"It Gets Better" Is Just Not Good Enough

Everyday these heartbreaking, morose headlines indicate that "It Gets Better" is just not good enough:

Over 5,000 human beings in their adolescent years commit suicide every year in North America. That's a teenage life being self-extinguished roughly every two hours.


It is time to admit that "It Gets Better" is not good enough. We have failed in one attempt to support our youth, we must start fresh and make another. The bullying isn't being stopped by this campaign and the suicides are continuing at a shocking pace. "It Gets Better" does not support the bullied youth the way they need to be supported. You can tell someone it gets better every single day, but a depressed, bullied teenager will only believe you for so long without seeing some actual proof of things changing for the better. Several thousand teens lost hope before things changed -- the campaign failed them completely.


Instead of telling these teens what we think they need to hear; that "it will soon get better", we should instead sit down with them, quiet ourselves, and listen to what it is they have to say.


LGBT individuals are three times more likely to commit suicide than any other teenager. This is an epidemic and it needs to end now.  


As adults, we need to take responsibility and recognize that teenagers are still just kids; and as we all know, kids need role models. "It Gets Better" takes us only so far towards reaching a solution; just far enough so that we can feel better about ourselves for having put a child's band-aid on a fatal bullet wound. Telling our youth that "It Gets Better" is like pulling out the batteries on your smoke detector and then ignoring the fact that the fire is still raging on unchecked, out of sight. We are able to ignore the root of the problem solely because we no longer hear about it.


There is no greater risk to society as a whole than the one that threatens our youth. We must put an end to homophobic attitudes and behaviour. "It Gets Better" is not good enough, we need to make it better right now. Perhaps we should consider levying consequences at the individuals who are responsible for bullying? Imagine how quickly the bullying would stop if the bullies had to be there in the moment the parents of a teen who has committed suicide were notified of their child's death. After all, these bullies mustn't be aware of the irreparable damage they are causing, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it in the first place -- empathy is an incredible tool that needs to be utilized in these particular situations. As relevant but unrealistic as that thought may be, I believe that the only way to fix this problem is by taking an active role every single day and taking an active stance to stop this abysmal, pathetic behaviour. It doesn't matter if you're gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, heterosexual, undecided -- the responsibility falls on everyone's shoulders.


Adults need to reach out, not just to the people suffering at the hands of bullies, but also to the bullies as well. There is no sadder, misguided, and confused individual than the one who is capable of torturing a fellow human to the point of causing them grief and hardship, least of all to the point of their suicide. 


The answer is tolerance, understanding, and education -- in the form of taking action everyday, not waiting for these down-trodden youth to grow up. How can we tell people that it gets better? The teenagers being affected by bullying are surrounded by hatred and a complete loss of hope; if "It Gets Better" was an appropriate answer then the headlines listed above would have ceased to pop up at such an alarming rate.


The answer to stopping an individual from being a bully is found in humanity. We need to stop focusing on the trivial things that make us different and start concentrating on the things we have in common. Human connectivity is the answer to learning to see each other as human beings, not as subhuman objects deserving of hatred and condemnation. Only once we learn to see each other as equals will we quell the teenage suicide epidemic that is currently plaguing us.


"What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- that is the law of nature." - Voltaire


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