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Listener Advice: I Was the Short Girl. What Were You?

I grew up in a tall family. My mom is five seven and my brother is six four and my dad’s side is all very tall, too. I even have a female cousin who is six one. But I was always the little one. At home, in school, in theater, everywhere. This is perhaps most apparent in elementary school class photos, where I am always relegated to the end of the front row, about a foot shorter than everyone else. I was young for my grade—I started kindergarten when I was four—so that may have contributed, but the height discrepancy was more than just an age thing. By fourth grade, my parents considered sending me to a growth specialist, where I would be injected with hormones. They decided against it, and around junior year of high school I finally started growing. Today, I’m five four. Not tall, certainly, but fairly average.

Still, as a kid, being the short girl became my identity. It made me into a little Napoleon. I was insecure at school, and I covered that up by being loud and bossy at home. It didn’t help that I felt like I lived in the shadow of my older brother, Bob, who I couldn’t stand. Today, I adore him. He’s a professor of sociology at UC Davis who specializes in bullying and has worked with Anderson Cooper to raise awareness about what it’s like to be a teenager in today’s world. But back then, when the two of us were teenagers, we hated each other. He was a big tough guy, and I was a tiny short girl, and he generally overpowered me.

I had all of two victories over Bob when we were kids. The first was during a snow day. We rarely got snow days in Edmonds, because the city is close to the water, so it doesn’t snow much. Always rain, never snow. One day when school actually did get canceled due to the weather, we were out in the driveway and he threw a snowball at me that landed smack in the middle of my face. So I reacted quickly and threw one right back at him … and nailed him right in the nose. I couldn’t believe it! It was the first time I showed any hand-eye coordination in my life. The shock on his face was priceless. Of course, then he ran at me and grabbed me by the neck and shoved my face in the snow, but I was still euphoric. What a victory! The short girl had won!

My brother is three years older than I am. I spent a lot of my childhood running around the house yelling, “I hate Bob so much! I hate him, Mom!” And she would give me the classic “One day you guys will get along,” and I hated her, too, for saying that.

I seriously couldn’t imagine us ever being friends. But now we are. Incredibly. Maybe, sometimes, Mom does know best.

(There was one time—one time!—growing up when my brother was not the worst. I’ll never forget it. I was in eighth grade and Kate, my neighbor, was one of my best friends. Most of my guy friends at the time were only friends with me because they wanted to get close to her. You’d think I would have resented that fact or, at the very least, that it would have offended my proud fourteen-year-old sensibilities, but mostly I loved it because it was attention, and, even better, attention from boys. One day Kate found out that some lame dude we knew said I was “homely” behind my back. I told Bob, and he called this guy and said something to the effect of “I’m going to fucking kick your fucking ass; I’m going to kill you.” He scared the shit out of this guy, and Kate and I were listening in on the other phone—this was back in the days of landlines, when it was far easier to eavesdrop—and I couldn’t believe my brother came to my rescue like that. He loved me! It was very sweet, but apart from that we didn’t have much communication until I was older and we were both living in California. Now we’re very close.)

Anyway, being the short girl totally infiltrated my psyche, not just because everyone in my life was tall, but because being small led me to feel like I wasn’t respected or heard, and those feelings were a huge part of my life as a kid. They defined a lot about me in terms of how I related to friends and boys, and I think that sentiment was one of the main contributors to what I call my “proud and angry” phase, which I think was an attempt to overcompensate for my small stature.

Since all that, I’ve become a little bit obsessed with that one-word adjective that people use to describe you when you’re young. You’ve had that experience, haven’t you, dear reader? It’s not just me, is it? I’ve always wanted to explore that question—can other people relate to that simple identifying adjective, or am I crazy? Have you been described as the rebel or the Asian or the goody-goody?

One of the biggest rewards of doing a podcast has been learning that all the weird shit we go through, other people have been there, too. More often than not, those defining experiences that can make us feel weird or lonely or embarrassed are actually universal. So I decided to poll my listeners, to hear their stories but also to find out if other people have let these childhood labels define them like I did, and to learn how they overcame it. What resulted was an overwhelming chorus of stories that reminded me that we’re all in this together and that being a kid can be fucking hard.

