I don't look like mommy anymore. And Mommy doesn't look like me anymore.
Mommy told Dr. Michael that when I was in her belly she got really big and that she was unhappy with the way she looked. But mommy looks like me, all round and happy. Why doesn't mommy want to look like me, anymore? I would tell her she is so beautiful and she would say how much we are alike. That I'm beautiful, too. But not any more. Mommy wants to be more beautiful, like she was before I came. Before I was born. And that makes me sad because I think she's beautiful now.
Mommy has a new nose, too. All tiny and pointy. How can she even breathe through it, I don't know. She used to say that my bumpy nose was perfect. But she said her nose was too bumpy. Now I hate my bumpy nose. I heard Aunt Lisa say that I have mommy's old nose.
Mommy is also bumpier on her front, all big and pointy. I don't like her new bumps. How can she even hold me in her arms with such big bumps?
[thank you. thank you. I would like to thank my dialogue coach for helping me to sound like a little girl. but frankly, you only have to threaten to punch me...]
The Newsweek article says:
My Beautiful Mommy is aimed at kids ages four to seven and features a plastic surgeon named Dr. Michael (a musclebound superhero type) and a girl whose mother gets a tummy tuck, a nose job and breast implants.
Child psychiatrist Elizabeth Berger, author of "Raising Kids With Character," likes the idea of a book for kids. "If the mother is determined to pursue cosmetic surgery, I think it's terribly important to discuss it with the child," Berger says. But she says the book is incomplete. She wishes that the mom had just said something like, "This is silly, but I really want it anyway," she says. "That is more honest and more helpful to the child."
Berger worries that kids will think their own body parts must need "fixing" too. The surgery on a nose, for example, may "convey to the child that the child's nose, which always seemed OK, might be perceived by Mommy or by somebody as unacceptable," she says.
I don't know how you feel about this, about little kids being told that cosmetic surgery makes you happy and pretty. I like how the mom drives a big, sporty SUV and lives in a 2,500 sq. ft. house.
If this guy wants to distribute a pamphlet through his practice with this information, great. But I hope I don't hear about storytimes where librarians read this. "Yes, children, you're all fat and short and flat-chested. You'll never be happy with those lips. Go ahead, pick that nose while you still got it. And suck in those tummies."
[see discussion on LISNews here. (there, birdie, happy? just kidding, I'm glad to mention LISNews as a site everyone should read)]
