Michael Morones is an 11-year-old boy living in North Carolina. He loves My Little Pony, in part because he has ACHD and relates to the character Pinkie Pie, an excitable pony. Schoolmates bullied him and called “gay” for liking a “girls'” program, however. He is now in critical condition in the hospital after a suicide attempt, reports ChicagoNow’s Carrie Goldman.
No one, particularly a young child, should feel they have no alternative but suicide. My heart goes out to him and his family and friends.
We need to be careful, however, of drawing too direct and exclusive a connection between someone being bullied and attempting suicide. There are bullied kids who do not attempt suicide, and non-bullied kids who do. Sometimes, though, the combination of underlying mental and emotional issues and external bullying seems to become a combustible mixture. I do not know what the situation was with Michael; all I know is that somewhere along the line, he did not get the support he needed.
Remember back to 2010, when a spate of suicides by bullied teens gained national media attention and sparked the creation of the It Gets Better project, among other things? That was a year after Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, an 11-year-old from Springfield, Mass., died by suicide. He had endured constant bullying at school, including anti-LGBT attacks, even though he did not identify as gay. They are hardly the only young people, LGBT and not, who have died by or attempted suicide before or since.
There is no one person or institution to blame here. Reducing bullying and providing all children and youth with the social and emotional support they need, at home, at school, and in their wider communities, are still serious needs. I have no magic formula for the solution, but I believe it involves a combination of personal, communal, and political actions. We must speak up and reach out when we see bullying or find a child in need of emotional support. We must do so in relation to our own children, but we must also teach them (as age appropriate) to do so themselves. We must support anti-bullying legislation (and ensure it is crafted to be effective), as well as the funding of mental health care services. We must expand the range of gender possibilities so that no one blinks an eye if a boy likes My Little Pony. The list goes on. Grab hold of it somewhere and make a start.
ABC 11 News in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., reports that there are a few ways to donate to Michael’s medical costs. (I have not personally confirmed that this is legitimate, though I have no reason to believe it is not; as always, give at your own risk.)
Money can be donated at any State Employees Credit Union under the Michael Morones Recovery Fund, Checks can also be mailed to: The Michael Morones Recovery Fund, c/o Team Trivia Inc., 1380 Woodvine Way, Alpharetta GA 30005, or through PayPal at csuttle3@gmail.com. [Team Trivia is Michael’s stepdad’s employer.]
Goldman notes, too, that Andrea Libman, the voice of Pinkie Pie, has gotten all members of the My Little Pony cast to record messages of support for Michael, which his parents are playing in his hospital room, and which seem to increase his brain activity. Let us hope that support such as this, along with the monetary donations, help him towards recovery.