Here’s a sampling of the amazing responses, all of which gave me comfort in the knowledge that we’ve all been there.

Growing up, I never knew what to do in awkward or sad situations, so I’d just make a goofy face or tell a bad joke to ease the tension. Everyone would laugh and things would go back to normal, which made me happy. But whenever I was introduced to people, my friends would say, “This is Christina, she’s the goofy one of the group.” Being labeled “goofy” as you’re growing up and trying to figure out who you are as a woman and how you relate to men was like climbing a mountain. I didn’t want guys to see me as “goofy.” I wanted them to see me as sexy or intelligent or able to lift heavy boxes. ANYTHING except “the goofy girl.” For a long time, it made me believe that I didn’t deserve love and I would be forever relegated to the best-friend role, the main character’s sidekick who helped set up everyone except herself. As I got older, though, I realized that I want to enjoy life as much as possible with as much humor as I can. And that means I want to find someone who is just as goofy as me to laugh my way through life with. Now I shout off the rooftops, “I am goofy, and I’m damn proud of it!”

—Christina

I was the weird cat girl. At my first boy-girl party, a gaggle of us went for a moonlit walk. One of the boys brought a BB gun and was going to shoot a cat with it. Just for fun. Horrified, I picked up the cat and refused to put it down until we got back to the house, where the gun would be put away. That night was the end of any hope I had for being popular ever again. That, and I accidentally wore a sweater to school (the same year) that my cat had peed on.

—Catherine

I was definitely the goody-goody growing up. Some of that was based on my actions, but most of it was that I was quiet and shy and studious, and people perceived that as being a Goody Two-shoes. Even now, at twenty-five, I have a hard time shaking that image. Anytime I do anything that doesn’t fit that image, people claim it’s so not like me, even though it’s who I’ve been the whole time. I’m studying human sexuality, I have two tattoos, and I started occasionally doing live storytelling events; all of these choices have been met with shock and awe from the people who claim to know me best but who can’t see past that label from my childhood.

—Tara

I was the only female redhead in my grade in elementary school, and to make matters worse, my hair was approximately five times the size of my head. So I was known as “the redhead” or “puffball” because of my puffy hair. As I got older, the names got worse. In first grade, kids said I couldn’t sit with them because I had red hair. In sixth grade, a kindergartener told me my hair made me scary. By the time I got to high school, I was “ginger” and “fire crotch.” People couldn’t see past the hair. I begged my parents to let me dye it, but they wouldn’t. I never had a real relationship in high school or college. People would tell me that I was too different to ever find love or that I was “pretty … for a redhead.” Today, I’m extremely grateful my parents didn’t let me change my hair color. I still tend to straighten it, out of the fear that it will look too thick and “puffy” if I don’t. But, I like being different now.

—Jenny

I was always known as “the oldest.” I’m older than my brother, so I always took care of him. To this day I feel the need to treat him like a baby, and we are in our thirties! I’m also the oldest grandchild, so that left me always having to babysit my cousins, always being the “responsible” one, always having to set the example. It’s still hard for me to cry or show any type of vulnerability because I always have to be the strong one.

—Vanessa

I was the quiet one. I actually became increasingly shy as I grew up because that’s what I was told I was. It was difficult to get over it, but now I’m able to talk to strangers and make eye contact without turning bright red. I was always quiet, but a lot of the time I was just observing what was going on around me. I’m still observant, but I no longer see it as a bad thing. I learn things about people, and I actually listen to what they have to say.

—Siobhan

“The best friend.” As in, the person all the dudes confide in about wanting to date your friends, but never you. It has persisted through adult life and stopped only in the last few years (I’m twenty-eight). After a while it’s hard not to see yourself as the one people confide in rather than the object of their affection. It’s a ridiculous trope that unfortunately was so true for me from ages thirteen to twenty-five.

—Maddie

The lesson here? Screw the labels. But also, there’s power in sharing our stories.

Also, did I mention that you guys are awesome?