Paternity and childhood in Stranger Things: Mike & Nancy’s case
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La maldición de las cuatro brujas here
Una novela romántica de esas con un macizorro sin camiseta en la portada here
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Quick notes:
Karen Wheeler’s affaire, women and moms (meta of Stranger Things’ mothers and gender roles for women)
Stranger Things Book: Runaway Max analysis
Stranger Things Comic: Stranger Things and Dungeons and Dragons analysis
Paternity and childhood in Stranger Things: Eleven’s case
The growing up part is not so prevalent theme in the Wheeler family. Mike and Nancy’s process from childhood to adulthood is no so strong given that the Wheeler family was supposed to be your regular, nuclear family. There is no huge dramas here. It wasn’t until season 2 and 3 we see more of how the dynamic of the parents is strained. The conversation between Nancy and Jonathan about the nuclear family dream was not a statement of facts, but a small rant of a privileged white teenage girl.
The Wheeler family was introduced in full on 1x01 and stay with us until the end of the season 3. Ted becomes more and more small over the seasons, however Karen becomes a more prominent character.
Mike: the everyday American boy
Original conception for Mike. His first name is a reference to Michael "Mikey" Walsh from the 1985 film The Goonies, who his character was originally based on. In the original pilot script, he had a crush on Jennifer Hayes (aka the girl that cried on Will’s funeral). Among other changes, he entered the Upside Down first thanks to Eleven, and was intended to be more serious, but after Finn Wolfhard’s audition, the writers softened him and added more optimism, fun and leadership.
I have written this before: of all the members of the Party, and overall characters, Mike is the Generic White Dude Protagonist, and that’s why he is the protagonist and Mileven exist. Since most of you know already this, since he is the character meant to be “the audience” because we live in a world of White Hetero Dudes, I won’t talk a lot about him. He is the Dungeon Master in season 1, and the Paladin archetype who usually is the protagonist in fantasy entertainment. He is given the role of the leader due to this (and again, White Dude) and since he is the Dungeon Master, his duty is to make the rest of the Party look after the disappeared Will. It was revealed on the comic Dungeons and Dragons that he is the reason why the Party started playing, first as a way to deal with bullies, later as a way to help Will to recover from his trauma.
The introductory scene of the Wheeler family is a clear example of their dynamics, from both parenthood and childhood: Mike asks Karen, who is feeding Holly, to leave them play more (their game lasts for 10 hours!, which means Mike is left unsupervised that time –though he is at his own house-), Karen refuses because the rest of the kids should return home by now, Mike asks Ted who delegates the decision and parenthood in Karen, meanwhile he repairs the TV.
Then, Dustin tries to give Nancy pizza, she is talking with Barb by phone about Steve and she refuses. Is noteworthy she is showed like the regular teen, with boys and a photo of Barb –not just a symbol of friendship, but also adolescence. Family is replaced by friendship and love outside the family. Dustin makes a dismissive comment about this change, how Nancy the Elf became Nancy the Teenager. Every time we see Mike is a child, we are reminded Nancy is a teenager. And when Mike becomes a teenager on season 3, Nancy becomes a woman.
Later, the Party exits and Will tell Mike he was caught by the Demogorgon, like another symbol of the end of childhood (Will, after all, represents The Child of Stranger Things). At school, the rest of the Party arrives in the bikes, another symbol of childhood, like Eleven’s Eggos. The rest of the season follows the Party finding Eleven, the Baby. All their scenes, even when they fight, are surrounded by children imaginary: the bikes, the dungeons and dragons, Star Wars and videogames, asking a teacher, the slingshots… Finding Eleven also means the Party finds their first contact with girls and, by extension, sex. They flinched when Eleven tries to take off her clothes in front of them, and they dressed her as a girl –with Nancy’s old clothes-. Mileven was born. The sex, however, was not fully explored on the Party until season 3, and even there, there was only heavy seasons of kissing.
On season 2, his character is still a child. He refuses explicitedly the changes coming with teenagehood, symbolized in his distaste of Max, the new member of the Party that represents for the other members what Eleven represented for him: sexual, active life (aka adulthood). Max doesn’t only interrupts the “real” growing, but also the symbolical childhood of D&D. She is not only a new member, she is a new member of D&D with her own class (the Zoomer). It is ironic that Mike on season 2 is the foil for Hopper and his refusal of growing up on season 3.
On season 3, he embraces fully his teen years. Mileven is on full display, and he refuses to play D&D anymore. He is the one that acknowledges they can’t be on his basement playing forever (aka childhood). At the end of season 3, we leave him dealing with a long distance relationship, like her sister.
