Bullied Girl Receives Free Plastic Surgery to Pin Her Ears, Is Heartbreakingly Thrilled

[Starry Messenger]

http://jezebel.com/5930026/bullied-girl-receives-free-plastic-surgery-to-pin-her-ears-is-heartbreakingly-thrilled

Relentless bullying can make even the most strong-willed of kids want to curl up under a down blanket and spend the rest of day thinking about how cool it would be to live in a submarine because fish, at least, seem like pretty reasonable and accepting creatures. Some people (ahem, comedians) develop witty coping mechanisms to deal with bullying, while others emerge miraculously out of their awkward adolescent chrysalides to become the beautiful celebrities who are always going on about how awkward they were in high school. There are those who are literally bullied to death, and now there are those kids who are getting a strange opportunity to erase the object of their peers' taunting with plastic surgery.

CNN profiled a 14-year-old girl named Nadia Ilse, who said her "elephant ears" (her ears stuck out a little, the way I presumed every pre-adolescent's did at some point) made her an object of relentless "Dumbo" taunts. She'd begged her mom for an otoplasty (an operation, for all you people who eschewed Nip/Tuck, to pin the ears back) since she was ten, but was, until recently, unable to get the surgery she so desperately wanted.

A charity called Little Baby Face Foundation that provides free corrective surgery to children with facial deformities (think cleft palates) offered to give Nadia her ortoplasty. The charity flew Nadia and her mother from their home in Georgia to New York, where Nadia not only had her ears pinned, but also had a rhinoplasty (reduction of the nose) and a mentoplasty (altering the shape of the chin), which all-in-all constituted about $40,000 of surgery.

Nadia summed up the results of her surgery thusly: "I look beautiful, this is exactly what I wanted, I love it." What would you expect her to say? A teenager that gets an opportunity to have all their least favorite features erased, buffed-out, or glossed over pretty much gets to have their deepest insecurities put to rest. Though she understands (or professes to understand) that the bullying may not stop, and admits that she should have learned to accept who she was pre-surgery, Nadia insists that the bullying would have never ended, so if her circumstances weren't going to change for her, she was going to to change for her circumstances. As part of the procedure, Nadia still has to complete a counseling course aimed at helping kids cope with the psychological scars of bullying.

<snip>

I got teased a lot for my appearance as a child, so I can sympathize. But I think plastic surgery at 14 is too much. And what a message to send to young women!

[Warpy]

1. They also did the nose and chin

which really didn't need to be done, IMO, but I guess as long as she was under, why not do it all?

She was a cute kid, ears and all. Now she's cookie cutter pretty.

[Starry Messenger]

4. I'm surprised they didn't inject collagen in her lips too.

I thought she was darling. Many kids with features they hate often grow into them and blossom.

[1monster]

5. She stated that she is breathing much better since the surgery, though, so

the rhinoplasty was probably a good thing other than for looks alone.

The real difference isn't so much her looks, but her confidence. In the after picture, she looks so much better and it isn't her ears, her chin, or her nose that makes the difference. It is the self assurance that she has developed since the surgery.

Perhaps a glamor make over (make up, hair style, clothing, etc.) could have helped her without surgery, because she really wasn't bad looking and her flaws were not all that great. Tthere are ways to enhance one's positive points and disguise and distract from one's less positive traits. (Ever see some of those gorgeous stars sans make up?)

[Daemonaquila]

12. Exactly.

I am somewhat uncomfortable that they felt that doing her ears was so necessary, but depending on her situation I can at least understand that desire. As for doing the rest of her face, that's mutilation. She had a wonderful face full of character, and if she didn't like it she has the rest of her life AFTER she turns 18 to decide what to do. But they made her generic, AND they covered her in a pound of makeup - because she has to conform to the beauty mag ideal of pretty, right? That just makes me ill.

[Atman]

28. Her nose was messed up.

I saw the original segment on CNN. Her nose and septum were seriously mis-aligned. You can see it in the before picture. It wasn't just the appearance, it was actually causing her problems.

As for the chin, it was totally unnecessary. The doctor just suggested to her that it would be more attractive if it was wider. To me, that verges on unethical...just churning up some business since someone was paying the tab anyway.

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. The more that cosmetic surgery is used to "correct" even the smallest of traits...

... the lower the bar is set for abnormality.

Now that she looks perfectly like everyone else, the bullies will move on to the kid with the asymmetric eyebrows, or maybe the one who is in the 20th percentile for height.

The operation didn't solve a problem, it simply displaced it onto someone else.

