Okay, readers, if you’re in a happy seasonal spirit, here’s a topic that may get a chuckle out of you. Or it may cut so close to home that you’ll want to pelt me with reindeer poop. You decide:
Yesterday I was VT-ing and my companion mentioned that a good friend of hers is a nurse at a hospital in Utah. She knows many doctors and said that many were giving their wives plastic surgery for Christmas.
If you’ve been to Salt Lake, you have undoubtedly seen the proliferation of plastic surgery billboards. Twice I’ve read that Utah leads the country, per capita, in plastic surgery. Have we allowed our quest for perfection to get re-routed to our physical bodies? Are LDS women trying to become Stepford Wives?
Two of my friends told me that their daughters are competing with all the young marrieds in their wards to see who can be skinniest, blondest, and most accomplished.
Is this really becoming a trend? What could be at the base of it? Is plastic surgery OK? How much is too much?
Blonde in California
Wow, California! You know how to launch a sensitive topic! Just yesterday I was saying to my own visiting teacher that even if I were out of debt I could never justify a $25 manicure because I couldn’t stop thinking about all the starving people in Africa. Today my eyes have been opened considerably.
I have to admit that some people in our area have a preoccupation with beauty that I don’t understand. I no longer wear flowered dresses because a dear friend told me they weren’t presentable, and I hear some people criticizing others at church because their dresses and their shoes aren’t up to snuff. Even that baffles me.
But the idea of plastic surgery is way, way beyond my scope of experience. It just isn’t done where I live. Is this just a regional thing, or is it widespread, and am I just being oblivious?
Readers, what do you think of cosmetic surgery? When is it appropriate, and how much is appropriate? Are we in a quest to become prettier than we should be? Are we in a quest to all look like Barbie?
Send your email to me**************@ao*.com. Put something in your subject line to indicate your letter isn’t spam. This sounds like an interesting topic. I want to hear from you.
Until next time — Kathy
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
