Childhood and adolescence in America have never been less brutal. Even as the country's overprotective parents whip themselves up into a moral panic about kid-on-kid cruelty, the numbers don't point to any explosion of abuse.

Ah numbers, they always seem to get in the way of a good story. I truly feel bad for kids who get relentlessly bullied. But the whole bullying wave that's swept the US and Canada in the last few years might be the quintessential First World Problem. Extreme cases of bullying should be dealt with, but in more moderate cases, kids need to learn to deal with problems alone sometimes. If you have a dickhead for a boss when you're older, your parents can't do much about it, so I think learning to deal with conflict (unreasonable jerks, especially) is probably a good skill to develop at a young age.

But, to all the old bullies out there, its never too late to apologize.