It sucks to be a kid. Other kids work very hard to find something to tease others about. But operating on kids to make them all look the same isn't an appropriate solution.

[Starry Messenger]

3. +1000

It makes the bullies seem right to bully people until they change their appearance. I had freckles and bucked teeth--life was difficult. But learning to deal with all that is a part of growing up and coping. And really, is anyone helping to stop the bullies, the real problem in this?

[formercia]

6. I know what it's like to be bullied

Last edited Mon Jul 30, 2012, 07:39 PM - Edit history (1)

but I wish her the best.


Give the girl a break.

[Starry Messenger]

7. Wow, was that really necessary?

[Starry Messenger]

8. Well, I'm sorry you feel that way.

A kid once told me that I looked like someone had drilled holes in me and filled them with shit, so yes-I know what it is like to be bullied too. But I'm glad I never gave that creep the satisfaction of burnishing off my freckles.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. I agree.

Give her a break.

It's real easy to armchair quarterback someone else's life and choices.

[Gormy Cuss]

20. For me this thread isn't about discussing her choices. It's discussing the pressure to conform

to societal norms for appearance and how young girls are more likely to seek cosmetic fixes because of it.

She has every right to have all of the plastic surgery and a makeover. What bothers me is that this attractive teen saw herself as the problem rather the bullies.

eta: I had a high school friend who had a nose job at 16. It was effective at removing the "ethnic" look of her nose and she was happy with that outcome but she was a bit puzzled that many of us couldn't understand what she thought was wrong with her old nose.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. She shouldn't have been bullied in the first place, to be sure.

But I feel that everyone needs to walk their own path. Too many people seem to have an entitlement mentality when it comes to telling others what choices they ought to make.

If she's happier, now, what good does it do to tell her she shouldn't have had the work done?

[TBF]

9. We talked about this on another forum I belong

to and the vote was split.

If it were my kid and I could afford a simple surgery to cease bullying I'm pretty sure I would do it (having been teased a good deal myself growing up - my teeth were hideous until I paid to have them fixed in college). But in this case it did get pretty dramatic with doing several procedures. And of course there are so many things that can't be fixed - freckles, height, body shape, you name it ... so this is only going to be a strategy for a limited amount of things folks will get teased about. The larger lesson is teaching kids how to deal with bullying behavior (along with any therapy to help self esteem etc), and to continue to work with teachers to stop the kids who are bullying.

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. I think there's a distinction to be made between "a problem" and "the problem"

If she feels that her ears are "a problem" for her, I'm not going to begrudge her and her parents the ability to make their own choices.

But if bullying is "the problem", this does nothing to solve it. In fact, I think there's a good argument to be made that putting kids in the cookie cutter to make them conform to a template which might be less vulnerable to bullying is actually counterproductive.

[Starry Messenger]

11. I can definitely see it both ways.

I'm sure my mom or any parent would want to save their kid the negative crap growing up. I just wonder if they wouldn't go on to tease and bully about something else. Bullies will pick on anything.

[TBF]

15. Well, it's interesting -

I doubt anyone would put up pics before/after with braces and see any controversy with it. So, are we angry because she got a new nose? Is that frivolous while teeth are more acceptable to change? (Granted the overbites could mess with your eating - but arguably in some cases the rhinoplasty results in better breathing).

I definitely see the arguments on both sides as well because I know you're right about bullies being relentless.

[Starry Messenger]

16. For health, I can totally understand doing stuff when young.

If breathing is impaired, that's definitely a health issue. I had an overbite that wasn't corrected with braces until late in high school and was hard to do because I was older than kids usually get braces. My jaw was locking up, so we couldn't wait anymore.

I just hate to think of the girls that I teach that look at themselves so hyper-critically in mirrors and just see the ugliest person in the world. We try to tell girls that they are lovely and look fine and to love themselves. It's so hard. I'd hate to think that they know would think that they really do need surgery to be beautiful, to attract positive attention. They're just so hard on themselves!

[TBF]

30. Agree -

Any surgery ought to be a last resort after mandated therapy

The ear thing I could totally understand (for boys as well), but the thing with the before and after pictures is that they were really exaggerations as well because the first picture had no makeup. There is a lot you can do just with makeup and lighting so it wasn't really a fair representation of the case.

I've been mulling this one over a lot because it really isn't clear cut. For extreme cases I can see how it may be helpful but I wouldn't want this to become the status quo.

[msongs]

13. before/after looks about the same except for makeup, cleanup, better lighting ng

[DCKit]

14. Now all the little Heathers back home are going to want a tune-up.

Their poor parents.

