{"id":547,"date":"2020-10-14T18:12:13","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T18:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=547"},"modified":"2020-10-14T18:12:13","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T18:12:13","slug":"geek","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/geek","title":{"rendered":"On Telling My Son That He Is A Geek"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Marshall Brain<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have put “the talk” off for as long as I have been able, because it is going to be an uncomfortable conversation. It will be far harder than the “birds and bees” conversation that parents dread. The “birds and bees” conversation, by the way, was fairly painless with my son. He’s read enough science books and seen enough stuff on Discovery Channel to know most everything he needs to know about the mechanics of sex. The depth of his knowledge, from a clinical perspective, was impressive when we discussed the topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this next conversation will, I fear, be near impossible for him to understand, and even harder to explain. I am going to have to tell him that he is a geek. And because he is a geek, he is about to be sentenced to seven years of unmitigated hell at the hands of his peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing that is forcing “the talk” is a question he asked last week. He asked it in the same way he might ask why a gasoline engine has a spark plug while a Diesel engine does not. He’s expecting to hear a simple, logical, reasonable answer that tells him something new about the world we live in. But the question he asked has no simple, logical or reasonable answer. Instead, his question probes one of the darkest, and frankly the most repulsive, aspects of the human condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His question was this: “Dad, why am I always the last one they pick in PE?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He asked it with sadness and resignation, as though he already has some sense of the future that will unfold. But I think he asked it more in the form of a question that might have an answer – a problem for which there could be a solution. And unfortunately the solution space is limited here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let’s back up for a moment. In the United States, the average age for the onset of male puberty is approximately 11.5 years. My son turns 11.5 years old next week. He is in the fifth grade at the local public school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My son is also a geek. Without question. Like his father at that age, he is small and scrawny and wildly uncoordinated. He is decently intelligent, madly in love with all things scientific, mathematical and technological, but unskilled in most social situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked him how they select teams in PE. It’s the same way they’ve done it for centuries. The teacher picks two star athletes to be the captains of the two teams, and then they alternately pick their team members one by one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am amazed that in this day and age, with all the emphasis on diversity and political correctness and inclusion, that this form of medieval torture would still be allowed. Think about it from the geek perspective. You are standing in a large room with all of your peers. Your peers are picked one by one until you are the last person left on the opposite side of the room. In front of everyone, you stand alone. You are publicly told, in the most visceral way possible, that you are the biggest loser in the class. And an adult authority figure is standing there supervising the proceedings, so it must be right and true. What could possibly be more embarrassing and humiliating for an 11.5-year-old kid than that kind of situation? This process is automatically rigged against all disabled and uncoordinated kids, and the level of public humiliation it inflicts is brutal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all know it happens. It is nearly cliche. The persona of Harry Potter is built on the foundation of geek abuse. There are TV shows designed around it, including this one that finally, in a small way, takes the geek’s side (although it also shows a problem so severe that it requires professionals to deal with it):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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