Excerpt from article:
In her book Making the American Mouth, Alyssa Picard argues that the postwar orthodontics boom helped the upper middle class get in the habit of paying high out-of-pocket fees to care for its teeth. Ironically, this practice grew out of dentists' unfounded worry that their profession would go the way of the blacksmith as fluoridation reduced kids' immediate need for extractions and fillings. During the 1950s, the American Dental Association ran an advertising campaign to encourage orthodontic treatment. Gradually, paying for braces became an expected investment, part of the price of raising children, like test prep and college fees. Even now, dental plans rarely cover orthodontia, and the lifetime reimbursement limit is much less than the cost of braces, but parents feel pressured to buy their kids the straight, white smile that is the clearest physical indication of prosperity.
http://www.slate.com/id/2229632
My mother describes my generation, Gen X, as the generation of perfect teeth. So very many of us have had braces. It never occurred to me that imperfectly aligned teeth were not a medical "condition" that needed to be treated. Mine was the first American generation where orthodontia was a norm.
When I was a kid a had pretty bad teeth, probably because I was allowed to suck my thumb for too long as a small child (no blame placing here! You know I love you , mom!! :-)). I had a big gap between my front teeth and they bucked out. If I had never had that corrected, my life would be totally different and I am quite sure, not even a fraction as good or happy as I have had the fortune to experience.
In my sheltered middle class world, it seemed like everyone who needed braces or dental care got it. Until I read the article posted on this site, I never really thought about dentistry, let alone orthodontia, being out of reach for a lot of people--and not because I live in an ivory tower--I just don't spend a lot of my waking hours thinking about dentistry.
When I first started making my trips to Europe, I noticed immediately how so many people had "bad teeth." I asked a friend of mine why people here didn't have their crooked or gap-toothed smiles corrected. She told me it just wasn't something people considered.
It dawned on me at that moment how once again our collective American perception on health and wellness has been manipulated by ideals of perfection and the opportunity to profit hugely from those ideals. There is an odd sameness to the smiles among Americans of my generation. There is diversity among other populations. Would Kate Moss be as alluring as she is with that angle between her teeth straightend out?
And as the writer outlines in her article, dental insurance is thin in its coverage. I've had to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket for routine treatments. As a teenager, I had braces for four years followed by bite guards and retainers and reinforced or replaced fillings . Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary by the standards of my American contemporaries. And as I have come to learn, totally outrageous by 99.9999% of the rest of the world. And without question, dentistry has become elective and cosmetic like so many other things, and the fact that children in the U.S. still can die from tooth abscesses seems beyond comprehension. I was embarrassed by my naivete when I read this article in Slate.
A friend from work always accuses me of having my teeth bleached and won't believe me when I deny it (It's SO American to have your teeth bleached, he teases me). I deny it emphatically, but whether or not that denial is the truth I'll never tell. :-) Other friends in Holland also like to tease me about my "tiny" breasts, which indeed they are, relative to many of the buxom and beautifully endowed women of my adopted country. As I have been "cured" of the imperfect smile I developed as a child, perhaps a little trip to the plastic surgeon would "cure" me of the humble offering inside my bra. But if no one objects, I think I'll draw the line there, and I'll recognize the beauty in an unaltered smile.
