How Long Will it Be Until Parents Force Children to Undergo Plastic Surgery?

You may have heard of the recent hubbub surrounding the release of a new children's book that is intended to help the offspring of those who have had plastic surgery cope with the surgery's transformative effect on their parents. Written by a plastic surgeon, My Beautiful Mommy represents an interesting first in the plastic surgery world--it introduces the process to children.

Which got me wondering--how long until parents subject their children to plastic surgery? We already know that many parents subject their embryos to genetic screening in order that they might avoid having to parent a disabled child (see Dr. Al Mohler for more on this). We also know that many parents subject their children to relentless pressure to fit in and exceed throughout their young lives. See Alexandra Robbins's recent The Overachievers for some background on this phenomenon. In addition, modern America is obsessed with physical beauty. Alex Kucynzki's Beauty Junkies makes just this point. One wonders, then, when these cultural trends will coalesce into a perfect storm and form an impetus for parents to pay for plastic surgery to correct the imperfect features of their children? How far away can such destructively narcissistic practices be?

The line to be crossed here is the direct exhortation of parents to their children to have plastic surgery for supposed defections. Currently, plastic surgery forms a popular and expensive graduation gift for teenage girls in wealthy areas of America. Yet we not our language carefully here--this surgery is not an order but a gift. The comments made by one mother in a story two years old about plastic surgery among teens confirmed my worst fears--parents are increasingly encouraging and exhorting their children to undergo plastic surgery. See this:

Take the case of Katie Underdown of Georgia. Last year, the 17-year-old had a nose job and a chin implant by the same surgeon who did multiple surgeries on her mother, Jan, and several of her mom's friends. Although the teen had a deviated septum, a medical condition that makes it harder to breath, she initially balked at surgery. Her mother urged her on, though.

"I told her, 'It doesn't bother you right now but it may later. Let's just get it fixed.' I had a great surgeon, I was able to pay for it and nurse her back," explains Jan Underdown. "Katie had a recessed chin like me and I said, 'Put the chin implant in.' She did it. It turned out great. I think of it like her braces. You fix what you know is an issue and then you go on and live your life."

Did you catch the verbal nuance here? "Let's just get it fixed." That's what Jan Underdown said to her daughter, a seventeen year-old girl. One can understand surgery for a nasal condition, but the mother in the case also urged her to daughter to get a "chin implant," whatever that is. I'm guessing that we're going to see many more such cases of parental pressure on topics like this. I live in an incredibly posh town in Illinois, and I constantly see middle-aged women attempting to look like teenagers, dressing in the same clothes, bleaching their hair the same color, adopting the same "haughty cool" attitude that one expects to find in teenagers. For these women, beauty is not merely a virtue, it's an obsession. As many of these women turn to cosmetic surgery to keep up in the race to stay young as long as possible, how many of them will encourage their impressionable daughters to do the same? In a society that increasingly turns its back on things that really matter, on traditional principles and virtues, how hard will it really be for parents to push their bucktoothed daughter or large-nosed child to go under the knife in order to look "right"? I don't have any statistics, and I haven't seen any stories on this, but I would cautiously and nervously predict that it will not be long before narcissism, parental pressure, and the beauty culture collide and form a society in which regular children are pressured to be surgically transformed into something they are not.

Some might say that this is nothing new, that beauty has always been an issue for kids and that little will change in this regard. I would respond that this is true, but in our age, we have the means to change our appearances, an ability that prior generations did not. As plastic surgery becomes increasingly inexpensive, and as the culture continues to slide away from a biblical definition of life and of beauty, it only makes sense that parents would desire to correct and shape their children to be that which they believe to be truly important. Our media-saturated culture, after all, drives such an obsession with physical appearance. When your average person watches multiple hours of television and films each week, and takes in the appearance-frenzied environment that television puts forth (the medium is the message, in this case), this person cannot help but end up appearance-crazy. The result, I would predict, will be that those with money will increasingly turn to perfect not simply themselves but their children. Children do, after all, reflect their parents. Whatever their parents prize, then, children will come to look like in a most literal way.

If all this is true, what can Christians do in today's appearance-obsessed culture? Christian parents can teach their children what really matters, and avoid forming a conception of identity in their children that centers around looks. Parents can consciously work against a culture that is obsessed with appearance by themselves avoiding vanity and concentration on physical beauty. Parents should, in my opinion, be very careful about complimenting their children based on beauty and in explicitly delineating amongst attractive and unattractive children. Beyond this, each Christian person in a decadent culture should consider what they can do on a personal level to resist sinful focus on their appearance. We can't singlehandedly turn back the tide of our world, but we can all resist its influence and claim kingdom ground in the war against it. Most importantly, by exalting the gospel in our homes, our churches, and our daily lives, we can teach ourselves and those around us what truly matters and show a watching world that in Christ, we have found true beauty. It is not first and foremost physical attractiveness, but is self-sacrificial love such that the guilty go free and the sinfully ugly become pure. This is beauty. Even as those around us sacrifice their children on an altar of obsession, we can work to train them in believing the message that alone can liberate us, that alone can make us beautiful in the eyes of the only One who matters--God.

