A 14-year-old girl, Nadia Isle, has gone under the knife to get plastic surgery to stop the bullies from picking on her. Since Nadia was 10-years-old, she has been begging her mother for an otoplasty to have her ears pinned back.
Her mother gave in and contacted the Little Baby Face Foundation. The Little Baby Face Foundation is a charity that provides free corrective surgery for children born with facial deformities.
When I first read this story, I was a little conflicted. In one case, as a mother, I completely understand doing anything to make your child happy, fit in, feel better about herself. In Nadia’s case, she had suffered years of being called “Dumbo†by bullies.
We’d all like to think we can teach our children to rise above name calling, but if your child is being constantly ridiculed and tortured, their self-esteem will take a big hit. Their quality of life will suffer. Your child will be unhappy and perhaps even depressed and the thought of what that can result in is just too painful for any parent to even think about.
I mean honestly, who among us, could suffer constant ridicule and keep standing up tall? None of us could withstand constantly being torn down. Eventually, something would have to change.
But on the other hand, do we really want to send the message to our children that you can fix your problems by getting plastic surgery? That being beautiful means that you won’t have problems? Because we all know, that is not the case.
Even more concerning to me than that is that society has devolved into a place where bullies don’t have to change their behavior and are allowed to continue on with their intolerable attitudes.
Instead, the world has become a place where the poor bullied children have to change who they are so that the bullies don’t single them out. It’s sick and it is sad.
When did the bullies become the winners? I thought collectively, we were trying to change the world so that bullies knew we weren’t going to stand by and let them bully us anymore. Instead, it seems that we have decided to let them run rampant and do as they please. We’ve been forced to change who we are to pacify the bullies of the world.
I think Nadia is a very brave girl to undergo surgery. Her and her parents made a decision that has changed her life for the better. I’m sure that if it came down to my child being tortured by a bully, I would do anything in my power to rescue her from that pain including surgery, transferring my child to another school or whatever needed to be done to save my child.
I just wish there was a better way to stop the bullying than by conforming the bullied to the bullies standard. If an octoplasty, rhinoplasty and mentoplasty were all that were needed to completely transform your child’s quality of life from a 0 to a 10, who among us wouldn’t do everything in our power to make those things happen?
What would you do to protect your child from the wrath of a bully?
Photo Source: Aesop
