What do you think about this kids' book explaining plastic surgery?

@Seelix: “What do you think about it and what it represents?”

It represents a species with some f*cked-up priorities and ideas.

Thanks Seelix. I feel a bit sad and ill now.

It sounds like it must be, has to be a sick fucking joke.
The fact that it probably isn’t is the most damning aspect of all.

$19.95?! What a rip-off!
This is probably the best review of the book.

Parental narcissism that has toppled over the cliff edge of sanity.

The article put it better than I could, but wow. Really messed up.

When I was in middle school my friend’s mom had this old board game from the 1960s. Girls could play and choose different career paths like nurse, flight attendant, model, waitress, or housewife. Our reaction was kind of, “holy shit, this is real?” and then we had a talk about how different things were back then. I think that years from now, this children’t book will be a relic of our old shame.

I noticed that the author is a plastic surgeon. I think the book is silly. I think it represents good marketing towards plastic surgery. There’s no kiddy book called ”plastic surgery gone wrong, mommy is still pretty on the inside” because that wouldn’t sell more face-lifts, and it probley would be too sad.

It makes me think about walking outside and shooting myself, because if this is how it’s going to be I want out. Seriously. Mommies, beauty starts from within and flows out. Don’t buy into this horseshit.

So many women have bought into the idea that if they don’t look beautiful, no one will listen to them any more. I know some really smart women who are frantic to gain some edge. These are beautiful women in their fifties who already look like they are thirty and they still think they don’t look good enough.

I think there is something deeper going on here. Some deep insecurity that the women don’t know how to deal with so they turn to something symbolic and visible. I don’t even think it is the results of the surgery that make them feel better about themselves. We’ve all seen horrible facelifts. I think it is the fact of the surgery that makes them feel better.

We can exhort mothers not to buy into it, as @Adirondackwannabe does, but that ignores the real problem, which is low self-esteem. This is a much more intractable problem, because our culture is constantly bombarding us with images of supermodels. Is it any wonder that if women don’t think they look like supermodels or if men don’t think their girlfriend or wife is a supermodel, then they aren’t good enough?

Plastic surgery doesn’t fix the inner problem, and so women go back over and over for more surgeries. They have to keep age at bay.

I wonder if this problem is exacerbated by another—husbands who don’t pay much attention to their wives. Husbands will often tell their wives to lose weight or take better care of themselves. Far too many women buy into this idea that they have to please their husbands in any way possible. Thus, surgery.

It won’t matter of course. The reasons why the husbands aren’t paying attention are much deeper than looks, but it’s easy to pin the blame on looks, when you have no emotional language to speak of.

The larger problem is that all of this is deeply ingrained in the culture. These messages are emphasized over and over. I fear that if we can’t change the culture, women (and men, too) will forever be doomed to worrying about looks instead of about becoming a more educated person who can do more interesting things.

Anything to make a dollar.

Looks like a great way to prepare our next generation to be horribly insecure so they can have plastic surgery too. Job security basically…...

Where is the book for moms with little girls who want to have plastic surgery explaining what positive self image is?

I think it’s the same book that Nero was reading right before he picked up the fiddle.

@Blondesjon – I wish I could GA that a few more times.

You actually had the temerity to post this question and not provide complimentary barf bags for each reader?

:D

@Buttonstc barf bags?

What a crazy idea. I never would have thought to write a childrens book like this that’s for sure. I always knew my mom had a nose job, she had it done in her teens before I was born, and I did not need a book to know what happened.

I have a relative who has had a tummy tuck (well, it was to repair her skin and muscles after two children, and I have to say I don’t blame her a bit. It was not to make her thinner, she was back into her size 4’s. The babies, especially the second one, really damaged her). She also has had a little lipo at the time, a mini amount on her hip/saddle bag area. But, her kids were very young at the time. During their teens she has had a boob job, I don’t know if they knew, because she lied to us about it; and now she is getting an eyelift, which she did tell us about. Some of it is cultural, or what is common in the community you live in. For her it is just normal to get plastic surgery. She has not done anything that was a dramatic alteration (well, except she made her boobs a little too big in my opinion) but more of a maintainence type of thing. I hope when she is much older she does not do so much that she looks altered. When you look at her now you would never guess she had surgery.

I don’t think what she has done affects her daughters image of herself now as a teen, but probably will affect her attitude towards having plastic surgery when she is unhappy with a body part or wrinkle later on in life.

