Masterminds and Wingmen / Queen Bees and Wannabees (Wiseman)

[cahn]

These books describe social roles for boys (Masterminds) and girls (Queen Bees),particularly in the teen years, as well as discussing general parenting for the teen years (including video games, porn, etc). They were recced to me by E's best friend's mom, who has two boys and who said she saw the dynamics in this book taking place as early as kindergarten ...These books scared me, as it sounds rather like raising older kids is even more fraught than I'd thought.

I will heavily caveat these books by saying that they aren't at all (as far as I remember) researched in a methodical way. Wiseman has worked with a bunch of teenagers in groups and individually, and she had a group of boys serve as "editors" for Masterminds. So it's not just her opinions, but it... kind of is just her opinions, in a large way. And especially in Masterminds (she has two boys), she will often refer to her own parenting and use it as an example.

In Masterminds specifically, Wiseman identifies a large portion of the boy dynamics as dependent on what she calls the "Act Like a Man Box," where there are certain specific (American-centric -- this was clearly written for an American audience) qualities that are considered positively masculine, like being good at (particular) sports, downplaying emotion, a quick sense of humor, etc. Because of this, she claims, boys feel forced into acting in a certain way that drive them into particular "roles" in a hierarchical society (where the more you "fit in the box" the higher you are, generally speaking), and things like showing emotional pain are very hard.

I don't know how prevalent this is; as I said, the parent who recced it to me says she saw it happening in their public elementary school. At the private school we're now both at, the dynamics are quite different, I think, because the sorts of parents it attracts generally try very hard not to put their kids in that box (or have kids who don't fit in that box, or both), and because it's so small. (Recently I was in a conversation with three other moms from that school, and I was the only one with a child at the school who didn't like to wear skirts. I also had the only girl of the four of us at that school.)

Queen Bees and Wannabees I confess I skimmed. Okay, so, were all the other girls out there attuned to all the girl-politics that were apparently going on in our middle schools and almost all of which I seem to have entirely missed by hiding out in the library? Like, I was vaguely aware that there were girl-politics going on and that I couldn't hold my own and that occasionally my life would be made miserable (and I will always be grateful to the one popular girl who specifically rejected being mean as a life strategy, even in middle school) but... I didn't know any of this stuff was going on! BFF-breakups-and-getting-back-together, friend group dynamics and hierarchies, interactions with boys and how those interacted with BFF-ness and friend group dynamics... all of it was alien to me. Not quite totally alien, because I've read my share of teen novels, but I think part of me always thought it was made up or exaggerated, that real people didn't actually interact this way! It was very odd because it was basically a sociology book dissecting... my life... and coming to conclusions where I was unaware there was even data, if that makes any sense. (And also when I was a junior and senior I went to the gifted high school where the dynamics were very different.) It's not wrong, either! Any of you who know me and my mom in RL will not be at all surprised that my mom turns out to have been way more clued in to the girls' dynamics than I ever was, and occasionally we have these conversations where something comes up about how X and Y interacted with Z and cut out W and I'll be like "...what??"

Relatedly, no discussion of ASD girls the way there was of ASD boys in Masterminds, probably because the latter was written later.

I skimmed this one because it's just... not going to be relevant for E, for the same reasons it wasn't relevant to me. Like me when I was an adolescent, she doesn't even have the apparatus for detecting all this going on. (I am encouraging her to read books about ordinary kids (not just mice or people with swords, which she prefers) so that at least she has minimal access to this. She is now willing to read Ramona and Superfudge, so: progress!)

Anyway, these were both interesting for me to read, even if as alien sociology rather than explicit parenting guide. I may buy Masterminds for reference when A. gets older (I checked them out from the library). I'll almost certainly buy Queen Bees for my sister, as it's going to be relevant for her daughter.

I am really interested to hear, though, how those of you with older kids have seen these kinds of social dynamics working out (or not), and how they do or don't work out for those of you (like me) with younger kids.

Comments

[mildred_of_midgard]

I was lonely a lot

A large part of my ability to be indifferent to my peers' opinions even in emotionally fraught middle school was precisely that I don't experience loneliness, don't need friends, don't particularly seek friends out. Friendships happen or they don't, and I don't miss friends or make an effort to keep in touch when we part ways. When I do find myself "missing" someone, I'm really missing an activity to which they contributed, not the person per se, if that makes any sense.

I'm not sure I've ever encountered anyone with this trait, in rl or in books, unless they also had some psychological state that's got an entry in the DSM.