In the Hawkins Middle School Yearbook, he was shown to be voted as the "Friendliest Face". His career goal is stated to be a writer, his favorite subject is English, which links directly with his D&D Dungeon Master hobby.
HIs extracurricular activities were the AV Club and the Science Fair. He was also one of the editors of the yearbook. All of this puts him in the “nerd, smart” side, however, the complaints of his parents on the show about his grades contradicts a bit this perception. Maybe this sybolises Mike is smart, but not in the traditional sense, like when he was the one that named the Mind Flayer and did the connection.
Nancy: the teen debutante
Original conception for Nancy. Her character might be inspired by “Nancy Thompson” from A Nightmare on Elm Street (girl become determined to destroy a supernatural being that has killed her best friend), and "Nancy Drew," the girl detective. It is interesting that this protoNancy concept looked more like a mix of Barb with the “supermodel with glasses” idea.
Nancy doesn’t have an official D&D class. Thanks to the show and the comics, we know that she was an elf in Mike’s games when she was twelve. This, and her shooting skills place her into the archer archetype. The other character with shooting skills is Lucas, officially the ranger of the Party. Due to her attitude, her clothes, her demanding nature and her privileged background, she was called several times by other characters, directly or indirectly “Princess”, which is another usual archetype of rolegaming. But instead of waiting for the rescue in a tower, she tooks charge of the situation since the beginning, So, hail to our Warrior Princess.
As a curiosity, she is one of the few characters that have been in the Upside Down, and has a bit of PTSD both in the show and the comic.
Nancy’s relevant scenes on season 1 are limited to her interactions with her childhood world (Barb), the teenage world (Steve) and finally, the adult world (Jonathan). At school, Nancy and Barb are talking about Steve again, and said character appeared on screen at last. It is not casual Nancy’s scenes usually follows a scene of the Party. She is the foil of the Party, the (female) immediate future: studies, friends instead of family, romantic relationships. Despite some reticence in Nancy’s part, she is ready to adulthood through sex.
At Steve’s party, there is (controlled) alcohol, smoking and sex, three elements of adulthood only showed on screen by Hopper and Joyce (and Billy, since this is the only time we see Steve or Tommy smoke). And this is how she became an adult: the murder of Barb during sex was not only the killing of her best friend, but also the killing of her childhood. Barb’s death is the catalyst of Nancy’s change (and by extension, Steve’s). She becomes more mature and aware of her surroundings. Until that moment, she uses Will disappearance to go to Steve’s party and is almost nasty to her family and the Party.
The virginity loss is noted quickly by Karen. Karen freaks out when Nancy didn’t come home at the right time and suspects something was going one with Steve. She is right and confronts Nancy for that. Not so weird, remember this was the 80s and all the premarital sex and condoms were not discussed as today. And in season 3, we have a glimpse of Karen before being Mrs Wheeler: she failed at her professional career, but what make her stood and still, was marriage and children. So is reasonable she freaks out Nancy is doing the same “mistake” as she did by trying to be an adult too soon.
The rest of the scenes of Nancy’s “adulthood” in season 1 are always related to sex. She is constantly with Steve or Jonathan (both love interests), with the sexually active couple Tommy and Carol, being slut shamed by the town and by the police, or chasing monsters with a masculine phallic weapon (first the bat, later owned by Steve, and then the gun). Her pimping out scene for a date was showing Barb her new bra (the only other teen character doing that was sex machine Billy using cologne on his crotch).
On season 2, the sex theme continues: the love triangle is resolved, Nancy forms a fully committed relationship with Jonathan (after fucking in Murray’s house, another adult who is captain of the Jancy ship and by extension, Jopper) and in season 3, we have all the sexual harassment at her work place, along with the theme of misogyny and young people (aka children) at work (an adult place).
Other relevant instances on her growing up are the scenes related with dealing with her job. She has an Oliver Twist moment with Jonathan, in which she hits against the wall of adulthood, crushing her childish optimism, given that everything won’t be as she wants, despite how much effort she puts in. This is reinforced again in the scene with her mother.
Nancy ironically marks the end of childhood on season 3 for all the characters, at the moment they are going to the Holloways’ house. All entered in her mother’s car, (Mike and Will on the boot, as the “children” of the bunch), and she accidentally hits the Party’s bikes, another symbol of childhood, accidentally before running to chase the Flayed, a clearly visual metaphore about losing childhood.
