What's the market for a children's picture book about moms getting cosmetic surgery? No one specifically tracks the number of tummy-tuck-and-breast-implant combos (or "mommy makeovers," as they're called), but according to the latest numbers from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, breast augmentation was the most popular cosmetic surgery procedure last year, with 348,000 performed (up 6 percent over 2006). Of those, about one-third were for women over 40 who often opt for implants to restore lost volume in their breasts due to aging or pregnancy weight gain. There were 148,000 tummy tucks—up 1 percent from the previous year.
Salzhauer got the idea for a book after noticing that women were coming into his office with their kids in tow. He says that mysterious doctor's visits can be frightening for children. "Parents generally tend to go into this denial thing. They just try to ignore the kids' questions completely." But, he adds, children "fill in the blanks in their imagination" and then feel worse when they see "mommy with bandages," he says. "With the tummy tucks, [the mothers] can't lift anything. They're in bed. The kids have questions."
How... odd. I suppose it makes sense, of course, but it just seems to me, more and more, that we are (as a society) relying more on books or "experts" to interlocute between parents and kids... at most I can see a children's book dealing with gender (especially a single parent with a child of the opposite sex) or maybe something like death & dying, but can't parents even sit down and talk to their kids about this?Berger doesn't want to come across as anti-cosmetic surgery, but she notes that it can be difficult for small kids to understand. "The younger the child, the more mysterious and potentially hurtful the mother's absence, or mother being out of commission, or mother looking like she's been beaten up, will be," she says. Small children are "concrete" and "sensible" and think "you go to a doctor because you're hurt or sick," she says.
Are parents just ducking kids' questions in general? What do they talk about, if not real issues?
