Skip to main content

Percentile Question

When J was born she was at the 90th percentile of both height and weight. Now at close to five years old she is at the 10th. When I voice my concern about this rather dramatic shift to pediatricians they dismiss me saying there is nothing to worry about because J is perfectly normal and healthy. Recently, one doctor told me with a condescending smile "Well, someone has to be in the 10th percentile and there is nothing wrong with being there"

I wondered if he was implying I was being a pushy mom - the kind that in later life will not cringe at putting her child on a "smart pill" so she can get ahead of the competition. I wondered if he thought I was the type of parent that will do anything to get their child in the 90th percentile of everything and remain there. I may have imagined the insinuation.

Having grown up in a very competitive environment, I try to remain alert to any signs of me turning into the type of parent I have always held in much disdain. But there are things about one's culture and times that one picks up and acts on subconsciously. Unless an outsiders calls attention to it, we would remain blissfully unaware of what we are doing .

Labels

Labels:

Comments

ggop said…
HC,
Doctors in the SF bay area are way less surprised by this. I guess the millions of babies of Chinese and Vietnamese descent skew the percentages. To be in the 90th percentile, you have to have some Dutch or German ancestry ;-)
-gg
1:38 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...
111 comments
Read more

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...
6 comments
Read more

Changing Pace

This blog has been a big part of my life for the last five years. Besides giving me the opportunity to connect with a number of interesting people and share my thoughts and ideas with them, it has been a form of daily meditation for me. No matter what the day threw my way, I made a very deliberate effort to find a little quiet time to write.The process of thinking about what to write and then the act of writing itself worked as an antidote to aggravations big and small. Five and half years ago, when I started Heartcrossings both my personal and professional lives left a lot to be desired for. The only real happiness I had was in being J's mother. While that was often enough to make me forget what I did not have, I sorely needed a third place to call my own and shape in the likeness of my dreams. This blog has been where there were no limits or constraints and that was absolutely exhilarating - it is the reason I have been able to nurture it for as long and as much as I have. A lot ...
25 comments
Read more