Holly: the baby
There’s anything worth saying about Holly. Mostly she is there to play the cute little child to fill the classic suburban family, and she is almost forgotten by everyone, fandom included. We can note that she is somehow a parallel to Eleven at first: Holly (the baby-child) is the only non superpowered character, and not part of the Party, who notes the things and creatures from the Upside Down, alongside Eleven (the initial baby-child who later becomes a real child). She has the ability to realize there is something supernatural going on, but she never interacts with it. She doesn’t even appear in the original concept of the show.
Extended family
There are a mention to 2 Wheeler grandmas: one that died from cancer and somehow left the blond wig behind used by Eleven at the family house, an another mentioned on season 3 as the excuse Mike used against Eleven due to Hopper’s interference. The relationship of both grandmothers and blood relation with the rest of the family is not stated.
Relationship between the siblings
The Mike and Nancy first interaction on screen is on episode 2. Mike knows about Steve and mess with Nancy for it. 90% of their confrontation is not hate, but they are in different stages of life and it shows. They just grew apart. In Mike’s room there are bunk beds, maybe he and nancy shared a room at some point. At the end of season 1, they reunite again, but it is Nancy (the soon to become adult and woman of nurturing nature) the one who is more involved in the meeting, hugging Mike. Later, she asks about Mileven’s relationship (again, adult relationships and sex symbols) and tries to connect with him actively (no more secrets). This fails flat since they don’t interact more in season 2 and 3, except the time Mike stole Nancy’s money. The only other interactions known are from the comics: one from the free issue, and other in the D&D saga. In both situations, Nancy catches something is bothering Mike, and reassures him everything will be okay. Nancy even comments she wished she had friends like his, thus wanting to return to her former state as a child, when everything was simple and nice.
The only time Mike is seen defending Nancy’s honour (aka sexual virtue) is on season 2, with Keith and “don’t prostitute my sister!” scene at the Arcade. Aside from that, we still didn’t see Mike given a lot of thought on his sister.
They are never seen interacting with Holly.
Karen: the unsatisfied adult
Karen is the active parent. She makes the questions. She stays with the children. She is the housewife. She demands attention from them and of both of the parents, she is the one who freaks out about the lab coming home. She is almost discovers about Eleven on season 1 and almost get flayed on season 3. She tries to remind her children constantly she is there for them. Unfortunately, their children refuse her company and help. It is not until both of them became “adults” on season 3 they look actively for her. On season 1, she extends the protective vibes to Joyce, who is having a metal breakdown and is pretty implied she is the one who bought Will’s Atari. She is visibly distressed when Will’s body was found. Her house is the Party’s main reunion place and she gave cookies to Billy. She also seems an awful judge of character, since she considered Ted a suitable partner for the rest of her life, Billy as a cheating partner, and Margaret Tatcher as a good political candidate according to her conversation on the phone.
Karen is manipulated by Nancy through the “what they will think about us if we don’t show at the school Will related incident” scheme to go to Steve’s party. This is what makes Karen some sort of tragic figure: Karen did what she was told: “marry well with a decent guy, buy a house and have children”, and she excelled on it. However, is on season 2 we fully see this was not her case. She is stuck with a guy she didn’t love and doesn’t pay attention to her, the children don’t love her back as much as she does, she tried to have a professional career but failed due to the times. She represents the deconstruction of the adult happy family.
On season 3, she is trying to reclaim her youth and life through Billy’s affaire. There were some hints here and there before: Karen is showed to have deduction skills like Nancy, opening locks like Max, and starting to display hobbies on her own. I have talk about the Billy affaire and how messy this was for both characters here, so I won’t repeat myself. Briefly, it was a mess not because of the cheating itself, but for the fact they were looking something else (the opposite of what they think they are) in the other. I won’t talk about Billy’s POV of the situation here (it would be on his own post), but it wasn’t a mystery why she is attracted to him: he is the exact opposite of her husband. While Ted is old (and was the older partner when they married), Billy is young and free. While Ted is quiet and predictable, Billy is loud and wild. While Ted is compliant, Billy is assertive. And most important: while Ted makes her feel invisible and non important, Billy looks actively for her company and makes her feel desired and heard.
She has to take the adult choice for both of them, if not because she loves Ted, but because her family (and Billy) deserved more than just half-Karen.
