“I expected more from you,” I remember a teacher saying to me. I don?t remember if I was in grade 5 or 6. I don?t remember if I wore the Nordic sweater with the jacquard pattern that made my new breasts look even bigger than they were. I do remember being enraged, thinking, Why" Why do you expect more from me" I wondered whether she expected more from the girls who were a foot shorter than me, weighed half what I did, whose breasts wouldn?t show up for another year or two, who wouldn?t get their periods until high school.
As a child, I always looked much older than my age, and I have burdened my children with the same thing?bodies that spill off their paediatrician?s growth chart. My three-year-old is the size of an average five-year-old, and my five-year-old regularly passes for eight. Developmentally, however?in terms of dexterity, intellect, communication?they?re very much their age. The five-year-old is frequently accused of being mute by third-graders in the playground. ?Why doesn?t she talk"? they lament when she has no reply to their verbose invitations for play. No one ever complains that their children are too tall, said a paediatrician friend of mine recently. That may be, but being big and physically developed early can have profound consequences on how kids experience childhood. Out-sized kids are denied their childhood, one inflated adult expectation at a time.
My five-year-old, Emilia, has a long, athletic body. Her limbs stretch for...