I’m short. 5’3” short to be exact. Except when I wear heels and I can trick people into thinking I’m taller than I really am. My husband, he’s tall. Taller than me. Probably average tall for a guy. I can’t remember exactly how tall he is and so I can’t tell you here because you know how men are. If I get it wrong, especially if I err on the short side of his correct exact height, he’ll get all upset and I’ll have to come back and issue a correction. Something like Correction: For the record, my husband is X and 1/4” tall, not X and 1/8” tall as I had previously stated… And I’m so not in the mood for that. So let’s just say he’s a fair deal taller than I am and leave it at that.
For the most part, my height hasn’t been much of an issue. Well, except when I buy clothes and have to pay some highly talented seamstress to trim 3 feet of material off the bottom of my pants. Where ARE all these women who are eight feet tall anyway? I’ve never met any of them but when I shop most of the clothes seem to be made for them.
But this isn’t really about clothes. It’s about attitudes and it’s about music, because it made me think of the Short People song by Randy Newman. It’s about religion and gender (but only barely) and wondering what, exactly, got into my son. Really, it’s about the things kids say that make you go “hmmm…”
Because at breakfast this morning my son Snags said to me, completely out of the blue, “Ms. Trish is short, too!” Then he asked, “Are all women like that?”
I said no, some women are tall. Ms. Trish is one of his teachers, and while I haven’t actually measured her, if I had to guess, I’d say she’s about my height. I reminded Snags that his Aunt Viv is pretty tall. I pointed out that his cousin Christina, standing at her full height of young and strikingly beautiful and about 6 feet, is tall.
And he looked at me and said, rather pointedly, “Yeah, but she’s really skinny.”
A little later, as I buckled Snags into his booster seat in the back seat of the car, he stopped me so he could adjust his shorts. “Do you want my waist band to be higher than my belly button?” He demanded to know.
“Higher than your belly button? Sure. Doesn’t matter to me.” I replied, still stinging from the implied fat comment.
Then he made up a song and sang “Higher than the women were the lemon drops! Higher than everything were the clouds. The rain came down on all the women and the men hid inside their houses.”
Yeah, the men were probably watching football, or playing Xbox, I thought.
Then his song turned kind of dark…
“The men locked the doors so the women got soaking wet. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! HA!”
I don’t know why but I started getting irritated at his five year old callousness. I said “Hey, that’s not funny. That’s kind of mean. You shouldn’t make fun of women. If it weren’t for women, men wouldn’t even be here.”
He looked contemplative then asked “Why not?”
“Well,” I said, “Women are the ones who have all the babies. Girl babies AND boy babies. If there weren’t any women then there wouldn’t be any boy babies so they couldn’t grow into men.”
“Why can’t men have babies?” He asked.
“Because,” I said “God made it so only women could have babies.”
“God could do it!” He retorted. “God is really powerful, right? He could have babies himself or he could just make them.”
“Or,” he added after a short pause, “God could make men have the babies.”
“No,” I said, “That wouldn’t work. The men wouldn’t take care of the babies. They’d probably sit around playing video games all day, ignoring the babies when they cried and needed to be fed or have their diaper changed.”
“Yea-ah” agreed my son. “That’s why the women would take care of the babies. “Anyway,” he added, “You’ll understand one day when you’re as tall as dad.”
Running With Books 
first I must say that I am also 5’3″. Except when I wear heels which used to be all the time but now is quite seldom…
and when I was pregnant I was sitting talking to a male friend and K kicked rather aggresively in my tummy, I said something about it and my husband mentioned to him that it happens ALL the time…
At which point he noted that men don’t have babies because if they had something like an alien living in their gut and it kicked them they might just hit it back… even though it would actually be hitting themselves, even though it is stupid and it would hurt, he at least would have done.
I laugh and think of that anytime I hear a comment about men having babies.
When I was pregnant with Snags he used to kick me at night right as I’d try and fall asleep. After a while I got a little tired of it and so one night I poked him back and he kicked me again, but harder. I couldn’t win that battle…
What a cutie!!! I definintely understand why it is women who have the babies, and I’m glad to counted among them. Do you think your six-foot tall niece understands, or is she not quite as tall as Snags’ dad?
OH MY! Snags is getting a tad sassy there mama….making fun of us women. tsk…tsk…..is tall daddy feeding him full of male sassiness????
LOL seriously….where do they get this stuff?
Mrs. Weasley – I’m not sure. Next time we’re all together I’ll have to get my niece and my husband back to back. It might be a draw.
Corey, I think the kid comes by the sassiness naturally. It doesn’t sound like something my husband would be teaching him. Now my dad recently told my son that “women are slower than molasses” and Snags thinks that is the funniest thing he’s ever heard. If he doesn’t stop repeating it his winter vacation from school will be tapping trees up north.
I am taller than you, but only just, and I still have to lop fabric off the bottom of my pants because I have really short legs. My mom is only five feet tall (maybe) and her inseam is longer than mine. It drives me crazy.
As for Snags, that is incredibly funny. Especially since I’m not on the receiving end. But TFYO does stuff like this, too. How do you keep from laughing at the sassiness? I find it tough.
Jen, it IS tough, isn’t it? Sometimes I do laugh at it. I try not to but I just can’t help it. And then Snags says something like, “What? Was that funny? I’m funny, aren’t I?”
Belle your kid is a hilarious.
Snags is obviously very bright, so he will soon realise that there are advantages to be gained from not making certain comments to ladies.
I am 5’6 and have always wanted to be shorter.
It’s funny how we always want something else isn’t it.
🙂
I just snorted out of my nose b/c this story was so fantastic. My little one is only 15 months so I have a while before the comments begin.
Ok this conversation has me totally cracking up. The arguments we end up having with our children… it’s beyond belief, really!
Hi Bananas! Just so you know, HE started it 😉