Motherhood with Karen
Karen lines with her children are always “talk to me”. It is ironic that the only one who talks to her without being pressed to do it was Billy, the motherless child. She is constantly being ignored by her children, so there is no much parenting to speak of. However, aside from Joyce Byers, she is the parent doing the more active parenting of the show. She is always there and on season 3 she only lost track of the children (avoiding her on purpose to kill the Mind Flayer) after the 3rd Party’s member house. So we can say that her mothering skills failures are not really on her side.
She is more drawn to Nancy due to both being women, and even the teaching (like the dressing for the funeral scene) are from the optics of women roles (“do you want to look pretty for the funeral?”). It’s a pity Karen’s life represents pure nightmare fuel for her own daughter.
Ted: the bumbling dad
There is no much information for this character, since he fills the 80s cliché of “bumbling dad”. This stops being funny after a while, since the writers were throwing the character straight into abusive, neglectful dad territory, whose only redeeming qualities is that at least he isn’t Lonnie Byers or Neil Hargrove. What we know about him until this moment, is that he is the breadwinner of the family. He has a high paid job, one of the reasons why Karen married him, and given his work clothes, he’s implied to be some sort of office worker. He leaves the child raising exclusively to Karen, and only chimes in to give some weird, abstract life advice (if ever). He is dismissed always both by the narrative and also by the rest of the characters.
Ironically, he knew from season 1 that the Russians were involved in the Upside Down and Hawkins plot somehow, and he saludates the governement agents with the classic military wave, which led to some memes and crack theories about how Ted is a cover agent of the government. His status is mocked in universe by the rest of the characters. The fact of how much times Ted is caught on screen sleeping in front of the TV also led Netflix to release a video compilation of his siestas.
Parenthood with Ted
Ted’s parenting is almost inexistent on season 1 and like Karen, through gender roles. He instructs Mike how to be properly dress at Will’s funeral (like an adult man) and chastises bad language (associated with teen rebellion). On season 2 and 3, he is even more inexistent. We suppose he loves his children, and the children love him back, but all of this is more perfomative and expected from the audience, than showed. He does provides for his family, though, and despite being absent, he is never seen actively harming or abusing the rest of his family. Holly, being so young, doesn’t get her father’s flaws, so she is shown closer to him than the rest. Holly sleeping on Ted’s lap is precisely the scene added by Cara Buono that made Karen chose her family over Billy.
Relationship between the parents
There is a full scene on season 1 in which Nancy plainly tells Jonathan her parents married for convenience: she was young, he was older and from a good family and job, and they married and buy the classic suburban house. This is remarked more and more as seasons pass: Karen is seen trying to reignite the fire (if ever there was one) but Ted is clueless.
The family is rooted deeply into “classic” values, they had a Reagan/Bush ‘84 sign during elections on season 2. The other family that ever has shown any political motivations was the Mayfield/Hargrove family, in which as per the book, both parents support the Republican Party too.
Bonus 1: Barbara Holland
Best friend of Nancy Wheeler, 1st kill of the demogorgon and main plot point for season 2, there isn’t a lot to talk about her, despite her huge impact in the fandom. She was nice, smart and responsible. Some part of the fandom think her friendship with Nancy was a bit idealized, and despite having a good relationship, the few scenes we had with them are not the best for both parts. She was invited at Steve’s party, dragged to the Upside Down, and then murdered. Her corpse reappeared here and there.
Most of the information about Barb comes from Nancy. Appartently, she had a good relationship with her parents, Nancy made sleepovers at her house and her parents were devastated to the point of sold the house to pay Murray’s investigation. They had a lot of pictures of her around the house, even in the bathroom. Her parents were normal, her house as normal, her clothes were normal though a bit old fashioned, her interests and life were normal.
Most of the fandom, myself included, we think Barb was a lesbian or bi, because of her clothes, attitude and her very intimate relationship with Nancy. In canon there is nothing to support this, since she isn’t shown to be attracked to anybody, nor comments on a romantic relationship or crush, but the scene in which she notes the new bra on Nancy was... let’s say interesting.
What happened to her parents never appeared on screen, but presumably, they left the town.
Bonus 2: Hopper
Hopper is not invested in the children as much as Joyce, but he leaves some marks here and there. Hopper is fuelled with toxic masculinity, but most of his traits are on the good side, like his assertiveness and protectiveness inspires Mike. He can also readapt his old views of the world and takes into account Nancy quickly: during a moment of stress, he asks Jonathan if he knows how to shoot, Nancy enters in and he gave her the weapon without hesitation.
How economic issues affect the characters?
Being the white suburban standard family, the Wheelers with the exception of he Sinclairs, are the most stable of the bunch by far, given their historical context. Ted is the breadwinner and is able to afford a good house in a nice neighborhood, Karen is the housewife and caretaker.
