I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a teenager who wouldn't change something about herself if given the chance. And I think you'd be even more hard-pressed to find a school where kids aren't bullied every day for those things they'd like to change.
Bullying is devastating, and sometimes life-threatening. When a kid gets harassed so badly that his thoughts turned to suicide, something has to be done. But at what point do you go from giving your kid pep talks to allowing him to have plastic surgery?
Some people will argue that plastic surgery is the "easy" way out. Why not just teach a kid to toughen up, ignore the haters and stand up for themselves? Having to deal with difficult situations builds character. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?
Now imagine it's your kid. She comes home crying every day after school. She makes up excuses so she doesn't have to go. The kids make fun of her ears. Call her Dumbo. Tell her she's ugly. Throw things at her. Ridicule her. Beat her down, figuratively and literally. She wants to die. And it kills you.
A doctor says he'll perform surgery to pin her ears back, and he'll do it for free.
Do you let him?
That's the decision a mother in Georgia had to make. Here's the article.
Photo by Flickr member e3000, used under a Creative Commons License.