Everything we’re told about “teenage suicide” and “bullying” is wrong (part 2)
Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| May 2026
The teenage “bullying” discussion is so disgusting it’s hard to write about. It reveals how depraved, cruel, uncaring – and yes, bullying – today’s authorities are in indulging smug hate speech toward young people to cover up their own derelictions.
The definitive Centers for Disease Control surveys – the ones everyone cites – show, FIVE SIXTHS of teenagers cyberbullied and school bullied (presumably by peers) are ALSO BULLIED AND ABUSED AT HOME BY PARENTS AND ADULTS. (I apologize for caps in this posting, but the whole subterfuge surrounding abuse, bullying, and official cruelty to young people is enraging.)
Five-sixths!
Let that sink in: adult bullying and peer bullying are the same thing, except that adult bullying at home is far more widespread and serious.
Bullying at home creates angry, aggressive youth likely to become bullies themselves, along with passive youth whose defensive behaviors attract larger-world bullying from the fraction of youths and grownups in larger society with mentalities like their parents’.
Yet, NOT ONE “anti-bullying” or anti-social-media loudmouth mentions these absolutely crucial facts.
America’s official bullying toward youth is easily documented
The CDC’s 2021 survey – the first to ask about parental abuses – found 55% of teens reported violent or emotional abuse by parents in the past year, 14% had been cyberbullied, and 13% had been bullied at school.
Two years later, the CDC’s more detailed 2023 survey reported that 62% of the 20,000 teens age 13-18 surveyed reported being violently and/or emotionally abused (bullied) by parents and adults in their homes, 18% had been cyberbullied and 20% had been bullied at school, reflecting post-COVID school reopenings.
Experts know the readily available facts I present here. You don’t have to download the entire data set or file a FOIA petition. Just look at the posted summaries in the CDC’s Data Users’ Guides for 2021 (questions 24, 92, 105) and 2023 (questions 24, 25, 89).
Yet, authorities are not just silent on these tragic realities; they sustain a blame-the-victim mob mentality.
These are cataclysmic findings…
… for the decades long hullaballoo over “bullying,” which interests such as NAPAB, SOB, SB, ABAlliance, and a raft of media-sycophant reporters and pundits wildly deplore. I refuse to spell out the sappy names these entities flatter themselves with. They are not “anti-bullying.” They profit from lying about bullying.
The last phony interest defines “bullying… as the repetitive, intentional harm inflicted by one person or group on another, involving a power imbalance.” Then these entities, aped by mental health professionals and political leaders, blame bullying ENTIRELY on youths. The US Department of Education defines bullying as ONLY occurring among “school-age children.”
By their own definition, “anti-bullying” entities are bullies themselves, exploiting their adult institutional power to harm powerless children and teenagers by stigmatizing young age groups. They bully teens in the name of teaching that bullying is bad.
Journalist/podcaster Anya Kamenetz writes: “The greatest threat to children and teens isn’t social media. It’s adults.” Not just by adults at home, but just as much by mental health professionals and interest groups, I would add.
That parents and household adults are 3 to 4 times more likely than other teens to bully teenagers is now ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN for anyone who wants to participate in the official debate to mention. This level of dereliction and cruelty among so-called political leaders, professionals, and advocacy groups flabbergasts me.
It gets worse
Bullyings tragically compound. Table 1 shows graphically how being bullied online and at school escalate rapidly as a teen is bullied at home by parents/adults.
The table is based on the level and severity of violent abuse, emotional abuse, other household violence, drug/alcohol abuse, severe mental illness, and criminal behavior parents and household adults impose on children and teens.
Table 1. Nearly all cyberbullied and school-bullied teens are also abused by parents and adults at home.
Source: CDC, 2023.
The unmentionable facts the CDC survey shows are overwhelming. They have huge implications for preventing bullying and treating victims. True anti-bullying groups would have leapt on this etiology long ago.
Authorities are worse than silent
They have launched extremist crusades to ban teens from social media, one place where abused teens find help and companionship.
Imagine the multiple tragedies of being bullied at home by the parents and adults you’re supposed to be able to trust… THEN also being bullied at school or online… THEN having your terrible home situation ignored and denied by authorities who are supposed to protect you… and THEN having political and professional leaders blame your own social media use for your depression and victimization and champion measures to take away your online rights.
You’d expect true grownups to be able to confront uncomfortable, unpopular, distressing realities millions of young face. Yet, established interests’ cruelty has become so extreme that major interests now cheer when courts award big settlements to parents who severely abuse their kids (even ones who drive their teens to suicide) and celebrate officials who ignore real-life abusers – as long as it’s in service to blaming social media. That obsession is all they care about.