Supernormal. Мэг Джей
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they had once known, found supportive partners, and built loving families. They were, in Werner and Smith’s words, “vulnerable, but invincible.”
This startling discovery turned Werner and Smith’s work on its head. What was intended to be an inquiry about the devastating impact of early adversity became a seminal work about the possibility of transcending it. How exactly had these vulnerable children managed to make themselves invincible, if they were indeed so? There is no formula, of course, but decades of further research—both in the Kauai sample and in other studies—point to adaptations and conditions that facilitate one’s “overcoming the odds,” the title of one of Werner and Smith’s books on the topic. Perhaps most notably, when Werner and Smith asked these “vulnerable, but invincible” adults how, in retrospect, they understood their own unexpected success, the answer was not all that surprising: The majority reported that determination—a fighting spirit—was their most important asset.
***
Paul looks like a superhero. Or to be more precise, he looks like a superhero might appear on his day off. Behind his glasses, he is handsome in a boy-next-door kind of way, and right now he appears to be about that age superheroes always seem to be, somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five. His muscles strain a bit against his T-shirt, not so much that his bulk seems strange or steroidal but enough to give the impression that, underneath his casual exterior, Paul is surprisingly strong. He comes across as squeaky-clean and friendly, but he is guarded, too. Paul seems like the kind of person who would fare well in an emergency, like he is fit to take on the world, and in a way he is.
Paul is a nuclear engineer and a young officer in the navy. He found his way to me after he read a book I wrote on the importance of one’s twenties, on the value of making a bold and courageous start in adulthood. He felt validated by the notion that all the hard work he had put into his own twenties would pay off, but he had questions, too. He wondered sometimes if other people his age—especially those not living in barracks or on submarines—were free to enjoy their lives more. They traveled for pleasure, he imagined, and they spent time with their loved ones while he left his partner—a young artist with an alcoholic father—back home alone. He wondered how he could be there for the woman he loved and the country he loved at the same time. Perhaps like many others in service, Paul sometimes looked around and asked himself: “Why am I doing this?”
Why indeed.
This was a question Paul heard often, not only from himself but also from others. Many who questioned him wrongly envisioned the military as a gathering place for those with no other options, yet there was Paul, an excellent student who had lived a middle-class life. To many, his decision to be an engineer in the navy seemed curious, or at least one with a story behind it. When I posed his own question back to him—“Why are you doing this?”—Paul was ready with a response. It was succinct and clear, in that way that perhaps the military trains one to be, yet his answer was also notable for its candid self-awareness: “I really struggled in school growing up, and for years I was hunkered down in a sort of bunker in a lot of ways. But the navy is an environment where I have been able to stick my head above the parapet and thrive.”
***
For Paul, the fifth grade had come too soon. He was skipping a year so, on that first day, his teacher said, “Class, this is Paul. He is joining us from the third grade. Please make him feel welcome.” She might as well have placed a target on his back.
Paul was certainly an easy mark. Of all the kids in his class, he was the smartest but also the newest, the youngest, the skinniest, and the weakest. On his first day on the playground, when the class played Red Rover, Paul gave it his all as he ran toward the line of cheering and jeering classmates, only to be bounced back from their joined hands like a rock out of a slingshot. In a way, all of his school years would come to feel like that. Paul spent his days trying to break in somewhere only to have the other kids grasp each other tightly, like they would rather have their arms broken than be seen as the weak link, the ones who let Paul through. Outside of recess, kids turned their backs to him at the lunch table. They stepped on the backs of his shoes. They leaned in together and snickered behind their hands when he spoke. They spit in his seat and left mean notes on his desk.
When another new boy joined the class, for a short while Paul had a friend. Together they articulated the sort of social class system at work: The “upper” boys were the biggest and the most athletic ones, the boys whom everyone watched carefully and wanted to be; the “middle” boys had some assets but not quite the right ones so they worked anxiously to align themselves with the boys above them; the “lower” boys, of course, were Paul and a couple of others who mostly stayed away from each other for fear of compounding their bad situation. With his new friend, life as a “lower” was tolerable for a while but only until one of the mean notes on his desk said this: “Sorry. Can’t be friends anymore. I want to move up.”
***
Some kids live with emotional or physical abuse at home, while others live with it at school, where it goes by the name of bullying. About one in three children are bullied, usually at school, by the age of eighteen, although what that bullying looks like varies widely. An estimated 25 percent of bullied children are the targets of verbal aggression; they are made fun of, insulted, or called names, or they have rumors spread about them. About 10 percent are bullied physically, by being pushed, shoved, tripped, spit upon, or the like. About 5 percent are ignored or excluded from activities, and another 5 percent have their physical safety threatened. And according to a 2011 study from the Pew Research Center, about 10 to 15 percent of teens reported being harassed via the Internet. Like Paul, most children who are bullied are targets of more than one kind of aggression.
To understand bullying and its impact is to understand the role of power: Bullies have more of it, while their targets have less. Contrary to the widespread notion that bullies are insecure outsiders, most have assets that are respected by their peers. Maybe they are physically large or are fast runners or skilled athletes, or perhaps they are popular or socially savvy. Bullies abuse whatever power they have to maintain their dominant position in the crowd. The targets of bullies, on the other hand, tend to be socially vulnerable, usually because they are different somehow. Maybe they are chosen, as Paul was, because they are younger or smaller or new to a class. Sometimes they are perceived as unattractive or unathletic. They may be disabled or economically disadvantaged, or they may be a member of an ethnic minority or identify as LGBTQ.
Although elementary school students do experiment with bullying behaviors, the lion’s share of bullying takes place in middle school. Bullying behavior spikes during transitions between grades or schools or during other times when social groups are disrupted. Boys and girls jockey anew for friends and invitations, and it is during this social free-for-all that various forms of aggression may be used to establish, or reestablish, the status quo.
When Paul moved on to middle school, most of his classmates moved along with him, as did his low status. More than ever, the boys scrambled for a place at the top of the social heap, or at least for a place as far from the bottom as possible. During school, kids pelted Paul with the bad words they were just learning—gay, stupid, weirdo, pussy, fag, loser, asshole, shithead, pencil dick—and after school they pelted him with rocks while he waited for his bus. Contrary to the old sticks-and-stones adage, the words did hurt—and in fact, recent research has found that social pain travels along the same pathways in the brain as does physical pain.
The imbalance of power is not only what makes bullying possible and intractable but also what makes it so harmful. Of course, some fighting and competition is common and even normal among kids, but those who experience repeated aggression at the hands of more powerful others feel more threatened, less in control, and more anxious and depressed than those who experience aggression at the hands of peers on their same level. Feeling helpless to change what is happening to them, the targets of bullying may live with chronic fear and dread, and the harm that this may cause is as varied as bullying itself. Many victims of bullying feel bad about themselves and feel isolated from others. Because bullying often—but not always—takes place at school, targets may perform poorly in their classes and have a negative view of education and teachers. They may suffer from physical ailments such as headaches, stomachaches, or sleeping problems,