Mike’s clothes are generic and mass produced, but in good condition. It is noteworthy he wears like a younger version of his father. His room is big, clean and also he owns the basement. His nerd toys and D&D books were rare and quite expensive back in his time.
Eleven’s aside, Nancy’s style and hair develop drastically along the series from a more generic demure, middle class, popular teen wannabe to her own, mature style. Her big, clean room is filled with girly teenager interests. At some point before season 3, she owns a driver license and her make up and “girly clothes” were increased, showing she has became an adult.
Contrasting Ted well established social status, Karen faced some problems during her younger years. It is stated one of the reasons she married Ted was for money. Added with her conversation with Nancy about her job, and the fact she is a lock picking hints some economical struggle on her side. Also maybe she was a teen rebel, because lockpicking is not a classic housewife skill, so maybe that also explains why she fell for the local bad boy.
Okay, now I want a Karen the ex metalhead biker spinoff. Yes, I watched Riverdale.
How gender roles affect the characters?
It is impossible to separate Mike and Ted, and Nancy and Karen from their genders. Both of the parents are low-key feeding their gender roles to their children (Ted with some masculinity bits here and there, Karen with some sexuality/job advice). Memes aside, Ted was in the right age (like the other fathers of the show) to have been sent to Vietnam, so all the moments sleeping maybe shows some form of PTSD. And Karen told the audience/Nancy she is a housewife because she was “not enough” for a men’s world.
Any of the children are actively pursuing those gender roles strictly, since there is a constant comment of the younger generation refreshing the air and setting aside the previous roles. There is some instances in which both siblings are clearly refusing their preasigned gender roles, like Mike’s continuous effort of being the assertive, brave, nice, protective leader and Nancy’s refusal to be reduced as someone’s girlfriend or the coffee maker. Mike stands out as an empathetic, nice, sensitive figure. We see him cry on screen and displays affection, love and friendship in an era when men were supposed to be “men” without any emotions. He solves things mostly through talking, he asks for girlfriend and emotional advice, and all of him remarks his “unmanly” nature. All of this is also extended in how he interacts with his male friends, while touching or having heart-to-heart conversations, but been more confrontational with women who are not love interests. He also choses and enjoys activities not related with the classic boy/men archetypes.
Nancy’s concept, arc and plots is much more liked to her gender than Mike’s. A great part of season 1 and 2 is literally her sexual awakening and consequences, and on season 3 she has to deal with men in a world created by men for men. This is disrupted somehow by the arrival of the Upside Down everytime: she sets aside her destiny as a future Karen, something she despises and embraces her teen/adult moment through fighting in more masculine clothes. On season 1, she wears all this pastel, femenine colours and skirts and while fighting, she is dressed with more masculine clothes. On season 2, she wears still her “fighting” clothes, but here and there we see her femenine side with pink and jewelry. But on season 3, she wears bold colours and clothes that definitely screams “yes, I’m a woman”.
Nancy has some unexpected shooting skills (in the scene she coincidentally talks about her parents with the “femenine” Jonathan), and develops them into a full weapon skill set during seasons 2 and 3. This is brought up by the book Runaway Max, the Max prequel. Max laments she doesn’t have a lot of female roles to aspire of, and that makes her difficult to connect her masculine and femenine side, but then arrives Nancy with her niceness, her makeup, her pink and ballerina accessories, and shot a monster with a rifle. Another comment can be made about Nancy’s choices in men: despite her desire to not become a Karen, she choose boys that can help to fullfill that nuclear family + house + dog dream but also deconstructed that idea at the same time: Steve, at first, looks like the golden boy with good prospects, but he has some fire and sense of adventure in him. Jonathan, in the other side, is this struggling with money teenager, but a boring and safe option.
The Hawkins yearbook reinforces her mix of feminine and masculine traits: her future career is (now femenine) journalism, her favourite subjects are all femenine except (masculine) Maths, her interests are (masculine) studing, (masculine) swimming (maybe linked with how Steve was supposed to be a swimmer), (neutral) Honors Society, (neutral) Yearbook, (feminine) Snow Ball chaperone. Also she was a cheerleader. What a pity to don’t have Nancy doing this on screen, cheerleaders need some good reputation instead of being always the Alpha Bitch.
The relationship of the siblings with gender is remarked when those characters are paired with their gender opposite: Mike with genderless Eleven and femenine Will, and Nancy with soft boys such as Steve and Jonathan.
