Mother x Kind Campaign Wants To Stop Bullying

You would think that bullying would become less prevalent when you become older, but it doesn't. Sadly, there are actually a lot of other misconceptions about bullying and clothing brand Mother partnered up with Kind Campaign to raise the awareness of the cruel act. The Kind Campaign is a non-profit that tries to alleviate bullying amongst girls and were the ones to initiate the #YouCanSitWithUs movement. As they joined forces with Mother, the two have created a t-shirt that says, "Play Nice" — how motherly (pun intended).

The tees come in navy blue and white and each shirt costs $95, which seems like a whole lot for a t-shirt, but 20% of the retail sales from the shirts will go straight to the Kind Campaign. Tim Kaeding, designer and co-founder of Mother, shared that the whole #PlayNice movement goes, "beyond the tee shirts." Using the hashtag #PlayNice, people wearing the t-shirt can upload photos of them wearing the shirt and write about their bullying stories to help empower those currently going through it.

Back in the day, before the Internet, bullying was mostly perceived as a physical thing where kids would get beaten up. But now it seems like part of the reason why bully prevention is somewhat failing is because of social media. Cyberbullies can just hide behind an anonymous screen name, say whatever damaging and hurtful things they want, and get away with it. And those hurtful words can last into adulthood.

Recently, a study reported that teen bullying is one of the major factors in causing adult depression. Just because you're older, however, it isn't always safe to assume that all your peers have simply matured out of bullying. In fact, believe it or not — bullying is even prevalent in professional workspaces. So just because you're not on the playground at school with the yard duty teacher watching over anymore, doesn't give you the okay to stop playing nice.

"Play Nice" may sound a bit childish, but I think it's a great short-and-sweet reminder that everyone needs. Often times, it's a little too easy to get together with a friend for coffee and begin gossiping behind someone's back out of stress or to even leave a mean comment on a popular YouTube video, thinking the uploader won't see it. It might be hard to play nice at times, but kindness can become just as powerful of a movement as bullying has become — if not, even more powerful.

Join the #PlayNice movement by purchasing a tee from Mother.

Images: Courtesy of Mother, motherdenim, stylememaeve/Instagram