaf ears. What people failed to understand was the meaning behind having her for so long. Everything I did going forward held a memory or connection to her. I would stand in the kitchen cutting up a cantaloupe and remember how the first course of every dinner at her house was a wedge of melon. An escalator ride in Macy’s launched me into a flashback of being a little girl and going shopping with her. Driving past a car moving at a snail’s pace would remind me of the time she got a ticket for driving too slow. The memories surrounded me constantly, some bringing comfort and some fueling outbursts of sadness and tears.

One month after Mama’s passing, we were facing the first Jewish holidays without her. It had been years since she was at the helm of the celebration, but she didn’t need to be in the kitchen for us to enjoy her food. As a child who lost her mother at age 7, Mama had taught herself to cook some of the most delicious food I have ever tasted. Her brisket recipe was a must during the holidays, always accompanied by her famous green Jello with pineapple. But her one true signature dish would forever be her chicken soup, homemade for every holiday in a special pot that we all decided added an unknown magical ingredient to make it taste so good.

“The miracle of that first holiday and every single one that followed was the fact that Mama could still celebrate with us. The food made any house smell like her house. She could be there even when she wasn’t.”

The miracle of that first holiday and every single one that followed was the fact that Mama could still celebrate with us. The food made any house smell like her house. She could be there even when she wasn’t. And whenever it was my turn to make the soup, my dog would bark at her pot as if to say that she was proud of me for continuing our special family tradition.

Mama’s chicken soup became much more than what some people refer to as Jewish penicillin. For our family, it was now a bonding thread. There is something about that soup that instills excitement in every generation of our family. It’s a given that before every holiday someone in the family will ask,“Are we having Mama’s soup?”One cousin makes it a competition to have as many bowls as possible when we get together for Yom Kippur to break the fast. This year, he will proudly tell you that he downed five bowls, matzoh balls included. And during the first few months of the pandemic, my son refused to leave New York City until I lured him home with Mama’s soup. During those trying days, I was especially thankful for the power of that soup.

Mama’s soup also made its way onto the pages of my son’s college application. He was asked to write about a family legacy and he didn’t have to think twice about what subject matter to use. He went into great detail about the fresh ingredients, the amazing taste, and the immeasurable value of a fresh pot of soup. I’m sure there were many reasons that he received an acceptance letter, but deep in my heart I know that Mama’s soup had something to do with it.

Mama left behind a legacy that includes kindness, generosity, and overflowing amounts of unconditional love. As time naturally fades the recollections of our special moments together, I am so grateful that we have a way to consistently bring her back to life. Mortality is inevitable for all of us, but in our family, we have one way around the unavoidable ending: chicken soup never dies. 

Photo by Henrique Félix on Unsplash

Posted on by Shari Brauner 0

Strengthening Kindness Through Mourning

Sometimes it takes the worst tragedies imaginable to shake people outside of themselves. Our world can seem so divided until something happens to flip an ingrained behavior or narrative on its head. We’ve all lived through 9/11 and the ups and downs of the coronavirus, but in my experience, one of the worst things someone can be forced to endure is the loss of a child. It’s a moment in time that can forever decimate life as you know it.

Once upon a time when my oldest son was in first grade, I had my first encounter with a family faced with this kind of horrific nightmare. Their 6-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor that was operable, but most likely terminal. I would never be able to describe the ashen faces that walked around our elementary school almost every single day after Katie’s diagnosis. But along with visible heartbreak came a level of compassion I was only beginning to understand. People from all walks of life learned to respect a family’s privacy while offering support and comfort through a journey that would last six years. It was a miraculous coming together that I wish could be mirrored in today’s polarized society.

That family’s life obviously never returned to normal, but things in our town most definitely did. Busy families resumed lives that were all-consumed with obligations and activities that often cloud the reality of how fragile life can be. And then it happened again. Another child in town was diagnosed with a horrible form of cancer, this one in my daughter’s grade. Ian’s battle was shorter but no less heartbreaking. He was a brilliant high school student with his whole life ahead of him, until it was stolen by a cruel disease. Once again, the town pulled together with the utmost respect for the privacy of a grieving family. 

I have three children and a superstition about things happening in threes, but I never expected the events that would unfold only a few years later. Six boys who my youngest son had grown up with decided to drive around together on a rainy fall night. Wet leaves are tricky for drivers with experience, but for newly licensed 17-year-olds, they are the most unpleasant kind of surprise. These were good kids who had nothing in their systems but the desire for some innocent fun. Unfortunately, the car went into a skid and ejected one of the passengers straight into a tree, killing him instantly. The other boys sustained treatable injuries, but Nick’s passing hit the town with a magnitude that I had never seen.

“It is encouraging to see compassion is still out there wherever it might be needed. Our community does not stand alone in being full of good people who can jump into action when given the opportunity.”

This time I knew the family well, but by some indescribable phenomenon, it felt like everyone in town felt just as close to them. Hundreds came to the wake whether they knew them personally or not and did not hesitate to include the other five families who would never be the same after that horrific night. The mayor organized an evening vigil on the high school football field that allowed all of the boys who were in the car to speak about losing their friend as our community embraced them in a circle of love. Visitors streamed into Nick’s home for months as it became a place for his friends and everyone else to keep his memory alive. The family never turned away any acts of kindness, leading to the start of new friendships and adding to bonds that only grew stronger. The end goal was to ease the family’s pain and loss, but deep down we all knew that this kind of broken heart is impossible to repair.

Almost five years later, we have continued to see unimaginable tragedies in our town taking children far too soon. Suicides, drug overdoses, a congenital heart defect, and even a college shooting have touched families in this town year after year. One would think we would all be numb at this point, but the response has been just the opposite. Time and time again, the outpouring of love and support is always there. It’s like the rest of the world stops so each family can receive whatever they might need to help ease their shock and pain. 

The flipside to having so many parents in town who have lost children has been the opportunity to pay the experience forward. Grieving mothers can comfort other grieving mothers in ways that others could never duplicate. With that in mind, these families came together and started their own support group now known as The Mahwah Angels. Thanks to videoconferencing, they have been able to speak once a week to help each other with their own personal form of grief counseling. It’s a special community that no one would ever want an invitation to, but the fact that these moms and dads have joined together to foster even the smallest amount of healing is truly amazing.

It is encouraging to see compassion is still out there wherever it might be needed. Our community does not stand alone in being full of good people who can jump into action when given the opportunity. Most don’t need a tragedy to lead by example, but there are some circumstances that will always pull at the universal heartstrings. In this town, we have seen too many of them, but the result has been a comfort in knowing that kindness can still prevail.

Posted on by Shari Brauner 0