To start off, I wouldn't call my early May birthday "late" (the cutoff date was September 30.) But I don't remember very many boys in my classes who had a later birthday than me. Why? Even a lot of the boys with June and July birthdays were held back a year. That meant that even with a birthday almost four full months before the cutoff date, I was almost always one of the youngest kids in my class.

And also one of the smallest. It certainly didn't help that my father is short and small-boned, meaning I was likely to be one of the smaller kids in my class either way. But the disadvantage of being one of the youngest didn't help, either. I don't know about girls, but for boys, being the smallest in the class sucks. Boys won't dare to pick on the big kids in the class, but they'll mercilessly pick on the smaller boys. Why? Because they can. I felt like I was always being picked on throughout middle school.

Physical maturity helps in ways other than in athletics. It's not just that parents think that if he's 15 instead of 14 when he starts high school, he'll have a better chance of making the freshman football team, but also that he'll have an easier time fitting in socially.

Of course, my elementary school was going the other way with me, considering skipping me ahead a grade instead of holding me back. And I probably wouldn't have liked having to wait an extra year to graduate from high school.