Mommy version 2.0
| Mommy ver. 2.0 |
| This is obscene.
This is what we want to teach our children? Not only our daughters but sons as well. I find this repulsive in the extreme. Not necessarily the fact that Mommy feels the need to get “prettier” but that it’s now acceptable to have an explanatory book to share with young children the benefits of plastic surgery and that the explanation is that mommy isn’t pretty enough and the way to fix that is to get cut to bits and pieces! Really? What next? A book on the benefits of anorexia and bulimia? A sample from the book – “You see, as I got older, my body stretched and I couldn’t fit into my clothes anymore. Dr. Michael is going to help fix that and make me feel better.” This book is aimed at the 4-8 age group, now being the parent of a nearly 6 year old and having several nieces and nephews aged in between there I can safely say that children in this age group have at least a basic idea of where babies come from, namely Mommies tummys. So in essence what the book is saying here is – ‘it’s YOUR fault my tummy is stretched out and marked up and now I have to go fix it because you made me ugly.’ Nice. Not only is Mommy completely superficial as far as worth goes but it’s also the child’s fault that Mommy is now not good enough. If “Mommy” wants to feel better she’d do well to join a Mommy & Me play group. She’d get healthier, teach her child the lesson that healthy is beautiful and get to spend some quality time with her child. The author explains, in part ” “With the tummy tucks, [the mothers] can’t lift anything. They’re in bed. The kids have questions.” I have some first hand knowledge of this situation as I had a hysterectomy last year and spent a good deal of time pre and post op explaining to my daughter what was happening and why. Even at 5 she was able to comprehend the situation enough to volunteer to help her Dad out around the house so that I could heal. She saw the 18 staples in my belly and the sutures etc etc etc. Instead of being horrified that my belly was now scarred and ugly she understood that I had surgery to be healthier and have a better life and was pleased that I had done so. She also witnessed me being in a great deal of pain. I cannot imagine having to explain the same situation with the reason being that I wasn’t “pretty enough”. She would’ve told me I was stupid … and she would have been right. I could buy into this book if it had been presented more in the light of ‘Mommy is doing something stupid. It’s silly and doesn’t really make sense but this is something I want to do.’ Rather than it being presented as acceptable to endanger your life to be pretty. I smoke and I am perfectly up front with my daughter about how stupid it is that I do so. I’m honest about it being unhealthy and just plain stupid for me to smoke. I don’t want her having any illusions about it being glamorous or cool. I’m doing something stupid but I’m also willing to own up to my stupidity with my child. In the book ‘Mommy’ doesn’t just get her tummy tuck she also gets a nose job and a boob job, the latter of which is not addressed. As for the nose job Mom explains it as not just ”different, my dear—prettier!” What is we’re saying to our children here? That perhaps their bodies aren’t good enough either? If you don’t have a button nose, it’s not cute enough for Mommy. Daddy would spend more time playing ball with you Tommy if your ears didn’t stick out so much. As parents we are role models for our children, whether we work at it or not, we are. Kids, particularly young ones, model themselves after us. My daughter loves to read and learned to do so by watching my love of books. She is computer literate and typing at age 5 because Daddy does and she wanted to “work on computers like Dad!” I didn’t sit her down and force books on her, I didn’t shove a keyboard into her hands at age 2 and demand she learn it. She watched and decided that these were things worth emulating by watching our behaviours. So if I go get my boobs inflated, that must be a good thing. It must mean that bigger boobs are better. If my nose isn’t good enough, hers probably isn’t either. If I don’t like my less than perfect tummy she’d better not have one, obviously they aren’t acceptable. And possibly it’s her fault my tummy got that way, I mean she was the one in there stretching it out. Children are smart, smarter than most people give them credit for. They learn much more by what we do than what we say. I could’ve repeated every day for the past 5 years how fantastic reading is but had I never picked up a book to reinforce that, I wouldn’t have a 5 year old who can read books and loves doing it. My objection to this book isn’t neccesarily that it’s about comestic surgery. It’s about the way it’s presented as being so casual, like getting a perm or going to a movie. If there has to be a book about this is should be a little more honest and a little more factual. In fact I’ve had plastic surgery, for cosmetic reasons even. Though I wasn’t altering my nose or my boobs. I had plastic surgery to make less noticeable the Frankenstein scar on my forhead. Obviously that was not a necessary thing it was done purely out of vanity though it was secondary to repairing actual damage. I wouldn’t go do it a second time though it’s been suggested that the scar could be almost completely un-noticeable if I had a second surgery. No thanks. I worry about the society that my child is growing up in. I worry that we’ve come to place such a high value on how we look. But I am hopeful too. I have young daughter who is wise enough to remind when I complain from time to time about looking older that “it doesn’t matter how you look Mommy, it just matters if you are a nice person.” She’s right. |
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