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Mollie Kaye's avatar

I’m very wary now of pediatric endocrinologists. The hubris of monkeying with healthy, developing human bodies for strictly aesthetic effect seems antisocial, anti-science, and frankly, sexually depraved.

This story reminds me of what I recall a neighbour saying to me about her “small stature” 9-year-old daughter in the late 90s. She’d been born with hydrocephaly, but otherwise perfectly healthy. The doctor had suggested “growth hormone” administered pre-puberty. Everything in me rebelled, I asked what the negative side effects could be, I don’t recall what if any the mother shared. I cared deeply for this girl, and I urged Mom not to give her the drug, to allow her to grow unaffected by exogenous anything.

The idea was that she might not crest five feet. “Who cares?” I asked. “Why would that be worth risking her health, after all your family has been through with her hydrocephaly and shunt? Leave her alone!!”

They did. I think she topped out at 5 feet, I don’t recall. She’s a happily married mom of a little boy now.

An endocrinologist who peers at healthy children, predicts their aesthetic future requirements, and grabs his prescription pad to craft an adult body he deems appropriate is a ghoul.

It shouldn’t be part of medicine to evaluate young children through the lens of reproductive or sexual aesthetics, and suggest exogenous chemical mutations that lead to loss of function and diminished health.

They should stick to the pancreas, I say. Diabetes is where these guys are useful. Otherwise, they terrify me.

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Evelyn Ball, LMFT's avatar

This is a piece that touches me, personally, in many ways.

“…a sexist society…” This ideological phenomenon is often described as misogyny. But the word “sexist” is somehow more directly to the point, and cuts through the many arguments that gender-allies might use to confuse and gaslight—some of the same nonsense arguments they have heard that confused them in the first place.

As this messing with kids’ natural development deeply disturbs me, your essay also brings to mind a not-so-good-enough mothering experience of my own, perhaps because of this being the morning after Mother’s Day: my personal experience of discomfort when my daughter started to outgrow me.

I remember how disconcerting it was to have my little girl stop looking and being little. I had unconsciously expected her to end up petite, like me. I had not prepared for her to change so much and begin to surpass my 5’2” frame.

Something inside of me was clearly resistant to a reality I had not imagined, seeing my daughter from a new perspective I had never considered. Psychologically, it felt as if she was somehow leaving me. I resisted. Not verbally but mentally and silently. I remember feeling intense separation anxiety.

It took me a while to get used to her growing to 5’5”. Although that’s pretty standard for a female, at that time it was quite jarring to me. Similar to your mother’s desire to control your body, I, too, (subconsciously) wished the same.

It was a phase in my parenting I’ve often looked back on with some concern. I’m aware my reaction was unhelpful and unhealthy, at the very least. With this piece, you’ve helped me understand why. I was reacting from my own internalized, sexism anxiety, and passed it down to her as one does a cherished heirloom.

I noticed that throughout high school, and even to this day, my daughter slouches a little. I’ve not realized until now that it may have to do with an unconscious attempt to stay closer to my height level, as if giving me what I wanted, perhaps as a response to my anxiety during that time in our lives when I unintentionally communicated this.

Perhaps by sharing this realization with her I can help her reclaim her right to her height, her body, and she can honor herself that little bit more—and give back a hand-me-down that she does not need and that I do not want her to keep.

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