By Gary Lim

Dear Mystic Gary,

Over the last month, I’ve noticed some oddities in regard to my six-year-old. He’s been staying after school much later, and when he does finally come home, he’s missing his backpack or his clothes are covered in dirt. I only recently got him to confide in me, and it was just as I feared: bully problems. I’ve already told him to speak with a teacher, but he adamantly refuses to be what he calls the class snitch.

Should I be concerned about this, or is it just boys being boys? Is this something he’ll grow out of eventually?

Sincerely,

Mother in Mission

Dear Mother,

Consolations for your plight, and I assure you most definitely that your worries are not in vain.  It is the nature of a mother to worry of her children, for children are most precious of resources, even more so than coal — mostly because only they can fit in the narrow shafts of our coal mines.  So your desire to protect your child from harm is most noble.

Now as for your plan, ignorance is the strategy of cowards. Your child cannot simply stand and bear these brutish attacks. Years of meditation atop the Wu-Shang Mountains granted me the insight that sitting and doing nothing will not solve your problems.  Particularly if your problem is how to get down from the Wu-Shang Mountains.

Your child’s bully problem reminds me of a similar situation I experienced several years ago, when a killer struck down my old master in the dead of night. I travelled for many days and sought out to avenge my master’s death, but it refused my challenge. Indeed, adult onset diabetes is a malady with no honor.

My recommendation is you enroll your child into a self-defense class, or at the very least leave him alone with apartment building’s Asian maintenance man for large amounts of time.

May your child wear the teeth of his aggressor on a necklace,

Mystic Gary