[cahn]

Actually my husband is a little like that, although I think he would say he misses me when I'm not around. I'm not sure he would make the distinction between "activity" and "person" in my case? But I've observed that with friendships, and even with his family, although he is mainly an introvert he can be quite friendly to people he likes, and enjoys hanging out with those people -- but he won't make an effort to keep in touch and won't really miss them. (For example, I am always the one who coordinates calling his family because it just won't occur to him that he hasn't talked to his sister -- whom he really likes! -- IN A YEAR.) I have told him that it's a good thing we got married or else we'd probably never talk (we were friends before we started dating), and I would have missed him.

He's not on the spectrum, although he has a BUNCH of engineers on both sides of his family (and is an engineer himself) :)

(He's not like you in many other ways :P :) )

[mildred_of_midgard]

Interesting, I will add that data point to my data set!

He's not like you in many other ways :P :)

Well, yeah, I hear he doesn't even think Frederick the Great is all that. :P :)

[cahn]

It's not that he doesn't think Fredrick the Great is all that (I confess I haven't been sharing with him all the things I have learned in the past month, so he's mostly neutral on the subject), but he thinks it would be hilarious if I (or him masquerading as me) said it!

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, I know, I was just making a callback joke because I couldn't resist! I got what he was doing and why it would have been hilarious (and it would have!).

[cahn]

haha, okay good! I thought that was what was going on but wasn't totally sure :)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yeah, I could have made that clear. I assumed he has no personal opinion on Fritz (most people don't, after all ;) ).

[hamsterwoman]

precisely that I don't experience loneliness, don't need friends, don't particularly seek friends out. Friendships happen or they don't, and I don't miss friends or make an effort to keep in touch when we part ways

I'm quite like this, too. I attributed it to being an only child with an active imagination, who stayed home with family members instead of going to day care when I was little -- so that by the time I got to school and my first group of peers that I was around consistently, I already knew I didn't NEED friends to be happy and fulfilled.

I did have friends -- people who latched on to me, or people who were interesting -- but even the ones I liked very much I didn't really miss, as such, when we moved continents at the age of 11. Even as an adult, I'm very bad at keeping in touch with the friends I have (unless they live on LJ and are beamed into my laptop in one convenient feed). And when I miss people, I miss, probably more than anything, the person I am when hanging around them -- if that makes sense? I have to, like, remind myself to call my parents/grandparents -- whom I love very much and am very close to! -- because I know they expect it and would be hurt if I didn't. But I have no internal driver to reach out to them, even though I enjoy spending time with my family.

But, yeah, I was also unbothered by whether I had friends / an in-group at all levels of schooling, and, even though I had school people I was friendly with, and two close friends outside of school, spent a lot of high school hanging out with my teachers, because they were more INTERESTING. I do miss the teachers, but mostly in the sense that I would like to see them again and show them the person I grew up into, have them meet my kids, that kind of thing.

(Also an engineer from a line of engineers, incidentally :P)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Have you ever experienced loneliness, if I may ask? Because I read about it, but I don't know what it feels like, and this seems to be a rarity.

ETA: Or grief, because that's another one? It sounds callous, but I feel like if my spouse died, I'd be over it within a month, and that that's not a function of the quality of our relationship, but of the fact that me getting married in the first place was so improbable that it only ended up happening for very non-traditional reasons.

[hamsterwoman]

Have you ever experienced loneliness,

I really don't think so! Like, I have experienced being alone in a place and thinking "I wish so-and-so were here with me" -- but because I know they would also enjoy this thing I'm doing / I would enjoy watching them enjoy it. But I don't think I've ever felt lonely in the sense of needing someone to feel... IDK, whatever it is that alleviates loneliness for people who feel loneliness?

Like, I spent a month on my own in a foreign country when I was 18, before there was internet or cell phones, so that my only contact with family was a weekly phone call and letters, and I didn't feel the least bit lonely -- actually I felt great, both being on my own and getting to know random new people.

(Although I should say, when my kids were younger and I was traveling without them, I would see families with children and feel a stab of missing my family. It was different enough from any other kind of missing people that I have experienced that it was quite memorable. There might be something hormonal/phermonal to the mother/young child bond, though.)

Or grief, because that's another one? It sounds callous, but I feel like if my spouse died, I'd be over it within a month,

Similar, I think. I've lost one very important person in my life -- my great-grandmother who was a huge part of my childhood (the one who stayed home with me when I was little), and I've definitely been AFFECTED by her death, but I'm not sure I would describe my feelings as grief. I would have liked very much for her to have lived long enough to meet my kids and watch her interact with them, and my memories of her are important things for me to preserve and pass on; she was in my mind for many years -- I kept intermittently having dreams in which she was alive -- but I don't know that I felt grief as it seems to be described in books?

