At Parenting magazine, we receive dozens of children's books every week to review. Some are sweet and touching, some are silly and nonsensical, some illustrate important life lessons, and, of course, many are just plain bad. But in the 10 years I've been at the Parenting Group (first as the editor-in-chief of Babytalk magazine, now here at Parenting), I've never seen a children's book as, well, creepy as this one: My Beautiful Mommy by Michael Alexander Salzhauer, M.D. Have you heard about it?
You know how when you were pregnant with your second child, you bought a "Mommy's having a baby"-type book for your firstborn? And when your son started preschool, you read a "school is cool"-themed one for him? Well, My Beautiful Mommy is the perfect tome for... the next time you spend your life's savings on new boobs and need to explain the whole thing to your 6-year-old.
To be fair, the book doesn't actually address boobs. (Though perhaps it should have; breast augmentation is the second most common type of cosmetic surgery after liposuction.) Instead, the mother in this story is seeing "Dr. Michael" (a dark-haired, broad-shouldered, and square-jawed knight in shining scrubs) for a nose job and to have her "tummy made smaller." While the illustrator, Victor Guiza, drew a comically obvious bump on the mom's nose, I'm not sure why she needs the tummy tuck; from page one, she's wearing a belly shirt that reveals a perfectly small, flat stomach (what mom of two wears a belly shirt? In fact, who wears a belly shirt, mom or not, anymore??).
For those of you who would prefer not to shell out the $19.95 (you need to save up for your eyelid surgery, after all), here's the book in a nutshell: The mom explains to her young daughter that she is having an operation, and that she may look a little different afterward. "Why are you going to look different?" the tyke asks. "Not just different, my dear," our heroine in a hospital gown responds, "prettier!" (As she says this, a thought bubble floats above her head with an image of the dashing Dr. Michael crowning her "The Prettiest Mom." Very subtle.) While her mom is recovering, the daughter eats ice cream and works on a (how convenient!) school project about cocoons and butterflies. When it's time to take the bandages off, our made-over mama, complete with her new Nicole-Kidman nose, is surrounded by swirls of pixie dust and flashes of pink.
To hammer her metamorphosis home, the next page shows the mom with butterfly wings.
And it all makes me want to run home, hug my 4-year-old daughter, and read her passages from Our Bodies, Ourselves. First of all, why doesn't the title character bother preparing her son (who is seen in the background), as well as her daughter, for the surgery? Is he too busy off playing baseball to notice his mom's bandages? Or is he not being groomed for a future cosmetic procedure of his own?
Because that's what this book feels like to me. Instead of preparing a child for a grown-up's plastic surgery, it seems to be preparing her for some plastic surgery of her own down the line. After all, who wouldn't want to be the "prettiest mom"? What little girl can resist fairy wings and pixie dust?
I'm not against anyone nipping and tucking and doing what it takes for them to feel comfortable with themselves. I myself often fantasize about finally getting the boobs I've never had, about tightening up my neck, and snipping off the roll of flesh above my elbows (yes, I'm telling my age with that last one). But I can't help be depressed about how the "Free to be you and me" message of my youth has been warped (free to surgically alter the flare of your nostrils!) and how our beauty-at-any-cost obsession has trickled down to our youngest and most impressionable, to the point of being packaged in a pretty pink book featuring ice cream, butterflies, and tiaras.
If we show our kids that we can't accept ourselves for who are, how will they ever believe that we accept them for who they are--buck teeth, adolescent acne, Buddha bellies, and all?