Wednesday, March 24, 2010

One Reason for Marrying Tall

There are any number of women who put down "tall" as an attribute they want in their future husband, and they catch a lot of flack for wanting something that others call irrelevant to what makes a good husband. I freely admit that I wanted a tall boy back when I was dating, although I dated a whole lot of guys who weren't. First, at 5"7" I was very conscious of my height--I was always among the tallest women in a room. But my main reason was a very practical one.

Way back when my mom laid claim to being 5'2", although we peg her at being no more than 5' now. It didn't matter how high she was going to climb on a ladder, she was never going to reach the top of the cabinets in the kitchen or the top of the closets, not without standing on tiptoe or climbing up onto the counters. But she had the perfect solution to her problem--my dad was 6'. In a clearly practical division of labor it was my dad's job to reach the high places. No one was going to expect my mom to wrestle the Pesach dishes out of their storage spots or to shlepp things and get them onto the high shelves. (She also made sure that she had tall children to take up the slack should my dad not be around.)

They say you learn from watching your parents. Well, I watched and I learned. I thought it was a perfectly wonderful idea to divide rooms up according to height, the height of the people in them that is. Like my mom before me, I married tall--6'3-1/2" worth--and I also produced the tall children--at 5'7" I'm the shrimp in my house. This has produced some wonderful benefits for me. I don't like balancing on step ladders while at the same time trying to be careful not to drop whatever it is that I need from a high spot in the house. And mostly I no longer ever have to do this. Cleaning jobs that would require me to act like an acrobat on a high wire have been gladly passed on to those with the height to do them more easily than I can.

Now, I'm not saying that girls in the dating parsha necessarily articulate that they want a boy who is tall because he can handle all the upper level cleaning jobs, but it definitely is one reason to have in mind. I'm always thankful for the man I'm married to, but this time of year his height--and yes, his willingness to do what needs to be done--is an undisguised blessing.

5 comments:

Rae said...

Not as bad as some reasons I've heard for how to choose a spouse, and at least it's practical.

Mystery Woman said...

The willingness probably works better than the height. Although, the two together is ideal.

siled said...

Why didn't I think of that? If I had only married a 16 ft tall woman I wouldn't need to get on a ladder to paint the house.

Mike S. said...

Oops, that last was me. Confused my name and the characters to type

katrina said...

Everyone in my family is a shrimp, and though I always liked tall guys, I didn't see all of the possibilities. I married a 6' guy, and now we can use the top shelf in every room we have--no stepladder needed! Of course he is a wonderful man. The height thing is what you call a bonus.