Bullied girl get plastic surgery to stop bullying

[pixy0stix]

Click through for pictures.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/28/nadia-isle-bullied-georgi_n_1712548.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

Nadia Ilse is looking forward to the new school year, when she will no longer be called "Dumbo" by her peers for her "elephant ears."

To ward off school bullies who began taunting her in the first grade for her ears, Nadia begged her mother at the age of 10 for an otoplasty -- an operation to pin her ears back.

The teen, now 14, was recently granted her wish by the Little Baby Face Foundation, a charity that provides free corrective surgery to children born with facial deformities.

Nadia told CNN that the bullying turned her talkative self into a withdrawn, antisocial girl. The taunting "hurt so much," she told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.


When the Little Baby Face Foundation was contacted by Nadia's mother, the organization brought the duo to New York City from Georgia and did more than just pin her ears back. The organization's founder, Dr. Thomas Romo, III. also performed reduction rhinoplasty, reducing the size of the nose, and mentoplasty, altering the chin.

The foundation covered the estimated $40,000 cost of surgery.

Avoiding school bullying by going under the knife is on the rise among American teens. In 2007 alone, about 90,000 youth underwent cosmetic surgery -- though not all cases were the result of teasing.

While Nadia says she knows she should have been accepted as she was before the surgery, she also knew the bullying wouldn't end and has no regrets following the procedure.

"I look beautiful, this is exactly what I wanted, I love it," she said.

Nadia must still start counseling as part of her treatment to overcome the years of psychological distress from bullying, but Little Baby Face board member Don Moriarity told MailOnline that Nadia's new outlook demonstrates the group's mission.

"We like to say that Baby Face transforms the lives of these children and gives them newfound confidence," Moriarity said.

Nadia's story emerges months after 13-year-old Nicolette Taylor was featured on ABC's Nightline for her nose surgery to overcome online harassment and name-calling at school. There was also global outcry when 7-year-old Samantha Shaw had her ears pinned back to escape name-calling and harassment last year.

So through all this, what advice would you give parents? Gupta asked Nadia.

"Give your children a lot of love and affection and tell them that they're beautiful every single day," she said.

Most states now have bullying laws that require schools to adopt bullying policies, and efforts to combat school bullying have escalated over the last decade, according to a report released in December by the U.S. Department of Education.

Between 1999 and 2010, more than 120 bills were adopted by state legislatures to introduce or amend legislation that address bullying, harassment or similar behavior in schools. By the time of the Education Department study's conclusion, there were 46 states with enacted anti-bullying laws, 36 with regulations that work against cyberbullying and 13 that give schools the authority to monitor and address bullying behavior even when it occurs off school grounds.

[ChillyMcFreeze]

What an awful trend. Bullying isn't what it used to be, but the answer is not "hey, let's "fix" the thing they're making fun of." Her ears were not abnormal. She would have grown into them just fine. But instead of letting development take its course, let's make permanent alterations to children's bodies so they don't get their feelings hurt! Yeahno.

[pixy0stix]

I just don't think this will stop the bullies. They won! Why are they going to give up their bullying prize?

[passthewine]

I feel so bad that felt she had to do this. I do hope that she at least gains the confidence she needs to move forward.
Is she changing schools to someplace that people don't know her "before"? otherwise I think the bullies will just change the ridicule topic from being her ears to her surgery.

[heightsyankee]

D) All of the above.

[heyjude]

This makes me so sad. Especially because the girl was adorable before and also because my DD has big ears and I think they are wonderful.

[Deleted]

Wow, I expected her to look disfigured or something in the before shots to get surgery. Instead, she looked perfectly normal and even cute! She would have totally grown into her features.

[Deleted]

Saw something about the on TV and I'm glad I'm not the only one who has a problem with this. The message that if there's a bullying problem, just surgically change the victim instead of, oh, I dunno, addressing the bullies does not sit well with me.

[heyjude]

Did I read that the doctors also did her nose and chin even though those were not areas of issue?

What does that tell a young girl who is already probably going through some insecurity issues?

[Deleted]

I think it strange to get this kind of plastic surgery before your child has grown into their features.

I also think these parents are naive and delusional if they think bullies only pick on kids because they are "funny looking." They'll just find something else to tease her over. And so for that, you permanently altered the look of your child?

I think not.

[wawa]

Not that I'm in really in favor of plastic surgury for kids...

But i'm confused by a lot of the comments here.
1. ears that stick out like that are not something you grow into. You just become a grownup with sticky-outy ears. This isn't a large nose or a strong jaw. You probably get better at hiding them with your hair...but you'll always have ears that stick out. Whether you should care or not might be another issue.

2. I'd say a lot of bullies, if not MOST bullies, do actually lose interest when their object of ridicule changes. I think we hear these news stories about the baby psychopaths who obessively torture their victims, and forget that the average bully is just an asshole kid with a short attention span. Kid with the smelly pits or the bad acne or the ugly glasses comes back the next year with new deoderant, a jar of noxema or some contacts and the bully finds somebody else to mock. I mean...I got made fun of for having short hair in 5-6 grade. I grew it out in 7th grade. The same asswipe dudes didn't follow me around in 7th grade talking about how I USED to have short hair. They just found other people to mock.

