Being A Short Girl Isn’t All That Bad

I’m 4’ 11”. I’ve been 4’ 11” since about fourth or fifth grade. I thought, at one point, that I was 4’ 11” and 3/4. In fact, one time a doctor even told me I should just go ahead and say that I’m 5 feet tall since I was just about there. Or maybe I was dreaming that…? In a nutshell, I’m short. Really short, obviously.

Not that I mind, I mean I can still go on all the rides at amusement parks and wear heels and for the most part buy clothes from regular stores (with a little hemming action done by your’s truly at home). There are some perks to being short, and also some pitfalls. But being short is all I’ve ever known, obviously. So I guess I’ll focus on the positives and stick with that! All-in-all, being a short girl really isn’t that bad.

Not A Little Person

In case you were wondering, no, I’m not a “little person”. Little? Yes. Person? Yes. Little person? Yes. But there is no genetic anomaly for my shortness. Not officially at least, I just have short family. Legal classification of a Little Person is no more than 4’ 10”. Although, the average height for people who are just plain short is 4 feet. So I guess if i’m lumped into that category, I’m pretty tall for a short person! I happen to be taller than all my paternal aunties! I was even taller than my maternal grandmother, but not by much.

My dad is fairly short, maybe only 5’ 8”. In his prime he was a dorky but lean, muscular Afro sporting Latino lady loving hippy. Very tight curly hair that was fine and very soft. My mom was on the shorter side of average height, slender but shapely lady of Italian/Spanish heritage. She had very thick, medium brown wavy hair, fair skin, thick eyebrows, curly eyelashes and full lips. She was beautiful (but of course, I’m partial).

being a short girl parents

Sometimes I wonder if maybe my parents genes were just experimenting different genetic combos when I was conceived. I got the “short” end of the stick (yes, I meant to include every inch of that pun!). I’m short, I have thin, frizzy hair, thin lashes, thin eyebrows… you get the gist. My brothers got the height, the amazing thick curly hair, the thick eyebrows, the long and thick curled eyelashes, full lips… It’s like the genes experimented with me, and then when my brothers were conceived they were like “Ok, we got this!”.

This picture is with 3” platform wedges, mind you… and taken from the angle of a tall person.

being a short girl wedges

My family is all pretty much around this height. Men on my father’s side are all about my Dad’s height, 5’8” or so. Women are all shorter than me, though I think my Grandmother may have been about my height. All my Aunts are slightly shorter than me, but not by much. Family on my mom’s side seem to be a smidge taller. Ever since I can remember I’ve always wanted to be taller. So much so that I always knew that I wanted to marry someone much taller than me so my kids would not be as short as I am. I was hoping for them to be at least average height. No reason in particular other than I just wanted them to have whatever advantages of “average height” people have…

Married To A Giant

Fast forward 22 years to the night of January 19th, 2003. I met my dream boat. All 6 feet 4 inches of him. And yes, I absolutely married him, and we now have a 12 year old daughter and a 7 year old son. Our precious daughter was born with big ole’ feet! So I knew my master plan to have taller children had worked. She is now a full 3 inches taller than me and, if the height prediction given when she was 2 years old, will grow to be approximately 5’ 10”.

Our little guy was just a hair smaller than his sister… which apparently translates to quite a big difference when you grow up. He’s always been on the smaller side, though it’s not necessarily overly small. He’s lean and just slightly shorter than some of his friends. And he was estimated to be about 5’10” as well. So I guess that’s not too bad! At least he won’t be shorter than me!

I’m still holding out hope that he will get that random gene that kicks in the last year of high school like his dad did and grow like, a foot and blow everyone out of the water! Although, with all his personality, I’m not sure even a 6’4” body could be enough to contain him. 🙂

That is one thing, I hadn’t even thought of growing up as a short person; personality. I didn’t realize how much personality these little humans that we made would have. Sometimes one of my kids will say something that will just shock me with how incredibly witty, or hilarious they are.

And while I’d love to take the credit for all the personality packed in my little kids’ heads, unfortunately I can’t. I’m pretty sure 90% of their personalities come from my own, personal ‘Dream Boat’ husband.

being a short girl

There might be a handful of humans reading this who happen to know this man, or, at least, think they do. So I won’t divulge too much of what he’s like at home but suffice to say… he’s awesome. Like, SUPER awesome. Like, I still have a massive crush on him after 13 years of being together awesome. Seriously… it’s kind of ridiculous… but whatever. It’s the truth.

We’ve had people comment a few times on the difference in our height, though not much. One sweet little old lady said we were a “striking couple”, which I took to mean something along the lines of “hard to not notice” because of how much taller he is than I am. I’m sure now that our daughter is 12 years old and taller than me it throws people off until they see I’m the older one. HAHA

It’s wonderful having a husband so tall though! He reaches everything I can’t. He can put things in that super high shelf I can’t reach without me having to grab the step stool (and yes, I do grab a step stool sometimes). He can fix that crooked frame above the tv so I don’t have to go grab the big stick to push it into place.

I can even wear heels as high as I want (which I never really take advantage of actually, but at least when I want to I can!). Not that they would make much of a difference… I wore 6” heels with a 3’ platform for our wedding and was still way shorter than he was. Not too easy to tell in this photo, but I sure did try to show the shoes!

being a short girl wedding

Ultimately, being a short girl hasn’t been that bad. The worst parts were the one time I had to be Chuck E. when I worked at Chuck E. Cheese (my first job ever at 16 years old) and I was almost knocked over by kids who were all almost as tall as me. And when I was the one who would have to climb through the kids’ tunnel I’m sure he would add that there are perks to having a short wife. Though I won’t torture him by asking him to list any 🙂 See? What a nice wife I am?