Joseph and the Bully Boys

Fiona Veitch Smith is on our blog for Anti Bullying Week. Why do people bully and what can be done to address it?   

From a young child, hearing the story of Joseph, I was always saddened by how Joseph was bullied and how, in my opinion, his father Jacob did very little to help him. In some ways, I identified with Joseph. I too was a younger sibling with quirky and unusual talents. I was more academic and creatively gifted than my brother, whose talents lay in making friends. It created an awkward dynamic in the family when I came home from school with a glowing report but I was told not to ‘go on about it’ in case my brother who didn’t do as well would get upset.

I was a quiet child (hard to believe now, I know), was slighter and smaller than most of the children in my class, and came from a working class background despite living in a middle-class area in Northumberland. I was an easy target for bullies. However, I grew up during a time when the best advice from adults about dealing with bullies was: ‘ignore it’ or ‘nobody likes a tattletale’.

When my family moved to a conservative South African mining community when I was ten, the bullying took on another form: I was the unwanted and hated British immigrant kid who couldn’t speak the local lingo. I remember being sworn at and spat at, being chased by gangs of older boys who threw stones at me, and mocked by groups of girls. My parents struggled financially and so my clothing choices were limited and my crooked teeth unable to be fixed by private dentistry. I was so traumatised by it all that I started to wet my bed and woke up screaming most nights well into my teens.
Now, I tell you this not to make you feel sorry for me, but to show how and why I was able to identify with Joseph and why the issue of bullying is such a strong feature in both the Young David and Young Joseph books.

In Joseph and the Rainbow Robe Joseph is presented as a sensitive, gifted child. He is just one member of a rowdy family and each boy is shown as an individual with different talents and characteristics. I took the characteristics of the brothers – eg Dan as a peacemaker and Gad as a chatterbox – from the blessings that Jacob, on his death bed, bestowed on his sons in Genesis 49. By the end of his life it appeared as if Jacob had come to appreciate the value of all of his sons; something that seemed to be lacking when they were young. In the story of Joseph and the Rainbow Robe we are told that Jacob loved Joseph more than the others and didn’t try to hide it. This built resentment in the brothers which they eventually – in the second book, Joseph and the Jealous Brothers – took to murderous ends.

However, in the Rainbow Robe, I took the liberty of giving Jacob an opportunity to redeem himself, by teaching his son how all his brothers were of equal value. To be frank, there is nothing in the Bible that says Jacob did this, but I put into his mouth the words that I believe Father God would say. And, I believe, on the evidence of Genesis 49, it’s a view that Jacob himself eventually came to hold.

As adults, I feel there is a lot we can do to help create a bully-free environment. Most bullies act the way they do because of a feeling of disempowerment in their own lives. They turn on people they feel are weaker than them in order to feel powerful again. But if all adults who come into contact with children make an effort to look for the value in each child, recognising their differing gifts, abilities, strengths and weaknesses, it will go some way to reducing a child’s need to victimise someone else. This of course if just one thing we can do. For more advice on countering bullying visit Bullying UK. 

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