Posted on 04/14/2011 8:49:09 PM PDT by TheDingoAteMyBaby
A 7-year-old girl named Samantha Shaw got plastic surgery because her mother feared bullies. The young girl has cup ears that protruded, and one of which also exhibited the condition known as lop ear. Did the family go too far?
The little girl had been teased over her ears, and her parents finally decided that surgery to 'fix' the issue was the only solution. The procedure is called otoplasty where the ears are pinned back. This is extreme at such a young age, and going under the knife is not exactly completely safe. There are many complications that can occur, and the girl's mother reported that the anesthesia made her daughter ill.
Little Samantha Shaw took her first plane ride ever on her journey to the Big Apple where she got her new ears from Dr. Steven Pearlman. The Little Babyface Foundation helped ensure that the little girl's plastic surgery was free. This group helps provide this type of procedure for children who need it.
The 7-year-old has endured being called monkey ears in her short life, and her mom said that adults were the worst at calling out the unusual feature. She was thrilled about getting the surgery and when she had healed, Samantha Shaw also appeared to really love how her ears had turned out, which is good news for her. It does seem like not being self-conscious about her ears will help Samantha's self-confidence.
What do you think? Were big ears that stuck out a reason to get plastic surgery at such a young age? It wasn't affecting her hearing, but her mother felt it was affecting her personality. The video below is the GMA interview about the unusual procedure.
When you are dealing with medical terms, remember they have latin roots, etc.
In this case, plastic has a greek root, meaning to sculpt, essentially.
Children can be so cruel and it can impact the victim for a long time. I have no problem with this little girl or her mother for getting the procedure. It’s a relatively simple fix and can have a dramatic positive difference. This is not botox injections or a boob job. I’d compare it to having a cleft palate fixed. It will save this girl from a lot of heartache and will improve her self-esteem. As a mother, I do what I can to help my daughter. My daughter has a very large bosom, which can be very painful and throw off her posture. She is extermely self conscious about it and rarely leaves the house without a sweatshirt. I have had discussions with her (that she initiated) to do breast reduction surgery (which I would pay for myself) if and when she is ready. She has a considerable amount of weight to lose before that decision would be made but if it will help her overall longterm health, I would do it.
The surgery will result in a valuable lesson learned: that her ears were not the reason she was bullied, they were merely the excuse.
Vanity & selfishness was the ultimate means by which Rome fell...America is fast becoming the “New” Rome.
I am so glad you are hearty. Pinning the girl’s ears back is not vanity. I am so sorry you see it that way. But not all people are able to withstand constant bullying, and I wouldn’t wish that pain on them through all of their formative years if it could be simply fixed.
It is amazing how many people on this site have no compassion.
The topic is minor surgery to minimize obvious physical abnormalities that attract unwanted attention.
So I suppose you would let a harelip go un-corrected ?After all,the parents love should make up for any unusual characteristics!
Calling this mother out on the carpet for her iniquities has nothing to do with a lack of compassion for the child and your implying it does is nothing more than a strawman argument used by those that can’t see the gifts God gave them because all they can see is a suprficial materialistic world. Ask yourself...how can one have true compassion if they can not first except compassionatly, in the true light of day, what God gave them?
Did you even listen to the little girl? She said quite clearly that she had NOT been teased. This procedure was done for the purely for the sake of the mother, not the child. Period.
God Bless you. I could not be so void of compassion.
Ask yourself...how can one have true compassion if they can not first except compassionatly, in the true light of day, what God gave them?
Yeah, God gave me quite a few congenital inadequacies, so according to you, I should just embrace them, and not take advantage of any advances in science that abound. Ok, I get it. Thankfully there are not more of your type in the world, because we would still be living in caves.
Oh my, just another strawman cave argument made by misconstruing medical necessity for vanity. How sad is that. If God had wanted everyone to be perfect, he would have made them that way. You are playing right into the hands of the superficial plastic surgeon puppet masters whose real concern is for themselves and what they believe the people in the world world should look like.
Im sorry but the girls ears were awful! It’s not like she had a few freckles or her ears were a little big.
To everyone saying kids will pick on her anyway: So she will *still* be able to build character at school. But when she walks into a room with new kids they won’t make up their minds to target her right off the bat.
Her ears bordered on a birth defect, a minor one to be sure, but they were both protruding and very asymmetrical. Were she my daughter I would have done that surgery in a second.
I think this particular case is more about the mother than the kid. When asked if she was being tormented at school she said "no, not really". Watch the video yourself.