@Buttonstc – Sorry about that. I’ll send one out to you post-haste :)

I just don’t like the idea of a book that explains surgery as a way for Mommy to become beautiful. I haven’t read the entire thing, just what’s available on the site I linked to in the question, but the feeling I get from the book overall is that elective surgery is okay because being beautiful is important.

People have plastic surgery all the time, and that’s not going to change. But why should children have the idea that surgery = beauty pressed onto them right from the start?

It’s nice to know that professionals like Salzhauer will eventually make sure that there is no major event in life we actually have to talk to our children about. Because then we might be subjected to dastardly questions like, “why would you want to do that?” or “don’t you always tell me to accept myself the way I am?”

Is this guy from LA lol? Setting these kids up for failure. But hey, anything to make a profit, right (that was rhetorical)?

“Why mommy no longer wants to look like me” That’d be the title of the Psy book I’d write for this situation. The gist: Mommy has decided that instead of paying the small weekly fee to seek mental health help, she’s decided to spend her money getting cut up to look like an alien species, instead of her human relatives.

@SpatzieLover – or “How mommy spent my college fund ignoring her mental illness”

@tom_g Or “How boobies made us homeless” I watch too many “housewife shows”, a good percentage are “in foreclosure” or permanently refinancing

Fact from fiction, truth from diction. I say get a grip. tossing aside any barf bags. I think the book is there to address an evidential truth, other books do that but I would not particularly have them in my library either. Run around in horror claiming this book will make young girls self-conscious and young boys shallow. Every since young women are coerced into training bras when it is quite evident many will never need them, women have been plied with one form of snake oil after another. The only difference being, the snake oil they want, they convince themselves it is better than snake oil. L’oreal, Almay, Cover Girl, Avon, Mary Kay, Estee Lauder, Revlon, etc, they are a billion dollar industry. Do you think they print Monopoly money? They got there off the backs or women, you, your mothers, daughters, aunts, cousins, and friends. I can bet my dollars to anyone donuts nearly 80% of women would not leave home, unless some emergency or emergency trip to the quickie mart for diapers or something, with out some sort of make up, even if it is just lipstick.

I think plastic surgery many intimidate. If you were not blessed with the genetics to have a symmetrical scientifically beautiful face and body, let us keep everyone from obtaining it so no one notices that I am not that. I am no fan of boob jobs but I know as much as women say “please don’t stare, I am not a body part”_ they still buy into the notion that all men wants a big set off hooters because that is more sexy, even if they look like two popcorn bowls shoved under your skin. Women will get them; those of us who have been around enough can spot them more than these women think. To stand beside someone that gathers all the looks and seems flawless can be disheartening to someone who no one really looks at with vavoom or desire. Same as a person who is a little person could not help but feel out of place at a basketball convention with most towering over 6’3”.

When you car paint oxidizes you repaint it, same with your house when it starts to peel. Your expensive furniture you reupholster. Keep up maintenance on the body that cannot be completed by smart eating and exercise should not be a horror show. Some will over do it because they are trying to create something that was never there. People want to fly to a reality that is not there via chemicals, so people do all sorts of crazy things.

Personality only works if you can hold their attention long enough to engage it. In many situations you have mere moments to catch that attention and then it is gone. Why do you think they have photos on dating sites? Why not just have a name with no picture and let the conversation run the show? Exactally!

@SpatzieLover I don’t think kids think in terms of mommy looking like them, but I do think they think in terms of mommy looking like herself. I think a major alteration in how a mom looks can be very jarring to a child. But, I know women who change their hair color and style constantly, have had minor plastic surgery, and the kids seems to take it in stride. Body is probably different than face. An 8 year olds body is nothing like her mothers.

Families with large noses for instance, talking about nose jobs are very common. Some kids maybe are more self conscious than others about their noses, I see it in my family. I always knew I could get a nose job growing up if I wanted one. My mom would have paid for it no problem.

I need to edit a little. I have a close girlfriend who is brunette and so is her husband and first born daughter. Her second daughter has gorgeous blond hair, and when she was little she wanted brown hair like the rest of her family. So sweet. So, I think kids do look at how they are the same and different than their parents. But then, there are adoptive families all over the world that the children don’t take after their parents.

I think it isn’t nearly as fucked up hilarious as this gem.

I think it’s hideous to teach children that, if they have low-self-esteem, a few hours under the knife will take care of it.

