Just say no.
Madame Le Brun and her daughter
Plastic surgery has been one of the great blessings of the modern age. In its infancy during World War One, the field advanced rapidly in the 20th Century, I suspect, but don't know, in part because of horrific wars, to a point where its very advanced today, even though it certainly cannot address every terrible physical trauma. It has, however, gotten better and better over the century.
Pvt Joseph Harvey, Co. C, 149th New York Volunteers, who received horrible facial wounds that never really recovered, even with what little could be done at the time, and who accordingly died in from his 1863 wounds in 1868. By World War One techniques, while still primitive, would be much improved. And all the more so with each following decade.
At some point, however, its logical original focus, addressing malformities, abnormalities, and injuries, seems to have yielded to a different concern. Boobs.
Well not just boobs, but all sorts of perceptions that women are somehow hideous, or at least imperfect, if they don't meet some plastic Playboy model/Sports Illustrated swimsuit standard. This is wrong.
Two young couples. Migrant farm workers in Louisiana and their children, 1939. Candidates for "Mommy Makeovers"? Definitely not. Off topic, note nice example of newsboy cap on man in center.
And if fairness, if an entire mythologized concept of the female form has become a significant target of this industry, breasts certainly are a big part of it. As we noted just about a year ago, we've seen a "Think Big" plastic surgery campaign in this neighborhood focusing, literally and figuratively, I suppose, on boobs. We criticized that at the time:
Perhaps we said it well enough then, so we'll repeat what we said, in part, by quoting it:
Think Big, means, big boobs. The price is between $5,000 and $6,000 (I didn't catch it). And there's at least two of these billboards up.
Well, miss, don't think big. Think natural.
Your boobs are just the size their supposed to be. Nobody needs surgery to make them any bigger. It's unnatural and its weird.
Think natural.
Why would a person go under the metaphorical knife for this? For goodness sake, its unnecessary and its vain.
Just say no.
You are fine, just the way you are.
And that applies to your rear and your nose as well. Just don't. And what's that say about us? A society so wealthy, and vain, that people would undergo surgery for this?
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Granted, mothers have always been the target of some advice that leave us a bit startled, we'd note.
We're not opposed to the entire field of plastic surgery. Far from it. But there's something particularly odd about a society which is treating normal physical forms with surgery. Yes, not all women look like Kate Upton, or like some self deluded model prostituting her image in Playboy, but most people look the way that nature and experience would have it, and that's not bad. Small breasts are not a defect. Bubble butts confer no natural advantage. And some people will bear the marks of motherhood, while others will not, for their entire life.
Legendary Depression Era photograph of mother with her children. Tragic, but surgery wouldn't be what she needs.
And in a society that's gone infantile, obsessive, and amoral with the topic of sex and the female form, suggesting that mothers need makeovers, and putting up the real image of some young woman with child who has done just that, puts pressure where it is hardly needed. This society is blisteringly confused on these topics as it is and can hardly tell at this point that there are two genders. It's not helping young women to suggest that having a child renders them potential candidates for surgery. But then, it isn't helpful to suggest that the default standard for women means having Katie Perry's boobs and a Khardashian's butt either.
Proud Indian woman and child, late 19th Century.
And what does it say about a society that has so much spare cash that it can be spent in this fashion? Something about that is disturbing as well.
All of which is not to say that some folks don't need to pay some attention to their physical appearance. Sure they might. But nature and careful attention have the answers for that. What you eat, what you do in a day, etc., all can address that. Perhaps that's not as easy as surgery, but its what nature would have.
And if at the end of the day you don't look like Kate Upton, well so be it. For that matter, for all you know, Kate Upton without makeup doesn't look like Kate Upton either.
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