Queen Bees….we’ve all heard this term.
Queen bees are the girls in school (usually middle school through high school) that believe they own the halls they march down, surrounded by the other bees in their hive.
This hive of young girls buzz around telling each other how great they are, how jealous everyone else is of them, and convincing each other that in order to stay within the “cool group”, they better stay close to the hive…..where the Queen is.
Typically the Queen Bee is the self-proclaimed most popular girl in her grade, surrounded by her worker-bees who do her bidding.
The worker-bees are the girls who pick up the pace to walk next to the Queen in the halls. They report the rumors around the hive to her and watch her intently before deciding their own next steps.
They push past the others in the lunch line to grab their seat at the popular table next to her. They assist the Queen by ensuring anyone not “worthy” of the hive remains securely on the outside of it.
Rest assured that should anyone try to break into this barrier uninvited, the stingers will come out.
I know these Queens and their workers. They are alive and well and exist in almost every middle school and high school.
They are the worst…. and they are dangerous.
When I was growing up, I was never the type to follow the Queen Bees around the school, care what they thought (they really didn’t think about me at all) or try to garner their attention. I stayed on the sidelines during the day and played with my neighborhood friends in the evening. I was pretty naive to the Bees that were beginning to buzz at school and thought, for the most part, we were still on the same playing field.
One day I came to school and overheard a group of girls giggling about an event I had attended the Saturday before. It was a parade for the 6th grade dance team and my mother had done my makeup for me.
STAGE makeup…..but this was no stage.
This was a parade float and we were in sweat shirts and matching pants, not glitzy sequined costumes to justify the heavy makeup. I heard them laughing and discussing how ridiculous I looked.
I knew in that moment, we were no longer playing on the same field.
I had the poor misfortune of hitting puberty long before any of my peers. I got my period for the first time in the 4th grade and by the time I hit high school, I was filling out every bra my mother had purchased for me.
I used to sleep on my stomach each night hoping my body would stop it’s changes so I could go back to being like everybody else. I didn’t want to change.
I didn’t want to be different.
The thing about Queen Bees and their hive is that if you do not have a desire to participate in their games and if you do not simply “blend” in with the background, you immediately become some kind of threat, wanted or not.
They start to spread rumors, cut you from the lunch table, stop talking when you approach and other devious, nasty ways of communicating that you are no longer welcomed.
I have an older sister who was in high school while I attended junior high. I thought she had the greatest clothes, the best shoes and the coolest style. She was all those things, but we were not shaped the same.
Like any other girl in junior high, I wanted to look “cool” and wear what was popular at the time. My sister had a plethora of cool clothes and any chance I got, I wore them.
Unfortunately the more I wore her “cool” clothes, the more I was made fun of. My chest showed way too much in those shirts with the key hole cutouts that were so popular in the early 2000’s. I got unwanted attention from the boys AND the girls and I couldn’t seem to stop it.
One day my mother found me crying in my bedroom. I told her “the girls at school call me a slut and I don’t know what it means”.
I’ll never forget that day because my mom called me in sick to school and we spent the day shopping for clothes that were appropriate for my body and shape.
I felt better for that day, but the rumors never stopped.
By the time I reached my junior year of high school, I had pretty much had enough. I got sent to the principle’s office for flashing a girl in the hallway who claimed I had stuffed my bra and got suspended for 5 days for throwing a hot bowl of soup on a boy who had called me a slut. While in school, I felt like there was no where to go and no where to hide, but at least when I went home, it would stop.
I don’t know what I’d do if I had to combat with social media during that time. I fear for these girls that are enduring this each and every day and the bullies come home with them in their smart phones.
There’s a lot of talk about how to teach your kid to be the nice kid, to be the one who is proud to be who they are, to be the creative one. Little is said about what to do when some of these decisions lead to torment.
The reality is that school is not the only place they may face this. It happens in the work place, in mom groups, in neighborhoods, at kids’ sports activities and everywhere else people congregate.
I believe we need to add the narrative that no matter what kind of person our children choose to become, confidence must come from within and not solely found in the opinion of others.
Knowing who you are is more important than who they THINK you are.
That no matter how hard you try, you cannot change what someone else thinks about you, you can only change your response to it.
In my youth, I did not respond in the most productive way. As I have grown and found where my value truly comes from, my response to the negative opinion of others has changed in a way that simply propels me forward, higher and above them where they can’t reach me anymore.
My heart aches for the mothers who will find out their daughters are going through this and won’t know how to stop it.
I fear that one day it could be MY daughter getting stung by bees and that I will be the mother who cannot protect her from it.
I fear even more that it could be MY daughter doing the stinging.
I know this happens all the time. I know we will have to face it. I know I will do my best to teach my daughters not to be the Queen Bee or live in her hive.
I know this may make her a target.
I still have time as my daughters are young enough to believe the playing field is the same. I will be there for them when they discover it is not.
I will do everything in my power to keep them out of this ugly hive and shield them when I can from the stings, and bandage the ones I cannot.
The stings they face will make them stronger……
I’ll be right there to show them how.
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