We recently wrote a few articles on plastic surgery, beauty ideals, skin lightening and other similar subjects and in the research for all those articles, we discovered a very controversial issue that we decided to bring up on the blog as well: children getting plastic surgery for free.
For free. You read that well: for free. And the organization that offers free plastic surgeries for children doesn’t offer them too any children, their focus is on bullied children.
So here’s how it works: a child is being called names for whatever reason, his parents decide that if the child was better-looking the bullies would stop, so the child gets plastic surgery and the bullying stops. We usually like to be unbiased when it comes to this type of issues, but it’s hard to be so in this case. Just describing the process automatically places you on one side or the other.
One can argue that a child getting plastic surgery in order to stop bullying can be a good thing because this way the child will not go through abuse and terror and develop in a confident manner. But what message does this send to the child?
A lot of children and teens feel trapped in their own environment. Is cosmetic surgery the way out?
Doesn’t the child understand that there are some people who are “superior” to whom you should listen to? A child understands that the bullies are the norm, that they will hurt you physically and emotionally if you don’t behave or look a certain way and that you should not be strong and confident with who you are, but acknowledge a “war” and be the one who gives in.
That’s a mess.
First of all, kids have no place in a plastic surgeon’s office (unless they have some life-threatening issue or something that does not let them live a normal life) for either consultations or surgery.
Some of you might have been through this sort of experience, when as a child, you were told by the grown-ups in your life that the most important thing in life is the way you look. You won’t be accepted for your knowledge or talents, you will only be loved if you look good. And the biggest problem here is that you need to look your best not according to your or your community’s standards, but according to what people who don’t like you in the first place think is beautiful.
It’s a tough topic and in time we will see how this generation will turn out like.
We’re not saying you should not get plastic surgery, we’re all for it, but you can wait at least until you are developed. Just look at how much you change between the age of 7 and the age of 17. When you are 7, you should not go through surgery at all (even though sadly, some kids must go through it for medical reasons).
Someone was saying that she hopes that things like “taking fat out of our butts and injecting it in our faces” will be something the people who will populate the planet in 100 years will see as delusional.
That’s not what we think, but we do think we should learn more how to love ourselves. Plastic surgery is an amazing opportunity and it’s wonderful that we can do so much today, but it should be done in a conscious matter for yourself, not for others. The controversy remains open, whether kids should get cosmetic surgery for free or not.
There are a lot of voices on both parts, some claiming that we do need to look our best, because this is the reality of our culture, others say that it might be best to invest that money into education about behavior and psychological help. In the end, who says that bullies won’t call a child names for getting surgeries? It’s not the bullied kids who have to change; it’s the bullies that need to be attended in the end. The conversation remains open.
Fraquoh and Franchomme
P.S. What do you think of this issue? Should bullied kids get plastic surgery? Which side of the debate do you place yourself on? Share your thoughts!
