Each time Xander visits the doctor, he gets shots and an updated round of jaw-dropping stats. At one year, for example, he was almost a pound per inch: 33 pounds and 33.25 inches. Dutiful parent that I am, I diligently publicize Alexander's growth. After all, in parenting there is little tangible measure of success, so I'm not going to shy away from proof that I have, if nothing else, been able to keep my son fed. (No small task, by the way.) Xander's renewed height and weight numbers invariably bring a round of football references: "Get that boy a football!" "Tell the Cowboys to get him a locker!" "He'll be one heck of a linebacker." You get the idea.
For the record, I do not disdain these comments. They are logical. Practical, even. Alexander is big. In our world, bigness is seen as a gift, a positive attribute--especially for boys. Most people then, seek a good use for that big size, the way a one might try to find an outlet for a child particularly gifted at drawing or dance. If a person has a particular talent, we collectively reason, why not encourage its application?
Moreover, size is the one uncontrollable factor necessary for sports success. Certainly, being a star quarterback takes talent and hard work. But those two features work in tandem and one helps to maximize the other. Haven't we all seen the athlete (or scholar for that matter) who worked hard but just didn't have the natural skill to be top notch? Or perhaps more frustrating, most of us are familiar with the sports phenom with enviable inherent abilities who can't ever seem to be bothered with conditioning or learning strategy? (You know this type; the Cowboys love to draft him.) Size is the one feature that a person has or doesn't. No amount of wishing is going to make a basketball-crazy boy 6'5" instead of 5'2". The world is full of frustrated forwards and wide receivers who were never tall enough to truly compete in their respective sports. (Trust me, as a tall person I've met them all. As a girl, I avoid the pressure to play foorball, but I think I personally disappointed at least three dozen strangers when I told them that no, no, I do not play basketball. "But you're tall!" they all say in disbelief, as if height were the only requirement. I can't run and dribble simultaneously; the ball bounces off my foot and ricochets across the gym. Trust me, you do not want me on your team. Plus, I hate contact sports. My own sweat is enough. I don't want to rub all over other people's. Ew.)
What makes me nervous is the presumptiveness and prematurity of the football comments. I can't even begin to recount the number of dads who have less than subtly asked where Alexander will be going to high school, I suppose to figure out if he will be their sons' teammate or rival. As if nothing will change in the thirteen years between this moment and high school: no one will move or discover a love of golf or musical theatre.
Big Baby Truism #5: Don't athletically pigeon-hole your child.
Alexander is an individual with his own interests, talents, and ambitions. Since he's barely verbal, I've only begun to discover what most of these are. Still, I respect that he may share my opinion about contact sports. . .or that he may aspire to be the next Michael Jordan. (And no, that title does not belong to Lebron. Please.) The difference between me and the mom at the park teaching her one-and-a-half-year-old "Down, set, hut!" (seriously) is that I am leaving Xander's options open. Do I believe children should experience sports? Absolutely. Early exposure to sports allows children to develop an interest in the sport of their choice and teaches lessons about teamwork, perseverance, and being a good winner and loser. I will without a doubt sign Xander up for sports when he is old enough. But I will let him sign up for any sport he wants to try. I will not ever tell him his size is "wasted" if he picks a sport in which height is less advantageous. Alexander's size is certainly an integral part of his identity, but it doesn't have to define his self-image or his extracurricular choices. Will the road of popularity be hard if he is a big boy with no interest in athletics? Yes. Will I support him on that road if he takes it? Without question. I'm his mother not his manager. Any parent who lets their own preconceptions or fantasies dictate what a child does (or doesn't do) in sports is abdicating his or her responsibility. A child's interests are his own and deserve to be nurtured; he is not a puppet for vicarious sports experiences or a pawn in societal suppositions about gender, size, and sports. He is your child. For me, he is Alexander, who may play football or basketball or both. Who may love golf or cross country or playing the guitar. Who will have talents and abilities that are about his brain and his insights and not at all about how big he is or isn't.
When all of those too-short wannabe basketball drop-outs reacted with true offense (not defense ha ha) when I told them I did not in fact participate in their sport of choice, I usually tried to temper their disappointment by offering, "But I row." Crew is another sport in which height is often an advantage. But either because of their own ignorance about the sport or out of tunnel-vision in regard to basketball, this addendum never seemed to make any difference, and that fact frustrated me more than the original assumption that my height doomed me to play center on some hapless team. Why? Because it left no room for me, for my ideas, for the simple fact that I loved crew and deplored basketball. "I'm not just a 5'10" effigy!" I wanted to explain. "I'm not just a hunk of tall high school girl. I'm Anna, and I row. I also write stories and babysit." But that didn't matter then, and it won't matter to the same sorts of people who will approach Alexander. The good news is that I can arm him with the confidence to take these remarks for what they are--nonesense that says more about the speaker than the audience.
And the dirty little secret that no one ever mentions is that Xander's size will hold him back from certain dreams. We don't like to acknowledge this reality since height is considered unequivocally good, but let's get real, folks: very little in this world is unequivocally good. I took ballet for ten years. I was really dang good. I had a high arch and excellent pointe and strong legs. (I was a little sway-backed, but Miss Bess tapped me on the behind enough for me to mostly keep my hips tucked under my shoulders.) Yet I was never destined for ballet greatness, despite my commitment and discipline. The truth began to dawn on me when my teacher had me demonstrate leaps across the room, telling the other girls, "Anna is the biggest girl here and she lands silently, not like an elephant like all of you." The truth cemented in my cerebellum when I took a good look at the male ballet dancers--the ones who lift ballerinas. I was taller (and likely heavier) than all of them. Not a single one would ever be stepping up to lift me, no matter how lovely my arabesque. Alexander is unlikely to succeed as a gymnast. Although I guess if he wanted to do ballet, he could lift some poor, enormous ballerina and make her dreams come true.
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