Passing The Baton
10 months ago
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Am I the Only Person Bothered by This?
I am a person of average height (5'7") and my husband is tall (6'3"). My children have always been in the 95% in height. Height has never been a problem for our family but I still have a problem with this.
Aren't we trying to eliminate growth hormones from our food? Hasn't it been shown that these can have effects beyond building them taller? I'm confused.
But my big problem with this is the motivation behind it. Your perfectly healthy child is being picked on for being short so you boost them with growth hormones. Why not just teach them how to cope with bullies? What ever happened to "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me?"
Better yet. Why aren't the bullies' parents taking active steps to stop the action? Is it ok for people to be bullying about height? Or color? Or weight? Are we going to start allowing children to get gastric bypass? And what are we going to do for the children who are teased about being too tall?
I am a little concerned about the things we are doing with science and medicine. Instead of focusing on cures for disease we are researching how to eliminate teasing? Where is the line? Is there a line? Will we eventually get to the point of Stepford medicine? Will we eventually be able to fix every little imperfection or facet that we don't like about ourselves?
What happens to the personalities? What makes one person different from another? Where is the emotional strength? I know I am firing off questions like a machine gun but I can't make sense of it. Why would you spend 10's of thousands of dollars to "fix" a perfectly healthy child? What message are you sending? If someone bullies you, retreat into your shell and go buy a cure for yourself. Or is it, the bully was right. You ARE short and that is wrong.
I understand in the piece they noted that this child was not able to reach the water fountain and that is an issue. But isn't it the law that provisions are made? Like maybe a step stool? My husband gained inches late in high school. What is going to happen to the 8 year old who goes through this therapy who has a growth spurt in high school?
I am concerned about the implications this bears. But I'm not the only person with an opinion. What's yours?
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4 comments:
I'm not short, but this bothers me. I think the risks would outweigh the "benefits." Why are we teaching our kids that being short is not "normal."
WOW! My brother was short til his sophomore summer, if shot up like you wouldn't believe. HE is know as tall as our dad 6'1" or so. I'm in between my parents. My boys however They will either be about my height or a few inches shorter.
My preschooler at the age of 3 is only a few inches shorter than a kindergarten at the age of 5.
KIDS HAVE GROWTH SPURTS!! UGH STOP MESSING WITH THE NATURAL ORDER OF HOW PEOPLE GROW!
That really just hit a nerve. There are so many things out there teaching us on how to clean with natural products, eat home grown food. And now this. WTF!
Sorry rant over for now. It's okay to be short you will hit a growth spurt and I agree with providing a step stool.
You know that Clark and I are short and our girls are short. Bug is starting to notice that she is significantly shorter than most 4th graders and she really doesn't like it. She "fits in" better with 3rd graders. You know what...never ONCE have I thought about drugs to make her grow!
We actually sat down last week and talked about this in a fun and constructive way. I had her look at me and her Daddy to see how small we are. I told her to be proud of how God made her and remember that she is taking after the parents God gave her. Then I helped her think about how awesome it's going to be when she is an "old lady" like me and people think she is still 20, lol. She laughed and went off proud of being in the 4th or 5th percentile!
We are WAY too quick to drug our kids today!
My husband was the same way, short until about high school I believe.
Even my 11 year old now, she was always one of the shortest & now she is close to be on the taller side of girls her age. She had a major growth spurt this summer.
Science is so wonderful, I do wish people would stop trying to fix "flaws" & work on things that matter like cures, etc.
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