Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Tall Order

So I got an e-mail from BabyCenter today entitled "How tall will your child be?" Interesting, that it wasn't "How short will your child be?" or "What will your child's height be?" Because, I guess, taller is better? Right?

As far as I'm concerned, the taller you are, the more you can eat. I have friends who are around 5' 10" and mention they can gain 10 lbs and no one notices. Damn them! I also recall reading some study that said taller people make more money. Eat more and be rich--the best scenarios I can think of! So, anyway, the e-mail contained a link to a handy calculator to predict your child's adult height. It said it was only useful for age 2 onwards, so that knocked Lulu out. I plugged Chip's data in and then they asked for the parent info, I duly entered Surfer Guy's and mine. Answer: 6' 6". What the HELL? I'm 5' 7" and Surfer Guy is 6' 1". How random is the 6' 6" prediction for Chip? And what use is the predictor? Why predict height? What is the upside (no pun intended) of predicting height? So I can place futures orders on his clothing? Let the NBA scouts know so they can start tracking him? Something I can lord over other parents at the park? "Hey, I used the BabyCenter calculater last night and it says Chip will be 6' 6". So of course he will be able to eat more and be rich." That must be it.

1 comment:

Florinda said...

Yeah, taller is better. But I wouldn't know myself - I'm just 4'8." Size-ist phrasing!

The superstition about height, at least for boys, was that their adult height would be double their height on the day they turned two years old. By that reasoning, my son should be 5'10," his dad's height. He's a couple of inches shorter than that. Considering that half his genes are mine, it could have been worse.

But yeah, what does it have to DO with anything?