‘Your daughter is huge!’

[Foldinthecheese]

My DD is three, four in December. Like her older brothers, she is very tall, and sturdily built. She is not overweight by any measure, her weight is in proportion to her height, I can see her ribs and her doctor has not expressed any concerns. I mention all this because I know there’s a perception that people are deluded about the size of their children. I assure you I am not. I know my children are more solidly built than others, but medically all the numbers are fine.

Anyway, my DD recently started at a cooperative preschool where each week a parent is assigned to help in the classroom. While on a field trip last week (which all parents were required to attend) one of the other mums turned around and commented that she remembered my daughter from when she had helped in the classroom because ‘she is huge!’ I responded by saying that yes, she is very tall, but I’m annoyed that someone would think it appropriate to speak that way about a child in front of her. I don’t want my DD growing up feeling unhappy about her size and build (as I very much did) and I don’t think comments like that will instill confidence. Whenever people have said she is big or whatever I have always politely acknowledged that she is tall, but would I be unreasonable to ask them not to use that kind of language in front of her? I don’t want to create conflicts, but I don’t understand why anyone would think exclaiming about her size is a reasonable thing to do and I’d like to politely let them know that I’d rather they not do so, especially when they’ll have repeated contact with her over the year.

This.

Add in a filthy look too.

Describing anyone as "huge" is extremely rude and ignorant and I certainly would make it clear I thought so.

Im get this despite being small not Talland! It never ceases to amaze me how often people remind me I'm 5 foot nothing. It was worst when I was a teenager. Even when I'd forgotten about being small for a carefree moment and I was happy doing something else, some prat would remind me. Took me decades to realise I don't OWE it to the world to be average. I'm not contractually obliged to be average.

Nothing wrong with politely correcting to 'tall yes, huge no"
DD has always been fairly tall. When we discovered her anorexia last year, she talked A LOT about how people repeatedly talked about how 'big' she was. They meant tall but it’s the word they thoughtlessly chose to use that sank in.

I disagree- 'huge' is a word often used to describe overweight people, as is 'big' and 'massive'. They are subjective words and often used disproportionately. As a child who was tall(ish) and overweight and grew up in the north-east , I heard 'big lass' quite a lot growing up. Older people would say it intending no offence at all. I found it painful even as a 7 year old and have never thought of myself as anything else despite times of being thinner and times of being heavier.

A friend recently described her DIL to me as a 'very big girl'. I asked what she meant and she meant overweight- 'but big all over' she said. Her DIL is 32 years old (hardly a girl but it's a phrase ' a big girl' meaning a fat woman). This friend is a size 22 herself.

In my view we should not use adjectives about people that size them. There is no need to unless, perhaps, you are a Dr using them medically. Society is obsessed with sizes - weight, breasts, bellies, bums, penises, muscles, height. They are measurements and adjectives used to 'compare' and 'belittle'.

I’m expecting twins and bracing myself for this! I am 5’8, my fiancé is 6’3 and my brother is 6’3. We are unlikely to have small delicate children! We were all tall children and on the back row of school pictures

Saying big is rude! My reply would be re-framing it saying “yes, she is TALL and HEALTHY isn’t she?”

I'm 5 foot 3 and that seems to cause endless comments. I really don't think it's small but my god people go on. Its boring and rude.

I don't know what you mean about "solidly built" but my daughters have always been crazy tall. They tower over me at aged 9 and 12 so people comment A LOT when they see us together.

You can't stop people commenting. Trying to will make it seem like her height is something not to be talked about and by default shameful. In my experience, the comments are rarely meant to be mean.

My gran will sometimes say something stupid like girls aren't meant to be tall but we call her out by saying they are the height they are meant to be and it's perfect. Then we giggle about silly gaga on the way home.

We concentrate on the benefits of being tall (not that I know!). They have never seen being tall or short as a negative but that their height is perfect for them. They love being tall.

@Foldinthecheese do you get people assuming that your DD is older than she is?

Is this perhaps because there is still feeling that girls / women shouldn’t be tall. I’m kind of in the average height range. However, I think being tall or short is a really positive thing tbh. I was on the taller side as a child and always pissed off I was second tallest. Perhaps others think like me?

People have said this about my grandchild. I couldn't care less. She is very big for her age so people are bound to comment. I don't go through life finding things to be offended by.

Ummm no one said it's worse, it's just a pathetic way to respond. And you suggested the OP say it so backtracking is pointless.

Not all insults are equal. Ugly is definitely worse than big. It would be stupid to escalate the situation. Just respond nicely but honestly, agreeing that she is tall but commenting that she is not huge.