I feel the same way about getting married, btw. It was never an end goal, and I never really wanted a romantic relationship and tended to feel "crowded" by the people who wanted one with me. But my husband turned out to be one of like two people whose presence doesn't eventually get "too much" for me -- one of the very few people whose company I prefer to solitude over the long term, basically. (And part of that is that he understands me well enough to know that I need that solitude and isn't offended by that.)

If I lost him, I would definitely miss our years of inside jokes and the way he understands me better than anyone else. Beyond that, I don't know, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I would be OK, or at least more OK than one should be under the circumstances.

[mildred_of_midgard]

actually I felt great, both being on my own and getting to know random new people.

See, I was relating right up until the pulling teeth getting to know random new people. :D

There might be something hormonal/phermonal to the mother/young child bond, though.

According to all neuroscientific findings I'm aware of, there is (oxytocin playing a major role). I have such child-antipathy I will never find out, though. ;)

I have a sneaking suspicion that I would be OK, or at least more OK than one should be under the circumstances.

It sounds like you would be! I have to say I like my wife for normal human reasons, inside jokes and shared interests and being comfortable talking to each other and all that, but the only reason we're living together is because she has disabling health problems and that makes it easier for me to help (and we're legally married because that was the only way to legally live together).

Now, pretty much everyone else on the planet can go deal with their own problems somewhere else, far away from me, so there's that, but the neurochemistry my relationship with her taps into is heavily weighted toward the same problem-solving mechanisms that, say, grad school tapped into. I get some of the pair-bonding experience with her, I won't say I don't, but it seems to be a fraction of what you find in a normal relationship.

[cahn]

Huh, that's interesting! I didn't know that about your marriage.

(Also see my response to hamsterwoman below, where I speculate about what makes D's response atypical.)

[mildred_of_midgard]

I didn't know that about your marriage.

It's not something I say so bluntly very often, since it's very easy for that to come across wrong. I think you know me well enough by now that it won't. I consider it a healthy relationship, especially since most of the "help" I provide is emotional support, and the fact that we have a close and affectionate relationship is why it helps her, and I do get emotional support in return. So it's not like I'm her caretaker and we scammed the immigration system by getting married. At the same time, it's also really clear to me that if it were just the relationship parts without the problem-solving, we'd be former internet acquaintances from a long-ago fandom, because that's how I swing.

Also see my response to hamsterwoman below, where I speculate about what makes D's response atypical.

I saw! I thought it was very interesting, especially the time part. It seems like he gets some of the same emotional outcomes that I do, but from a radically different mental place.

[cahn]

*nods* Yep.

What fandom? :)

[mildred_of_midgard]

One that we never admit to. Non-historical RPS, that's all I'll say. :P

[cahn]

I wonder about grief with D. He's been lucky and has not had anything that would cause a lot of grief in his life, so... I guess we'll see. There are a couple of atypical things going on that make me feel that grief would not be as big a deal for him:

a) he has a very... atypical concept of time; he is capable of getting places on time or abiding by a schedule if you stress to him that he needs to, but things like schedules are kind of alien to him. Similarly, as I said before, it just won't occur to him that he hasn't talked to his parents in a month or his sibling/friend in a year because I think in some fundamental way these units of time are sort of arbitrary to him, which is part of why I think he doesn't experience loneliness in a typical way -- how can you be lonely when as far as you're concerned it hasn't really been that long since you've seen/talked to all the people in your life?

b) His memory for people is just really bad. His memory for facts and numbers and places (and pretty much anything that isn't people) is really excellent, much better than most people's, and he remembers things that happened when he was a kid, but he won't remember specifics about people or things he did with them (e.g., there is at least one trip we took before we got married that he vaguely remembered as having done with a previous girlfriend until I pointed out I had photographic evidence). I can totally imagine that if I died he'd be over it more quickly than typical, in part because he'd mostly forget the things we'd done together. (He wouldn't forget the inside jokes! He actually has a very good memory for those, lol, and he would probably miss those.)

c) He is happy to have romantic/sexual relationships (and can be quite romantic, rather more so than I am!) and friendships, but I don't think it would occur to him to seek them out rather than have them happen organically (as happened with our relationship), whereas he actively seeks out alone time :P I think if our kids were grown and I was out of the picture he would probably just go camping/hiking All The Time and be totally happy.