This Book is Exploding my Mind

From Nerds: Who The Are and Why We Need More of Them by David Anderegg:

The nerd/geek stereotype assumes, in its very essence, that nerds and
geeks, those who are "born to" a passion for precision, are somehow inhuman or
sick. But of course Melnick's work suggests an alternative explanation:
Nerd-labeled kids are those who have not had the indoctrination about the "cold
hard world" and the "warm soft mommy." These may be kids who have been lucky
enough to feel nurtured by precision, by exactitude, by detail, the ones who
have a warm, soft mommy (or daddy) whose favorite exciting thing to do with them
is not to cuddle up and make up stories but to look things up in a dictionary,
read the encyclopedia, or construct a machine and make it work. The degree of
brainwashing to which we have been subjected by our metaphoric entailments is
apparent when we think about the unlikeliness of this picture. But it is not
impossible; it happens all the time in nerd-labeled families. Perhaps we have
come to a time in human history when, as teachers and as parents, we need to
find a way to erase the distinction between the "cold hard world" and the "warm
soft mommy" once and for all, and impart the warmth and humanity of precision
and technology to our children.