SOME things do need correcting in children, and some are the result of emotional weakness on the part of the parents. I hope this doesn't teach this charming little girl that her physical appearance is more important than who she is as a person.
Clearly that is your personal opinion because clearly the little girl stated that the other kids HAD not teased her. Chidren learn what they live, starting with at the homefront and what the parents portray. I am glad we taught our disabled daughter that the content of her character & repect for all God's children is more important than her deformed physical characteristics. She is pre-med with her sights set on helping disabled children the same way she was helped so that they may learn what true beauty is & learn to flourish in life with those physical disability traits. My guess is you have never been to, let alone participated in a special olympics event.
There is nothing wrong with being disabled, there is also nothing wrong with *not* being disabled.
Are you one of those parents who would refuse a Cochlear Implants for your kid so they could be ‘proud’ of being deaf?
I have a kid who is peanut allergic. It’s not a physical deformity but she has to always sit at a special table at school, bring her own food to birthday parties, and cant get some ids favorite summer treats.
She has to carry an epi-pen around all the time. This is nothing to be ashamed of but its also *nothing* to be proud of either. You can bet you’re last nickle that if there was a procedure to eliminate the allergy I would walk over broken glass to get it for her.
She is also a bit on the small side, as was I until puberty, She gets picked on for her height called a ‘toy’ and a ‘doll’ in a derisive way. I explain that God makes us all different and that it’s what inside that counts. I would not do any kind of surgery, pill, or procedure to make her taller.
This little girls ears were deformed and correctable so what’s the issue with correcting? If they could cure some of those special Olympians would it be wrong?
No more straw man argument than your saying this is all for the mom. If God didn’t want us to make advances, He wouldn’t have given us the ability to discover the knowledge to see more of Him in our improvement.
I had my knees operated on, it wasn’t a pressing medical necessity. But, by having the operation, I reduced congenital weakness in my knees that caused them to buckle. Could I have lived without it, you bet. But, it made my life a bit easier and less stressful.
On the other side, I had my tonsils removed as an adult. I was sick every few weeks as a child. But my mom had the opinion that God gave me those tonsils, so despite every doctor telling her I needed to have them out, she wouldn’t agree. When I went through a year of tonsillitis as an adult, they came out.
There are all levels of definition of necessity. The only reason I have taken offense at you, is your comments are so over the top in accusation and holier than thou attitude.
For the record, we did everything for our daughters external physical disabilities that was medically necessary stopping short of recreating her external appearance that was not a medical necessity. She was just over 2 lbs when she was born in 1983, so don't come back at me with lame arguments based on vanity. You want to talk about a child being teased because of physical traits, you came at the wrong person. I doubt there are many here who have had children go through what our daughter has where getting teased is concerned. When she was at school she was constantly teased by some, especially on the bus ride to & from school but she had her big brother there to stand up for & beside her because he was taught from birth that respect for others is how you gain respect for yourself. When she was in teeball & softball, she wasn't the best on the team and sure she took some teasing from others, but she never cowered & her teammates saw her inner strength & stood up for her while standing beside her. As one of her coaches, I couldn't have been more proud of the entire team. When she got bullied & teased at the playground her older brother, cousins & friends also stood up for her & beside her. When she had her last surgery as a sophomore, the entire boys football team was very proud to visit her & spend time with her in the hospital where both her legs were in casts up to her thighs and she was wheelchair bound for months. During those months the team took part in helping her navigate the halls of the school so she could get from class to class on time. She garnered their respect because she didn't cower to teasing or let her deformities stop her from achieving, she stood it directly in the eye and called it our for what it was.
Her older brother was taken from us 5 years ago next month the lessons we taught him, the lessons & support he passed to his younger sister will remain with her forever as she continues to stand in the face of adversity & those that said she would never make it as far as she has. And she has done it without the aid of plastic surgery to recreate external deformities. Her true friends are still a big part of her life and all the others, well, they are eating crow.
Children truly learn what they live & some children choose not to live some of the things they learned. My prayer is that this little girl is one of the latter because she was truly a beautiful child before the knife was taken to her.
I gave birth to 3 children, two of them were born without deform, or as you would have it, outwardly appealing to the mans eye. God called those 2 home to be with Him. Perfection is in the eye of the beholder because as far as we are concerned, our living daughter is nothing but perfection. It's the lessons, not the appearance that matters.
inward defects that affect one physically are not superficial, again you miss the mark
see post 57, I am hardly anything but holier than though. I speak from experience
Oh, so because her ears are on the outside of her body, they don’t garner the same level of need as inside her body? Really?
What about a 6th finger?
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