I remember Mom measuring me on growth charts when I was young. She would step me up to the wall where the chart hung, tell me to stand up straight, and make the mark at the top of my head. I would be so excited to see that I’d grown half an inch in the previous year, and Mom would dutifully note the date next to my new mark. At some point, the growth charts disappeared. I’m not sure when, and I don’t know what happened to them. I suspect Mom has them hidden away with my baby clothes and those teeny baby shoes, but she won’t admit to it.

I know I’m a rotten mother because I don’t have growth charts for my kids.

I did keep a log of my son’s height and weight, scratching them down whenever we went to the doctor. But after my daughter was born, just eleven months after her brother, the log never seemed to make it to the doctor’s office with me. I felt guilty about it for a while, but then just stopped. After all, there are much more important things to worry about than not writing down the children’s height – like Bubonic plague or dog hair on the pacifier. The last time I remembered my daughter’s height and weight for more than about a day after a checkup, she was 24 pounds and 24 inches: a square. This amused me to no end.

I don’t even have baby books for my children. Actually, Mom gave me one when my son was born, and I wrote things in it for about six months. It has sat on the shelf since then, and I’ve missed writing down his first step, his first pony ride, and his first tinkle in the toilet. We never bought one for my daughter, so I’ve never written down any of her firsts. When the big events happen, writing them down immediately just doesn’t pop into my mind as the immediate response. When my daughter walked for the first time, I did not think, “Oh! Her first steps! I have to write this down in the baby book right now!” It was more along the lines of “Finally! Now I won’t have to carry her any more.”

One weekend when the kids were still toddlers, I was flipping through a mail-order catalog and came upon a growth chart. It was very nice, made from wood, painted in pastels with cheerful animals. The chart went up to six feet, and had places in it to put all of your child’s school pictures, from kindergarten through twelfth grade. When I saw this, I knew I’d come by my rotten mothering honestly. You see, my mother didn’t have school pictures of me from kindergarten through twelfth grade. I was not a photogenic youngster, and Mom was thrifty enough not to purchase lousy school pictures. But I know what moms are supposed to do. They’re supposed to ooh and aah over the lousiest of school photos, then order the minimum package possible and pretend to like them. Then they’re obligated to send those lousy pictures to every blood relative they can think of, practically daring everyone to call their children ugly. And if they have special pastel wooden growth charts, moms have to display school pictures on them.

I simply cannot imagine using this growth chart for eighteen years. By age four, the child will have the lower half of the pretty wooden thing festooned with crayon scribbles. When he’s in third grade, he will measure all his friends on it, and you won’t be able to tell how tall he was the last time you measured him. At eleven, he’ll have a friend over whom he really despises, and the friend will put mustaches and devil-horns on all the lousy school pictures you’ve displayed so far. By sixteen, you will have to reach up to grab him by the shirt and shove him back against the chart, standing on his bed to make the mark at the top of his head. He’ll say “Mo-om, the guys are coming over this afternoon. Can I please take this down?” And being a good mother, you’ll naturally say no (noting with chagrin that Mom has become a two-syllable word now).

I wonder about the people who buy this chart for their children. Have you thought about how often kids with pastel animal growth charts will get beat up in the playground? Then again, grandparents are probably the number one buyers. Grandparents don’t have to deal with the beat-up kid; they get to laugh at you when you do. They’ll say, “Ah, I remember the days when you got beat up in the playground. You said it was because of those darling little overalls Granny gave you, but I would be a bad mother if I didn’t make sure you wore them.” The worst part is that they’ll know exactly why you got beaten up at school, and now you’ll realize that they knew it all along.

Of course, being a good parent, you’ll remember to do this for your own children when they produce grandkids for you. It may not be wooden pastel animal growth charts then, but darling elephant lunchboxes or something of that sort. It doesn’t matter what the gift is. They’ll have to make the kids use it, or they’ll be lousy parents, too. Which reminds me, we’re about to go have dinner with the folks, so it’s time to find that dorky – I mean, darling – raincoat she gave my son. I may be a rotten mother, but I’m certainly not going to be a rotten daughter, too!