August Rush: Another Movie Searches for Transcendence and Finds it in Music, and Family

The movie August Rush, which debuted in November 2007, presents an uneven but inspiring tale of one sweet boy's search for transcendence in a world of isolation and evil. The movie is not flawless, but its depiction of the power of music alone makes the film well worth watching.

The plot centers in two musicians (played ably by Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) who chance upon one another, sleep together, and then lose touch completely with one another, despite the fact that they developed an incredible bond with one another (yes, in one brief night of passion; cue eye-rolling now). Russell's character ends up pregnant and gives birth to a boy she never meets (you'll have to watch the film to see why). The boy, "Evan Taylor" (played by Freddie Highmore of Lost in Neverland), ends up in a miserable home for boys. Sweet-spirited and mystically in touch with music, which he hears in even the most ordinary of sounds, he escapes from the home, ends up in New York, and embarks upon an adventure in which he trains himself to play a number of instruments at a lyrical level. The plot, as noted above, is a bit uneven and seems half-heartedly devoted to aping the story of Oliver Twist. In addition, some of the characters are less than plausible (Robin Williams shows up for several scenes of extended, and unneeded, histrionics).

These factors, and the act of fornication that drives the movie, are regrettable, but the movie has significant strengths as well. This is a film that quite simply is in love with music. As one who loves music (a rather broad statement), I resonated with its appreciation of harmonic beauty. The film, though not Christian, does also pick up on elements of common grace (though it would not call them such). Though little Evan is mired in a painful station in life, he finds beauty all around him, and maintains a disposition of hope and good cheer. It's touching and challenging to watch. Most of us are far too swallowed up in our own selfish little existences to notice the beauty of the world, let alone to draw others into it through creation and celebration. The movie further succeeds in representing man realistically. He is not inherently satisfied with life as it is placed in front of him. No, he searches, and quests, and storms until he finds that which he deems transcendent. For Evan (or "August", as he is renamed), the search ends with music, and also with a reunited family. These same ends bring transcendence to Evan's parents; throughout their young lives, they wrestle with music as Jacob with the angel, and even when musically accomplished search for their other family members. There are two insights here: one, music elevates our earthly existence, and two, family does the same. Without these two goods, we are impoverished, living isolated, hopeless lives.

As Christians, we can resonate with these points. As I've very recently said (in writing on the movie Once, which carries some similar themes), music is imbued with transcendence. It is not cheap and small; it was given us by God to explore the moral and spiritual complexity of the universe. Though music is not God--and thus August Rush fatally overreaches in ascribing it such significance--yet we can say that music is a strange and magical thing. It is another language, a way of speaking about our lives and experiences and the truths and mysteries of this world that defies verbal communication. Music is not Transcendence, then, but it is a transcendent art form, capable of reaching across structures and thought patterns to grab hold of our soul and plunge us into pools of mysterious and beautiful reality. I love that August Rush believes this and seeks to communicate it. Though it strains in this endeavor, and misses the truth that music points us to--that God alone is Transcendence--yet it succeeds in capturing something of the essence of music. It is a beautiful film, and there are several scenes that moved me on a deeply emotional level and made me thankful that people take up cameras and attempt to capture aspects of human existence such as music.

The film, as noted, also shows a powerful belief in the family, and perhaps unintentionally, the nuclear family (dad, mom, child). This is a great insight as well. Though the family is also not ultimately transcendent, as August Rush might lead us to think, we may say that the family is perhaps God's greatest earthly gift to us. It is simply impossible to enumerate the ways in which we are blessed on a daily, even hourly, basis by our families, even if they are not families of considerable health. Just having a family is immensely meaningful. The support that one has in being part of a family is not often consciously thought of but is precious beyond quantification. The film knows this, and shows us what it means for people to live without the structures of family--and most clearly to live without parents as an abandoned boy. One can have talent, and beauty, and joy, but without a family, one is ultimately unhappy. We Christians would of course go beyond this to say that God alone is our greatest need, that it is our most urgent necessity to enter into not an earthly family but a spiritual family that transcends this earth. On an earthly level, though, it is clear that God has structured the family to be the central part of our earthly existence. He has done so, I would argue, to show us something of the taste of familial perfection as expressed in the Trinity, the union of Father, Son, and Spirit, of which our families are but a type and shadow.