[obamanut2012]

18. I wish I could remember who said this

Yes, it was on "Oprah," I admit it! It was a child psychologist, a real one, not someone like Dr. Phil, and she was talking about bullying and self-esteem, and she stated that both a nose job and ear pinning were two cosmetic procedures she would approve for her patients to get, because of the incredible results she had gotten over the years re: self-esteem and confidence immediately improving.

She did state this wasn't necessarily a cure-all, and she worked with her patients (mainly girls, btw) on countering bullying.

It was a very interesting segment.

[Starry Messenger]

19. I think for me, ultimately, isn't that she had it done.

It's that it became a media story. Now this narrative is out there. Teens read the news and google stuff and are very aware of these things. I'll be interested to talk about it with kids when school starts again in a couple of weeks.

It just kind of shows how our beauty and the looks of women is one of those things the news will cover in depth.

[kdmorris]

22. I'm really torn on this

She looked fine before, in my opinion, but it's excruciating not to fit in, to be teased. I was born with a condition called Amelogenesis imperfecta ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002545/ ) Before I had adult teeth, things were OK, but once my adult teeth came in they were yellowish, ridged and deformed. I tried brushing my teeth 8 times a day to get kids to stop teasing me. The only fix for this is to put crowns or veneers on all your teeth. And no way any dental insurance will pay for it.

If someone had offered to pay the $15,000-$20,000 to have all my teeth capped/veneered at 14, I would have jumped on it in a heart beat - and I would have been heartbreakingly thrilled. I would have paid any amount of money to have people stop calling me Butter Teeth. I know that you are all probably thinking that it's not the same to have crowns put on all your teeth and having your ears pinned back. But I think it is. What I went through in school has had a lifelong effect on me and it's taken me 20 years to even get SOME of the confidence I was never able to build in school. My distrust of people is sometimes a barrier to living. I do not trust them to not hurt me.

My oldest daughter inherited this condition and if I had had the money at 14 to get all her teeth crowned/veneered... I also would have done it in a heartbeat. It was harder watching her go through it than it was going through it myself.

Bullying children that look different is the issue that needs to be addressed. But its never addressed and the bullying continues. If a 14 year old wants to try to put a stop to the pain that she is experiencing by doing this... I just don't know if I can criticize her for that.

[Starry Messenger]

23. That is heartbreaking kdmorris

In my perfect world, medical conditions like that would be routinely fixed by free national healthcare. That definitely seems like a health issue.

[kdmorris]

24. In my perfect world, they would, too

In my perfect world, variations in people would be celebrated and not mocked. This girl should have never felt like she needed to get her ears pinned back. School has become some sort of special hell for those children that do not fit the perfect mold - not just children with ears that stick out, but shy children and children who are more or less intelligent than there classmates. I hate that she ever felt she needed to get this done to stop it.

Even here, on a progressive board, I see people make fun of people with missing teeth and people who are overweight and any other variation of "not like me". I always assume that they came through school without having any of those conditions that children get bullied for.

[Starry Messenger]

25. I know I'm only one person, but I definitely have zero tolerance for that in my classroom

This society has a very cruel "survival of the fittest" culture that gets passed on early to kids. I had to leave one high school for another (Catholic to public, though I'm not sure it makes a difference either way) because of months of hell from one group of girls (over something obscure, I don't even remember what started it.) If the institution doesn't take on the problem kids, instead of making the kid being bullied the problem, that definitely makes things horrible x1000 for bullied children.

Yeah, there are lots of bullies here too. A lack of empathy pervades.

[JNelson6563]

27. You are a kind hearted soul.

[get the red out]

26. Child culture rules

So the immature child sub-culture should be powerful enough for a young person to have to have plastic surgery to please? I guess that's the message. Bow down to your infantile rulers because nothing will be done to ever correct their imperious and wise rule!!!!!!

Bless this little girl. I'm not against someone getting plastic surgery, that's their business, but to applaud a 14 year old getting it because her life will be made miserable by her peers is like firing a bank teller for not having enough money in his drawer to fulfill all the armed robber's desires.

[HockeyMom]

29. Surgery is not the answer to bullying

Surgery to improve breathing problems is totally different. I had an overbite and had all that orthodontia done at 10. I didn't want it, but the dentist said it needed to be done. After all the pain and suffering, it did not work. I still have an overbite 50 years later. Did it affect my life or health? Nope. One of my daughters inherited the overbite also. We did nothing about it, and she, as a adult, is doing nothing either.

As far as those two pictures, the girl not only has makeup on, but her hair has been lightened also.