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?