While twenty-somethings may be choosing to enlarge their bust lines, women in the middle decades of their lives tend to covet the all-encompassing mommy makeover.
Eventually you will have had your final child and pregnancy will be a condition you won’t be experiencing again without the appearance of an angel, a star, and three wise men. At that point, if you are like most moms, looking in the mirror can incite the same feeling of nausea that the dissection lab in high school biology did.
Years of nursing has relocated your breasts to an area where you vaguely remember your waist being. Your once tightly toned tummy may spill over your jeans while your thighs are dented with hail damage, orange peel skin, cellulite, or whatever you want to call it.
You are in desperate need of a mommy makeover, at least according to the media. This is a procedure, in which a plastic surgeon deftly returns your breasts to their proper upright position, tucks your trembley tummy into itself to reveal your abdominal muscles again and recreates smooth, lithe thighs in one fell swoop. It’s almost like having a fairy godmother.
There is discomfort of course – after all, you have had surgery. During your recovery time, you will probably feel a bit like a Mack truck ran over you – not as bad as six hours of back labor but worse than those sharp new baby teeth testing out your nipple while nursing. You’ll have some bruising and swelling for a time but it will clear up in a week or so.
So would you get one?
On the one hand, women are constantly bombarded with the need to look perfect, to maintain the same figure they had at 21, and to be able to easily compete with the latest Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. It isn’t realistic.
In a day when the average woman wears a size 12 to 14, that perfect size 4 body with those firm D-cup breasts attached is just not realistic for most of us. At least, it isn’t realistic without thousands of dollars worth of “work.”
On the other hand, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to look the best that they can. While we may say that we have no desire to look like a Victoria’s Secret model, the truth is that few of us would turn that down if the aforementioned fairy godmother offered the proper magic dust.
As much as women want to evolve past being judged for their looks, there is a small corner in many of our hearts that seeks to achieve the very thing we disdain – the power that comes with beauty and has been wielded by beautiful women for centuries – women from Cleopatra to Beyoncé. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, exercise just doesn’t give you the results you want.
The question remains. Would you get a mommy makeover? Is it something that you feel would enrich your life? Or, do you feel that it is just another way for society to force women into a china doll mold based on what Hollywood says is beautiful?
photo credit: Deven Laney
