Gage Berger, just six year old first grade boy looked a little different from the other boys and girls. It was simply because his ears were longer than average.
Gage had been looking forward to learning but feared going to school. When he goes to study, the other boys and girls in his class only noticed one thing about him and that was his longer ears.
Naturally, this bullying did terrible things to his mental health. His parents, Tim and Kallie, saw him go from being a happy and confident child to a sad and shy one. Eventually, Gage began obsessing about his appearance.
Gage just wanted the bullying to stop. The innocent buy would spend lots of time pushing back his ears in the hopes that he could look like the other kids.
In the end, his parents had no option but to turn to plastic surgery. As they too, like their son, wanted the bullying to come to an end. If the parents didn’t pay for surgery, the bullying would forever damage Gage’s self-confidence.
Eventually, Plastic surgeon, Stephen Mobley agreed to meet Gage and his parents. Naturally, Gage was scared of the operation so he brought along his favourite cuddly toy, a tiger. Mobley operated on Gage for a total of two hours. Gage was anesthetized, so he didn’t feel a thing.
For two days, Gage had to keep his ears bandaged up. Then the doctor was able to remove the bandages and Gage saw his new ears for the first time. Naturally, Gage was super happy with the results to the extent that he couldn’t stop smiling.
Now Gage goes to school with a similar smile on his face. He is no longer bullied over his appearance.
Little Gage’s story then appeared on YouTube, where it soon went viral. To date, it has gained over 6.9 million views. It also has more than 49,000 likes and 10,000 comments.
This story says a lot about the world we live in. It is good that Gage was happy in the end but it’s so sad that the kids’ parents and the school endorsed the kids to bully Gage so badly in the first place. We should teach our children to take others and not to make fun of superficial dissimilarities.
Miserably, it doesn’t look like bullying is going to go away any time almost immediately. In 2019, the National Center for Educational Statistics reported that one in five children is bullied. This should be measured a outrageously high percentage. Every parent who is failing to prevent their child from bullying others should see Gage’s story and feel embarrassed.