My body has flaws, but I am not about to have it cut, reshaped and sewn in order to fix them. My opposition to cosmetic surgery has nothing to do with the idea of ”If you were not blessed with the genetics to have a symmetrical scientifically beautiful face and body, let us keep everyone from obtaining it so no one notices that I am not that.” That picture over to the left? That’s me. Not symmetrically scientifically beautiful. If people don’t like it, too bad. I’m not shallow enough to think that paying someone to remold my face or body will solve my problems, and there’s no way in hell I’ll teach that to my children.
@Hypocrisy_Central – I hope you don’t have daughters.

Pretty gross. Check out the image of the plastic surgeon in the book – the author doth thinketh too much of himself.

@Seelix I think you’re perfect. You’re hot and your wit is as sharp as anyone’s. That’s a ten in my book.

@Adirondackwannabe I call @Seelix ! I’ve been thinking of visiting her for months, don’t go on my territory!

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I was waiting for you to hand me my head for using the term hot. lol

@Adirondackwannabe and @Simone_De_Beauvoir – Aww, I lurve you both! We can share, can’t we? ;)

@Seelix I’m terrible at sharing. That’s why I love monogamy. Oh wait.

Well, the illustrations are cute…

@Seelix That picture over to the left? That’s me. Not symmetrically scientifically beautiful. If people don’t like it, too bad. There is no law that says anyone has to be scientifically beautiful or Madison Ave quality attractive. Most of us, me included, are not. How one accepts that face plays on if and how they get any cosmetic surgery at all. Some can be attractive from the start but in their mind not be good enough like Heidi Montag. Most of what she had done one could never tell on the red carpet or out about shopping, but she believed she needed it. Others don’t care even if Madison Avenue never beats a path to their door begging him/her to hawk their widget. There will be someone, if there is not already, out there that will find, or do find you the cat’s meow. The more they know you and grow to love you because of who you are, you will be more beautiful to them. There is a Middle Eastern saying I read once that said, ”Pretty is in the eye of the beholder, but beauty comes from the soul”. I also heard someone say, ”You do not love a woman because she is beautiful, be is beautiful to you because you love her”. I agree with both of those, there are more non-supermodel women out there and most find partners; not all men are fixed on the VS model.

Apparently many women think what body image problem they have will be fixed by getting the nose or boob job, sucking out the fat they don’t want to go to the gym to remove, etc. People also can’t deal with reality and want to find it in a needle, a glass pile, or a bottle. Everyone has some catalyst for them to do something other then totally natural. Maybe most women don’t go under the knife, but no one can tell me most won’t leave the house au natural with no makeup on whatsoever. Are they any better than the woman who uses a more permanent solution? Logically they are both after the same thing, to make better or accentuate what they have.

I never said you were not attractive. Compared to many women I have seen day in and day out you would have a third round KO over them. How attractive, is not for me to say, because I have no modeling contract, or staring role in a movie to offer. What I think is quite fetching another will go, eh, and still another might wolf whistle.

I hope you don’t have daughters. If the good Lord give me a daughter I will be just has happy. I will start early showing her she can be all that and a sleeve of Pringles with out having to buy into any of the snake oil. That includes painting her face every time she leaves the house, cosmetic surgery, or shackling herself to a live of Spandex servitude if she do not need to.

Possibly the worst piece of literature I’ve ever seen…..and I’ve seen some shitty literature!

@Hypocrisy_Central – I hope you do treat your daughters that way. I’m more than a little tipsy right now, so I’m not about to respond to the rest of your answer at the moment. I just resent the idea that surgery = beauty, regardless of where it’s coming from.
You know, or at least you should know, that I respect you, although I don’t always agree with your points of view. I don’t mean to attack you or anything like that – it was just a little emotion that came out earlier.

@Seelix I hope you do treat your daughters that way. You can bet on it. They will also be boy savvy way before they need to be. They will know if they have to get on their back or on their knees to be popular with a boy or to make him like her; that is not the boy to mess with.

You know, or at least you should know, that I respect you, although I don’t always agree with your points of view. I don’t mean to attack you or anything like that – it was just a little emotion that came out earlier. C’mon, you kidding? I surely did not feel attacked. You, @JLeslie, @SavoirFaire, @FutureMemory, @laureth, and a small army of others keep me sharp and in my ‘A’ game. Surely, you get my respect. On issues like this, I suspect most get emotional and/or passionate on what they believe on it. It would be worse if you never say fit to pay any attention at all, good or bad. :-)