Obviously I don't know what "grade" of bully she was dealing with here. Maybe it is somebody completely focused on her specifically and not just picking out her ears as an easy target. But assuming that she'll be mocked for having her ears pinned is an odd jump to me.

But I do think it's sad that she felt like she had to have surgury to deal with this. Kids are such little pricks.

[ttt]

Jul 31, 2012 14:43:35 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Did I read that the doctors also did her nose and chin even though those were not areas of issue?

What does that tell a young girl who is already probably going through some insecurity issues?

This was what jumped out at me! WTF?

[wawa]

Jul 31, 2012 14:48:52 GMT -5 ttt said:

Jul 31, 2012 14:43:35 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Did I read that the doctors also did her nose and chin even though those were not areas of issue?

What does that tell a young girl who is already probably going through some insecurity issues?

This was what jumped out at me! WTF?

yeah, that's fucked up. I missed that in my first read through the article.

[pixy0stix]

2. But did you respond to the bullies, wawa? If you ignore them, they'll go after a juicier target. She didn't ignore them. She validated their bullying.

[AJL]

Jul 31, 2012 14:48:07 GMT -5 wawa said:

Not that I'm in really in favor of plastic surgury for kids...

But i'm confused by a lot of the comments here.
1. ears that stick out like that are not something you grow into. You just become a grownup with sticky-outy ears. This isn't a large nose or a strong jaw. You probably get better at hiding them with your hair...but you'll always have ears that stick out. Whether you should care or not might be another issue.

I disagree with this. Some people with ears that stick out like that don't grow in to them. Some do. My husband was one that did grow into them. He was 6'1" at age 13, tall and skinny with very prominent ears. As far as I know, they were not a source of bullying for him. When I met him at 27 he was 6'1", well built, filled out and had grown right into those hears (and his nose.)

So don't broad brush this particular trait. Everyone is different.

[wawa]

Jul 31, 2012 14:57:35 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

2. But did you respond to the bullies, wawa? If you ignore them, they'll go after a juicier target. She didn't ignore them. She validated their bullying.

If by ignore them you mean after 2 weeks of being mocked on the bus every single day, burst into furious tears and punch one of them in the face, then yes, I was awesome at ignoring them.



I cry when I'm really mad. It made it really hard to ignore bullies. Of course I also tended to fly into a violent rage when i was really mad at that age...which I guess made it hard to keep mocking me? I dunno. Maybe I'm not the best example.

Just IME, among my dorky friends and I, when there was something specific that some asshole had chosen to focus on, when that thing went away...so did the asshole. Ugly thick glasses. A particularly odd pair of shoes. A tendency to not wash the gym uniform. I saw pretty intense mocking about all of those things...but it never lasted past the thing itself. The focused vendetta that gets bullies in the news wasn't anything I ever saw in my school, and i was definitley part of the "bullied" social strata. Maybe we just got lucky and it's really much more common than I realize.

[wawa]

Jul 31, 2012 15:05:24 GMT -5 AJL said:

Jul 31, 2012 14:48:07 GMT -5 wawa said:

Not that I'm in really in favor of plastic surgury for kids...

But i'm confused by a lot of the comments here.
1. ears that stick out like that are not something you grow into. You just become a grownup with sticky-outy ears. This isn't a large nose or a strong jaw. You probably get better at hiding them with your hair...but you'll always have ears that stick out. Whether you should care or not might be another issue.

I disagree with this. Some people with ears that stick out like that don't grow in to them. Some do. My husband was one that did grow into them. He was 6'1" at age 13, tall and skinny with very prominent ears. As far as I know, they were not a source of bullying for him. When I met him at 27 he was 6'1", well built, filled out and had grown right into those hears (and his nose.)

So don't broad brush this particular trait. Everyone is different.

Fair enough. I think it's less likely with a girl, but I might be totally off.

[pixy0stix]

bwahaha! I think punching in the face probably did more than growing out the hair.

[mexicali]

Big ears are not a deformity and I am quit shocked that this organization wasted their time and money on this. There are kids with real deformities that could be helped instead of this.

I was bullied as a kid for being fat. Going out and getting lypo is not the resolution. Teaching our children easy fixes at such a young age is just wrong.

Wawa - If I had a picture of my ears when I was younger I would show you. I can promise you I looked identical to dopey from Snow white. I grew into my ears around 12. I am sure this isn't everyone, but it can happen. If it doesn't we all have insecurities, surgery is not the way to handle it with underage children.

[wawa]

Jul 31, 2012 15:09:37 GMT -5 mexicali said:

Big ears are not a deformity and I am quit shocked that this organization wasted their time and money on this. There are kids with real deformities that could be helped instead of this.

I was bullied as a kid for being fat. Going out and getting lypo is not the resolution. Teaching our children easy fixes at such a young age is just wrong.

Wawa - If I had a picture of my ears when I was younger I would show you. I can promise you I looked identical to dopey from Snow white. I grew into my ears around 12. I am sure this isn't everyone, but it can happen. If it doesn't we all have insecurities, surgery is not the way to handle it with underage children.

the growing into it issue aside (and yeah, apparently I was just wrong on that one. The big eared among my loved ones may be the exception) I completely agree with the bolded.