August Rush seeks true transcendence and fails to find it. But we may commend it for its pursuit and enjoy for its depiction of two of the choicest gifts God has given humanity: music and family. This movie shows us for the hundredth time that the people around us are not living atomistic lives, at least not all of the time. No, they are looking for something; something greater, something higher, something unified, something beautiful. Though they may discover numerous gifts of common grace in their search, we know that until they find the Christ, the salvation-giver, this search will prove fruitless in the end. We must be around them, then, to tell them where transcendence, and joy, and true hope may be found. It is not in music, but the One who created music; not in the family, but in the One who created the family; it is not found in the gift, but only in the Giver.

What the Movie "Once" Shows Us About the Power of Music

Here's a movie you should consider seeing: Once.

It's an independent film made for $160,000, and yet it is better than many films costing 100 times more. It is not an incredible film, but it has a soul. It tells a simple but moving message of the power of music. To briefly summarize the film, a street musician ("Guy") meets a street saleswoman ("Girl"). The two share a love of music and end up making it together. I won't reveal what else happens, but suffice it to say that the outworking of this extremely brief plot summary is compelling and, yes, inspiring. The film considers both the power of music and the potential of romance as themes, but the former wins by a mile. Though it could be billed as a romance, the film is really about the beauty of music and the power it possesses to unite even the most alienated of people. In the end, it's a simple message, but a true one.

The only thing to watch out for here is the language of the film. There are no sex scenes or anything of that sort. The film is quite clean otherwise and thus allows the viewer to focus on the aforementioned idea tossed out by the movie, namely, that music--when played with beauty--has great power and can unite even total strangers. Though Christians of course believe that mankind can find true unity only when connected to Christ by faith in Him, we can likewise affirm that God has invested music with great potency on the earth. In effect, God has given us another language in programming musical ability and interest in us. We err when we so emphasize propositions and speech in our lives that we miss proper recognition of the language of music. It is my personal opinion, based entirely on speculation, that God gave His earth music in order to express the emotions. We can attempt to capture our emotions with words, but it seems that we often fail in this endeavor. With music, though, I think that talented performers are able to an extent to plumb the depths of what it feels like to know despair, to experience true love, to sustain faith through trial. I don't know if many people approach music in this way; perhaps they do. But I sometimes think that they don't, and thus that they miss out on much of the beauty of experiencing music. Music can be an aural backdrop, it can be a diversion, it can be a mere motivator, but it can also be a chamber of the soul, a place to escape and hear the emotions, experiences, and feelings of life. We need not shy away from such a perspective; if God did not want us to more fully experience life, he would not have given us music.

You'll see what I mean by all this if you watch Once. The movie is not epic, it is not incredible, but it is good, and it will inspire you whatever your musical ability to more fully appreciate and even create works of beauty. Music is not God; it cannot truly, purely unite us and "save" us, so to speak, but it does possess a vast potential to inspire, discover, and bless the world by the secret place of the emotions, the experiences of life, it opens up to us. That's the story of Once, and it's a story worth telling, and worth watching.

Training a "Gospel Girl" When Every Daughter Wants to Be a "Gossip Girl"

The New Yorker has a good story on a series of books that you may or may not have heard about. They're called the "Gossip Girl" books and they deal with a pack of tony New York prep school kids who act like, well, tony New York prep school kids. I can write that line with credibility--I went to college with a bunch of this type. They were fascinating to a small-town Maine boy, much like a rare species of African bird. I have not read the books that touch on this demographic and will not be reading them at this time. I can, however, say that Christians should be aware of these books and the worldview they represent. If you have kids, or if you are involved in ministry to teens, or if you are remotely interested in how the culture is thinking, you will want to be aware of this series and the tv show it has spawned.

Janet Malcolm, the author of the piece, summarizes the key characters of the show in this fashion:

"As the first book opens, Blair Waldorf—who is almost seventeen and lives in a penthouse at Fifth Avenue and Seventy-second Street, with her divorcée mother, Eleanor, her younger brother, Tyler, and her cat, Kitty Minky—is sulking in her room. Blair, in the description of a classmate, is...an antiheroine of the first rank: bad-tempered, mean-spirited, bulimic, acquisitive, endlessly scheming, and, of course, dark-haired. The blond heroine, Serena van der Woodsen (who lives at an even better Fifth Avenue address, right across from the Metropolitan Museum), is incandescently beautiful, exceptionally kind, and, in the end, it has to be said, somewhat boring. The series belongs to awful Blair, who inspires von Ziegesar’s highest flights of comic fancy."

Apparently, Blair attempts to accomplish two goals throughout the series: sleeping with a boy she likes and getting into Yale. Serena apparently is nicer and morally purer than Blair. The series involves a series of exchanges between the two and various boys, with a good deal of commentary thrown in on modern rich parents. The parents of these girls and their classmates seem to do very little to regulate, constrain, or direct the behavior of their progeny, though they wish ardently for their children to attain the trappings of a "good life": an excellent education, wealth, an attractive spouse/partner. The show, which I have not watched but am familiar with, seems to follow roughly the same lines as the book series, though with larger roles for the parents.

