As I got the newspaper from the box today, I casually turned through it to see the latest local news.......and THIS caught my attention. And created anger and nausea and a gut reaction. I found what I am about to describe to you utterly disturbing on so many levels.
It is a new children's book....entitled "My Beautiful Mommy." It is written by a plastic surgeon to provide "kids' views of cosmetic surgery." As you can see, the cover illustration involves a stereotypical Barbie-style woman with a tiny bared waist, large breasts, skin-tight pink pants, and perfect hair and teeth, along with a child with her arms outstretched toward the woman and a huge smile on her face. The woman is surrounded in sparkles and fireworks as if to say "Ta-da.....all hail the perfect woman that I have created." This is written by a plastic surgeon from South Florida who makes his living doing plastic surgery on women ages 20-40, or what he terms "mommy makeovers"...breast implants, breast lifts and tummy tucks. And get this.....this surgeon asserts that he wrote this book for the benefit of children--"to answer their questions about plastic surgery"--and he is giving a measely 10% of the profits to a children's plastic surgery charity.
To tell you the truth, I am sickened. Girls and women in today's society, from as early as the preschool years, are given strong and continual overt and covert messages that they need to look a certain way, dress a certain way, have a certain waist and breast size....or they don't measure up and aren't fully worthy of the name Woman. We have come to define "beauty" in a manner that is a virtually unattainable, shallow, surface-level trait that the eye beholds. As a mother to a beautiful 6-year-0ld girl, I must admit that I am frightened for how this shallow mindset will affect her. And has already affected her.
And I would suggest that this view of "beauty" is ultimately driven by the dollar. After all, isn't it the job of marketers and manufacturers to convince us that our lives just aren't complete without their product. That we just can't live without what they have to offer. That if only we can attain their "thing," then we will have achieved success. Our society has defined "beauty" and simultaneously made that state of being unattainable, so that we keep reaching, hoping, striving, yearning, and PAYING to prove our worth.
And we wonder why rates of depression, eating disorders, suicide and other mental illness, as well as physical ailments associated with stress, have skyrocketed.
We are in a desperate situation. And sadly, this is now affecting even our very young children at alarming rates. So what is the answer?
The answer, my dear friends, is Jesus. The ONLY way to escape these impossible expectations is to look to Jesus and His definition of beauty. For Jesus said that beauty is in the soul. That beauty is about humility and brokenness and redemption. Where the world says that beauty is about perfection, Jesus said that beauty is about humility and grace. Where the world says that beauty can be purchased with money, Jesus says "Come to me. I have already paid the price and want to do my work in you to make you like Me." Where the world says we need to be made in the image of the unattainable, unhealth super-model, Jesus says that we are made in His image, and that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Whereas the world says to work, strive, toil, and give anything to attain the world's standard of beauty, Jesus says to come to Him and He will give us peace and rest.
I don't know about you, but I am desperately grateful that I have Jesus' promises to cling to. He knows my name, He has called me to himself, and I am like the most rare, precious, and beautiful treasure to Him. Does that make me immune to the pressures and frustrations that come from living in this world and seeing its standard of beauty flaunted at every corner? No. I wrestle with this in some form every day, though by God's grace, I claim His promises more and more as I grow in Him. I rest in God's promise that He is Truth and Life and Beauty, that all that is good and beautiful comes from Him, and that the only standards that I need to worry about are His and His alone. To raise my little girl up in His truth, instructing her in His standards of beauty, helping her to see her worth and gorgeousness in His eyes.......and to be able to cling to those truths myself when I look in the mirror......that is what I strive to do, with God's help.
In the meantime, I think I'll send this doctor a letter....I have a few things on my mind that I think he needs to hear.....
1 comment:
Nicole,
I hear you on this. I'd also encourage you to read this: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89941792 to get more detail from the Dr perspective.
I heard the interview on the radio also.
It's odd, but women, for whatever reason, are bringing their children with them to their appointments at the plastic surgeon. The kids get confused because Mom isn't sick. The Mom never explains or doesn't do so well. Thus, the books niche.
Again, not promoting or defending much about this. It sure would be nice if he donate more of the proceeds. Just thinking the issue is women's view of themselves and who they turn to for help rather than a doctor writing a book.
And to humanize the guy a bit, in his radio interview, he mentioned that his wife is expecting their fifth child in August, has never had plastic surgury and that she is perfect just the way she is.
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