Hillary Clinton: I Was Bullied As A Kid
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton revealed she used to be bullied when she was a young girl.
Speaking to CBS News, the former secretary of state was talking about her mother, Dorothy Rodham, and the impact she had on her life while growing up in Park Ridge, Illinois. Clinton recalled to Scott Pelley the time a group of children wouldn't let her play with them and pushed her around.
"I was pretty shy. I was kind of a reserved little girl. I would go outside to play and literally I would get knocked down and pushed around by all the little kids," Clinton told CBS News.
The former senator from New York reminisced that she went to her mom after getting bullied by the neighborhood kids.
"I ran back in crying and my mother met me at the door, and she said, 'There is no room for cowards in this house. You go right back out there and stand up for yourself,'" Clinton said.
Clinton then said she confronted the group after talking with her mother.
"So I came back out and I said, 'I'm not going to run inside the house. I'm here. I want to play.' And literally, they formed a circle, and this one girl who had been so mean to me came over and she pushed me and I just pushed her right back, and she was so surprised," Clinton explained.
She continued, "And they all just looked at me and they said, 'Okay.' And so I played that day and every day after that, but if my mother had not met me and had not given me that tough love that I think every kid needs at some point in his or her life, my life might have been very different."
Dorothy Rodham passed away in 2011 at the age of 92.
A new CBS News national poll shows Clinton with an eight-point lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders – 47 to 39 percent.
