New Year Rant

Okay, so here is a rant. It's been triggered by this post at Notes from Lapland. She's writing about how cosmetic surgery and beauty treatments which we used to think were the sole privilege of narcissistic and slightly weird celebrities, have now become mainstream. Her example of choice is teeth-whitening. She says:

I remember not many years back laughing at the blindingly white, perfectly straight, false looking teeth that every American actor had. Now it’s perfectly normal to have your teeth whitened and many shopping centres in the UK have Whiten While You Wait booths for those lunch time teeth whitening emergencies.

What’s wrong with normal looking teeth, when did they become an abomination? Are we really all expected to look like anime characters?...

...We all know how it works. You see it enough to become desensitized to it, making it normal. You feel abnormal for not having it done.

She puts it so well. Somewhere along the line, having perfectly white teeth, and perfectly straight teeth, has become a norm so strong that it has become harder to opt out of it than opt into it. Did we all collectively want that to happen? Did we tick some box that said "I want to spend time and money on making my teeth look good. That is an important issue for my life."?

Let's play guess the celebrity.
Whose perfectly straight teeth are these? Recognise them?

Ha! Trick question. Those are the teeth of my 13 year old son, and you know what? I'm very grateful for them, because if they weren't so beautiful, they would probably be requiring us to fork out thousands of dollars in orthodontist bills. (And while I'm venting my rage, I want to ask why they are called orthodontists, not orthodentists? Why?) The jury is out on 9-yo, but 6-yo definitely has a crowded mouth, so unless the Tooth Fairy can do a little more magic than just leaving a couple of dollars in an egg cup by the bed, we are going to be presented with some choices over the next few years.

There's the financial choice. Would we rather spend our money on ensuring that 6-yo will look just like all her peers, than on her education, holidays, leisure activities, living environment, or anything else that we could choose. Of course the orthodontistry option is appealing to the parental instinct, because it is visible proof to everyone that we care for her, and are wealthy enough to hold our heads up in polite society.

Then there's the medical choice. Apparently these days what you do for an overcrowded mouth is apply some metallic contraption or other that encourages the jaw to grow, to make a bit more space for the teeth. The dental hygienist who was telling me about this assured me that they have done research, which demonstrates that this is a better strategy than taking out a couple of teeth, and prevents problems in later life. Yup. I bet they have. (She couldn't remember what problems it prevents, but she thought they must be serious...) But my nice Scottish osteopath, when he heard we were moving to America, told me not to let them put braces on my kids. According to him, they can cause so many problems in later life: neck problems, head aches... quite apart from all the issues to do with making your child go through her most formative years with a mouthful of painful metal, which will affect her eating, her speaking, her image of herself.

Don't you think they'll look back, in centuries to come, and judge teeth braces as instruments of torture? Don't you think they'll be up there with corsets, and foot-binding? (Well, not as bad as foot-binding, but absolutely as bad as corsets.)

Here's why I am so ranty and angry about this. I feel so powerless. I know that the pressure to enable 6-yo to have nice teeth will be greater than my better judgement. It's not that I want her to have horridly crooked teeth. I don't. But I believe that there is a sensible middle ground, where a little bit of dentistry will result in good enough teeth (and as Notes from Lapland fears, this kind of talk does make one sound like Aunt Mabel saying "what was good enough for my generation, is good enough for yours"). I believe that getting her jaw to grow beyond what nature intended, in order for her to have a row of white tombstones that will give her the look that used to be pure Hollywood, but is now average suburban housewife, is not right. I want to have a sensible conversation about this with an intelligent dentist. But it doesn't work that way. Dentists are bought into helping people have perfect teeth - it's their business. The media, the fasion industry, the cosmetics industry, the plastic surgery industry, the airbrushing industry, Mrs Jones down the road, I don't even know WHO... they are all bought into presenting us with the image of what is no longer the perfect face, but the acceptable face. And as much as I want to bring 6-yo up to believe all that good stuff about it's not what you look like but what you are, and how dangerous and damaging it is to tie up your self-esteem in your looks, I can see that I've lost the battle before I even start. I don't know who the enemy is. I don't know how to arm myself. I don't even know if I want to win. Do I really want her to have less-than-perfect teeth in a world where everyone else's are perfect?

I feel we are all tricked into reciting mantras which have no meaning. Every time we read something that says a person had cosmetic work done "for their self-esteem", we help create that myth, and bolster it, and now the myth has become reality. It really will be hard for 6-yo to have good self-esteem if she doesn't have good teeth. It's not her fault, and it's not my fault. How did it happen? I feel so powerless. It makes me angry. I haven't been this furious since I wrote about the learn-to-dress kitty toy (I only vent my spleen in tackling life's larger issues...).

Powerless, but not voiceless. That's the great thing about blogging.

And a ranty new year to you!

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You know you've been in America too long, when...

... one of your commenters points out that you've said "a whole heap of things", and you don't see what's odd about that.

... you no longer recognise one slice of ham between two slices of buttered bread as a sandwich. It's simply not worthy of bearing the name.

... your 6 year old daughter tells you she thinks you should get braces on your lower teeth. In her life, 99% of teenagers, and quite a few adults of varying ages, have braces, and crooked teeth are a crime against humanity (and, for the record, mine are only very slightly crooked).

... you find yourself telling someone about Guy Fawkes' night, and explaining that it's a "celebration of democracy" (yes, I used those very words), because that suddenly seems like a positive way of describing the rather sinister practice of burning effigies.

... you still hold onto practice/practise easily enough, and humour will always need its u, but centre begins to look wrong.

... you've written 325 blog posts.

Questions, questions

Hey, I’ve thought of a clever way of avoiding asking those questions that I want to know the answer to, but which mark me out as an ignorant foreigner. I can ask my bloggy friends! They’re a nice bunch, pretty easy-going, and won’t see me looking all embarrassed if the answer is really obvious. So, hello Bloggers. These ones are for you.

1) What is the rice and pasta and bread here “enriched” with? It’s all enriched, every last packet of it. What with?
2) Why are my finger nails so much tougher here than in Britain? Is it something they put in the water, or is it whatever they enrich the rice and pasta and bread with?
3) I know that British teeth are something of a national joke. That’s ok. I can take it. I am intrigued about American teeth, though. I can see why they’re all so straight. That’s to do with orthodontics. But how come they’re all so big? In comparison, British teeth are not only crooked, but small. Is that to do with the stuff they put in the rice and pasta and bread?
4) Should I go and get my supplies from a health food shop instead? What else is this enriching agent doing to our bodies?
5) Can you think of any better place to take Husband for his birthday than Dodge City, Kansas?

Answers on a post-card please, or just in the comments box. Question 5 is a trick question. Please don't come up with any better suggestions, since it's already booked. It'll be fun. We really couldn't live in the Midwest without a visit to Dodge City, could we?