All Mommies Are Beautiful

Concerns regarding the hundreds of thousands of women who go under the knife each year is for their children and children in general. Plastic surgery sends a very strong message to little girls and little boys. Girls now grow up listening to radio commercials pushing tummy tucks and boob jobs to "get your best bikini body," and reading ads in the back of nearly every woman's magazine for different ways to surgically enhance their appearance. These girls are being taught from a young age that they are not good enough the way nature made them, and that their appearance is something that must constantly be perfected. It's no wonder that most of us grow into women who, on some days, feel insecure about our appearance and our bodies. It doesn't help that everywhere we turn, we are faced with a new way to fix ourselves.

The message plastic surgery sends boys is for them to grow up with an even more unrealistic, idealized view of what a woman "should" look like: skinny with big boobs, a flat stomach, a perky butt and a tan, flawless face. And what are these boys and girls supposed to think when their mother comes home from the hospital not with a little brother, but swollen and miserable with bruises and bandages? What about when the bandages come off and their formerly "normal" mother now looks like their Barbie doll? How are children supposed to understand this?

A plastic surgeon thought the same thing and decided to write a children's book called My Beautiful Mommy, which helps mothers explain to their children how plastic surgery isn't a bad thing - it just helps make "mommy beautiful."