(If you’ve seen Dangerous Liaisons, think of the scene where Glenn Close is getting dressed in the morning, assisted by half-a-dozen well-trained servants. Moral: Some looks require a staff.)

There’s a limit to how much you can compensate for deficiencies in childhood nutrition and health care, and maternal health and nutrition is even more intractable. But when you’re talking about a few centimeters’ difference between a fashionable and unfashionable nose, or a weak vs. a “normal” chin, kids might as well know it can be bought.

Knowing that doesn’t mean they’re going to move heaven and earth to get their faces reshaped. I think there’s significant value in knowing that there’s nothing magical, nothing fated, about having a fashionable face. It’s just a thing some people have by luck of the draw, and some other people want and can afford to have done.

I don’t know how many of you are old enough to remember when home haircoloring kits got good enough to produce realistic results. My recollection is that that was when the hex started to come off admitting that you colored your hair. It was also when hair-color-based personality assignments began to subside. You’ll still hear blonde jokes, or remarks about “the traditional redheaded temperament”; but not nearly as much as you used to.

When something you used to have to be born with becomes a product you can buy, it loses a lot of its magic. I expect the same thing will happen if we ever come up with easy ways to alter skin color, or tendency to gain weight.

So, I’m all in favor of telling kids about plastic surgery, professional stylists, personal shoppers, and all the rest of that technology. I would also — and here I think Dorothy Parker, author of “The Standard of Living,” would agree with me — give them the price lists that go with it.

Radicalize ‘em early, sez I.

And just for the record, I hate liposuction and tummy tucks and stomach stapling. Why don’t people realize that if they just ate the same amount, but in healthy foods, did cardio, and lifted weights, they really CAN look like Halle Barry? That’s what all those starlets do! They LIFT WEIGHTS. It’s not going to make you huge and “gross,” but it will require work. Which I guess what these people don’t WANT to do. They throw money at a problem you can’t fix on the outside.

Ask and ye shall receive.

“Why you won’t be going to college”

“Why Mommy hasn’t been getting out of bed in the morning”

“Your new daddy won’t leave us now!”

What have we done? What the hell are we doing?

http://tinyurl.com/432gta

Yeah before we all start calling Dr. Salzhauer or leaving him negative reviews on doctor review sites, let’s ask ourselves if we really hate Dr. S for writing a book that helps moms explain their elective plastic surgery, or if we hate moms for getting elective plastic surgery. Judging by a lot of the comments, it’s the more the latter than the former.

Oh my god, thank you. What irked me — all day long, in fact — was the ongoing, absolutely incredible demonization of the titular “beautiful mommy.” It’s one thing to be annoyed by the garbage children are sold well before they can be held accountable as consumers; this outrage directed at women contemplating tummy tucks, however, is astonishing.

Thanks, Antinous, for pointing out that, after a major weight loss, “a whole lot of cardio!” isn’t going to help a person get rid of excess skin. It’s one thing to be angry at a culture that continues to insist on a silicone gel ideal; it’s quite another to redirect all that rage at a woman who got a tummy tuck and breast lift or reduction.

Speaking of which, I just finished an anime series featuring your namesake’s arch-enemy Tokugawa Hidetada.

He’s just securing his future; 13 or 14 years from now these same kids will be getting the same procedures.

But this…this is absolutely horrible.

In a remotely related notion, I always found Second Life (et al) characters a bit boring, because it’s so easy for everyone’s avatar to look ‘beautiful’, so mostly they’re blandly similar.
I always tried to make my guy as ‘ugly’ and stand-outish as possible, just for some contrast, example. You wouldn’t believe the difference in people’s social reaction to a markedly ugly character (as opposed to, say, a stylistically evil one). Somehow, having an ugly character, in a world were beauty is an easy option, is a major issue. Funny huh? ..and a great opportunity for social experiments.

However, Glenn Close..
I always thought she was pretty scary looking, I have boyhood recollections of likening her to Skeletor. I never understood how she got roles as alluring or ‘femme fatale’ etc.
She’s obviously a good actor and can play “bunny boiler” quite well, I just never saw her the way the media portrayed her. Dunno where that came from, just popped into my head as I read your post :)

OK NOW PEOPLE LISTEN UP: now,I need you all to go to the kitchen and look in the cabinet under the sink, are you there yet? Good. Now, take the bottle that mummy told you never to touch, you know, the one with the plumber-man on the label? Good. Now get a glass from the cabinet…..

Best comment so far!