Editor’s note: Christina Wyman is a writer and teacher living in Michigan. Her debut novel “Jawbreaker” is an intermediate grade book that follows a seventh grader with a craniofacial abnormality who caught the attention of school bullies, including her own sister. The opinions expressed here are those of the author. Read more reviews on CNN.
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When my wife saw on Instagram that former first lady Michelle Obama addressed her struggles as a big girl on the latest episode of her podcast, he immediately sent it to me. He knew it would resonate – after all, on that very day the scheduled publication of my final mid-level novel had been announced: the story of a 12-year-old girl whose 10cm summer growth spurt and signs of femininity that accompany it begin to draw. unwanted attention from family, friends and strangers.
Tentatively titled “Slouch”, the book is based on my own past as a tall kid trying, and failing, to fit in. Before Obama made his comments, I felt my experience of isolation and shame was lonely. For Obama to speak so openly on “The Light Podcast” felt like a private validation of a very specific and defining set of childhood events. But it was also a public affair.
Obama didn’t just speak openly to his audience about his past. She spoke openly about her vulnerability. Whether Obama shares the grief she felt following former President Donald Trump’s inauguration or highlights some of the most daunting challenges of her life, her regular dives into emotional self-reflection across multiple platforms model how our politics and culture, as well as personal identities, can be enriched by our engagement with vulnerability.
Indeed, his courage is to our advantage. We need high-level leaders like Obama who shine a light on their experiences as humans and as women — especially women who are still haunted by past encounters with peers and men because of the bodies that they lived in when they were young. Obama understands that speaking is not just an exercise of her power, but also empowers everyone she speaks for.
As Obama told comedian Conan O’Brien in the podcast’s third episode, adapted from the tour of his book “The Light We Carry,” she still has painful memories associated with being an exceptionally tall child.
“All that, you grow up, nothing suits you. The clothes weren’t for you,” said Obama, now 5-foot-11. She confessed, “I just desperately wanted to be like the girls I’ve seen, the peppy cheerleaders.” Its emotional candor and relatable imagery were refreshing to provide a poignant window into my struggles.
Like Obama, I have “spent my life pulling on my pants”. My frame made me an outcast from the moment I started kindergarten. I reached my current height of nearly 5 feet 9 inches in seventh grade. Raised by working-class parents, I was already not stylish because we could never afford the latest fashions. My frequent growth spurts made it nearly impossible to keep myself in clothes that looked good. My mother had to shop for me in the women’s section of most clothing stores before I even hit puberty.
The difficulties did not end there. No one wanted to befriend the girl who looked like Big Bird in “Sesame Street,” a resemblance I wasn’t even aware of until my classmates took it upon themselves to sing the theme song for the show. show when they see me in the hallways. The few friends I had were small and adorable. When we took photos together, I stood out like an overgrown weed. Even now, the images of my youth make me cringe.
When I was in high school, I learned the hard way that my height would limit my romantic interest options. I was considered unfeminine and intimidating by many of my crushes. They preferred girls they “could physically dump”, as one boy put it.
But there’s a larger, darker context that underlies the lives of young girls who are unusually tall for their age, and it’s one I wish Obama had taken on.
Adolescent girls in our global society are hypersexualized, as evidenced by studies of social media and its effects on sexualization and girls’ mental health outcomes. According to the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, “Abundant evidence indicates that sexualization has negative effects in a variety of domains, including cognitive functioning, physical and mental health, sexuality, attitudes and the beliefs”.
As a tall kid, I naturally looked older. Much older. Old enough to attract the attention of grown men. Men who had decided I was an adult long before I was.
I remember when I was 12, a friend’s dad called me an “Amazon woman” (I was her size). I later learned that this term had sexual connotations; there’s even a sex position apparently named in his honor. I also remember grown men pulling up to me in their cars when I was that age and running solo errands for my mom in our Brooklyn neighborhood. I started to be terrified of the streets of New York that I used to call home.
Research on how to help tall children deal with difficulties with their height generally deals with peer bullying and self-esteem issues. While these are issues that certainly require intervention, the struggles of being a big girl are much more than that.
I worry about the children born into my family of tall women (my aunts are approaching or exceeding 6 feet). My niece is 4 and is the size of a 7 year old. I fear for her future in a world that might decide she’s a woman long before she really is, before she’s had a chance to decide what that means for herself.
There’s a lot to the story of being an exceptionally tall girl, and while Obama didn’t touch on every aspect of that experience, I’m glad she started the conversation. She said she wanted to describe her own experiences as a plus-size kid because it was one of the ways she felt like an outsider growing up. “So many of us in this country feel different, we feel different,” she said. The applause from the audience suggested that she had indeed struck a chord.
Yet Obama not only diagnosed the problem, but prescribed an antidote. “We don’t see ourselves reflected anywhere, and I hear young people say they feel invisible because they don’t see any sign of themselves anywhere in the world,” she said. “So many of us live in a world where we feel different. This is why telling our stories is so important to us.
For those of us who felt we should make ourselves invisible to fit in, Obama’s own willingness to be emotionally vulnerable means we can finally feel seen. It allows us to stand tall and proud.