And your daughter is ugly, I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but as you’ve started with the personal remarks

Well if you one wants to be known as a nutty psycho whose child is never invited on play dates, this is definitely the way to go!

My ds has always had this. Usually comments on how tall he is. So she's big. Why is that bad? She's not fat.

My adult dd is very slim, small frame, 5’4” .. all in appropriate proportion. She HATES it when people comment on how tiny (meaning slim) she is. Personal comments hurt, no matter how innocently they are intended.

@RampantIvy I know you didn't ask me but your question came up after my post so I'll answer if you don't mind.

Yes, everyone thinks they are much, much older than they are which IS problematic.

When they were younger, they would act in age appropriate ways but because people would assume they were several years older they were seen as babyish or badly behaved. I remember one of them bit another child when they were 2. Not acceptable but not unusual at 2 but the mum went ballistic because she thought she was 5.

More recently my oldest has started being noticed by older boys. Often much older. She's not interested at the moment but I'm concerned that she'll find herself out of her depth (especially as she's a young 12 iyswaim) and I'm struggling to know what to do about it. We did have to tell a 15 year old who was constantly sniffing about to leave her alone because she was 12. He didn't know. We explained to her why and she was cross because she liked looking at his phone games. She was oblivious to what he was doing. Most of her friends are boys so we need to go especially careful.

yeh, if you call anybody ugly you're the bad guy. Hold the power by boring the f88cking arse off them talking about statistics, means, averages, outliers............... be really earnest. So interesting statistics, right?! and ......there's more, let me talk about the median for a bit. Come back!

I absolutely think you should Say not to say those sort of comments in front of her, actually in front of any child. My pet hate is talking about children like they aren’t actually there.

i was a 75th centile kid (looking back at my white book from the 90s) and people would make comments on how ‘big’ I was, I’m not sure how often but I can remember them 20+ years later and I was so self conscious about my size. On the other side of the coin, ive got a 15th centile girl and people always comment on how small she is, again like she’s not even there and it’s actually quite sad how much she has internalised it. So if anyone does comment now, I do make a point to tell people not really to comment on kids size.

so sad that as a society the body policing starts so young

@Beginningless I don’t think it is about girls and self image. The word huge actually means extremely large or enormous. That is not nice to say about a child whether they are a boy or a girl.

And it is not a factual observation. It is an exaggeration of their actual size. How can that be considered appropriate?

When I was about 3 or 4 years old (according to my mum) I had pointed at a woman and yelled “look Mum, that lady has a moustache.” Now she quite rightly shushed me and explained that it was rude.

It was a factual observation, not exaggerated, and was innocent. I had never seen a woman with a moustache before. But, I had to learn that it is not appropriate to make comments like that about someone’s physical appearance.

An adult really should know better than to exaggerate the physical appearance of another person.

I got the opposite about my son being small. People are crap.

Thank you @HuzzahIndeed.

It cuts both ways.
I have a friend whose DD was very petite when she was a toddler. She also still had her baby hair and was almost bald. On one outing someone commented on how extraordinarily advanced she was for a baby - walking and talking. The toddler was coming up to three.

Oh my god same, I think being petite in terms of frame makes me look smaller in peoples mind. I even had people at work ask how tall I was, and when I said, splutter in disbelief because I must be barely 5ft, I was then told to stand next to a 5ft person to see the difference and low and behold there was one. It’s all very strange, but the comments are endless and tedious

I think you'd be fighting a losing battle, and ultimately drawing more attention to it. The more you correct and comment on language use, the more your daughter might come to think that there is something weird about them.

There's a normal distribution for height, and your DD just happens to be at one extreme end.

Growing up, I was friends with a similar-sounding girl. From infant school she was a head, neck and half a back taller than anyone else. I remember walking to school with my mum one day, and my friend and her mum were walking some way ahead. My mum then said, "who is that GIANT KID?!"
She was taller than most of the teachers by the time we were in Year 3, and I remember memorably in Year 4 once, her PICKING UP our class teacher and walking across the room with her! Her height settled around 6"1 in the end.

She did lose a lot of weight in her early 20s, but it actually didn't suit her frame at all. She looked like a walking lollipop.

oh yes, when I was younger, i used to obligingly obey the command to stand back to back with so and so, so they could feel normal in contrast to me.

Obviously as an older adult people don't behave like that anymore, but younger people were so thoughtless. Literally a case of LET ME ENJOY FEELING NORMAL by making you feel like an anomaly and I just let them do it.