So what's the big deal, one might ask? Well, it's my humble opinion that though we Christians may not watch this show (and shows like it), and though we may very well steer our children from such fare, we will nonetheless benefit from knowing that it exists and from studying its worldview to anticipate how the secular world will be influenced and, in turn, will seek to influence our children. Books and shows like "Gossip Girl" have a serious trickle-down effect in the broader culture. There's a reason that they're set in New York, one of the cultural capitals of the world, and they influence the way that children all across the world think and view themselves and others. These particular works seem to encourage the reader to think that parents (and adults more broadly) are stupid, irresponsible, and not worthy of the authority they possess; that it is good and right for children (teens) to pursue sex, intrigue, and materialism of the most excessive sort; that beauty and social standing set one's course in life. Of course, the author of this series mocks these views, but it seems clear that her mockery is set in a worldview that simultaneously enjoys and even celebrates them. If beauty and materialism really aren't important, why write a series of novels that, however ironically, celebrates them?

We need to know about cultural influencers like Gossip Girl. In a culture that prizes wealth, beauty, and social standing to an extreme degree, we must make sure that we prize spiritual wealth, spiritual beauty, and kingdom standing. We must take care to train our children, whether in our families or our churches, to reject the culture's ideals and principles and to embrace God's. I can only think of what series like this will do to a young girl, culturally plugged-in, who does not have a strong Christian family to train her to think rightly about Gossip Girl. It is only natural to assume that she will measure herself by its standards, prize its worldview, and slowly, quietly turn away from the true beauty and riches of the Christian faith. The things of this world do not appear to the natural man as hideous, remember, but as beautiful.

Gossip Girl is a polished bauble in the eyes of many girls today and is a part of a culture that creates great animosity for things of God. Let us work, then, to create families where biblical womanhood (and manhood) is celebrated, where beauty is seen primarily in spiritual terms, where wealth in Christ is far more precious than the designer labels that call out for our consumption. Gossip Girl may tempt young women, but when it is placed alongside a joyful, God-centered, well-led Christian family and church, its luster will fade, and our girls will not want to be women of gossip and intrigue, but women of the gospel.

The Beauty of Marriage

The above title is actually a double entendre, because I am writing today and tomorrow about my beauty, Mrs. Bethany Strachan. We celebrate our one-year anniversary on Sunday. In light of this occasion, I wanted to share a few thoughts on how good God is in giving marriage to us.

It's incredible to think that the world today doesn't like marriage. Many people prefer cohabitation or a single lifestyle characterized by much partying and one-night stands. This is amazing. Marriage is hard work, as all of us married folks know, but it is also wonderful. It is, in short, a gift. It is one of God's greatest gifts to His creation. In marriage, we experience a bit of what God does. We are in covenant with another. We remain steadfastly with them no matter what arises in our lives. Our love is strong and unbreakable. We have bound ourselves to our spouse, and we will not let them go. It is a powerful thing to experience just a tiny slice of what God does in being covenanted to His people.

Of course, our role wildly varies from God's, because we ourselves sin against our spouse, and thus we experience their faithfulness, their covenant love. We live with someone who must regularly mirror the Father in forgiving our sins. This is a powerful reality. There are times in marriage in which the ugliness of your sin stands nakedly before you. You are raw and detestable. And yet this person loves you, and even cares for you, and even tells you they love you. Marriage, and the love that fuels marriage, is an incredible gift.

Bethany is an incredible wife. How kind the Lord is to give men wives, and how clever of Him to tailor two people to fit one another. By this I do not mean that all couples--or even any couple--fits perfectly together. Some couples are quite different from one another. But all of us can see clearly reasons that the Lord brought this particular person to us. In Bethany's joyful life, her lively sense of humor, her sensitivity, her reverential understanding of God and His ways, her commitment to fighting sin and honoring her Lord, her appreciation of dark chocolate, her love of a good action flick (tempered by her equally strong love of chick flicks), her zany wit, her concern for health, her love of biblical femininity, her tenacious commitment to me, and so many other things, I delight. I delight in my wife. In these and a thousand other ways, she is a gift to me.

Bethany's beauty grows each day we are together. We are so young and so inexperienced compared to many other couples. Yet it is gracious of the Lord to bestow increasing maturity and joy in marriages devoted to Him. Just one year is in the books. And yet so much has happened and changed. The married life is not for wimps. Through the challenges and weeks yet passed in our young life together, though, I find myself gazing at my wife. Perhaps other husbands will understand what I mean when I say she has a beauty I cannot quite understand, a loveliness I struggle to articulate. I enjoy marriage immensely, but it is her--my wife--who is the true beauty of this covenanted love.