Bracing for the new face of a teenager
After a couple years of appointments, reminders about proper
hygienic practices and forced abstention from the joy of biting
into an apple without having to slice it first, my 14-year-old had
his braces removed this week.
For an image-conscious high-schooler, this was a momentous day.
And it was pretty exciting for his parents as well.
This was the payoff for the dental investment of time and money,
both for him and for us. The pre-braces tooth pulling; the
tightening appointments; the cut lips after a bout of roughhousing
with his brother
– it was all worth it when the gleaming, straight choppers were
revealed.
Bracing for the new face of a teenager
After a couple years of appointments, reminders about proper hygienic practices and forced abstention from the joy of biting into an apple without having to slice it first, my 14-year-old had his braces removed this week.
For an image-conscious high-schooler, this was a momentous day. And it was pretty exciting for his parents as well.
This was the payoff for the dental investment of time and money, both for him and for us. The pre-braces tooth pulling; the tightening appointments; the cut lips after a bout of roughhousing with his brother – it was all worth it when the gleaming, straight choppers were revealed.
When I woke him up on Wednesday morning in advance of his appointment, I reminded him that “today’s the day!” He grumbled and pulled the sheet back over his head before eventually waking up to have his last meal while wearing braces.
Hoping to capture an image of my metal-mouthed child before his visage changed and I had to head off to work, I asked him to smile for a cell phone picture. Because it was before 9 a.m., and he thinks it’s weird any time his parents want to take his photo, he declined and I didn’t push the matter.
A couple of hours later, after the braces were removed, he was in a decidedly more upbeat mood.
“Dad, can you come outside?” he asked on the phone, as he waited in the car in front of the newspaper office. As I headed through the door, I could see him trying to fight back the smile that came a bit easier without the jagged metal it used to frame.
His happy smile exposed the beautiful teeth that his orthodontist helped put in line over the past couple of years and I told him he looked good.
Then I realized what the smile was really about, as he held up a bag of candy that was provided to him by the ortho office as a parting gift. There were 13 pieces of sticky, chewy taffy and chocolate and nougat-filled treats that he would be allowed to enjoy – and hopefully share with dear old Dad – as a reward for taking care of his mouth during the couple of years he wore braces.
I quickly reminded him that the removal of the facial hardware also meant that he could once again bite into an apple head-on, which he said he looked forward to.
As my wife and I noted the sweet irony of a dental office offering a sack of candy to a patient, our son implored, “Don’t make them stop doing it, OK?”
When I said, “Stop doing what?” he said, “Giving out candy.”
He didn’t want me to raise a stink about the practice and force other kids to be given a bag of apples when they got their braces off. He worked for this Halloween in April and he felt he – and his fellow patients – deserved it. I promised him I would not raise a stink.
His next step was to head home and flash his pearly whites in the face of his older brother, who originally had expected to get his braces off by eighth-grade graduation and now is hoping they’ll be gone by the end of his sophomore year.
While our younger son is blessed with his mother’s wonderful tooth-to-mouth-size ratio, the older one has dad’s big choppers in a small space situation, so he’s made the orthodontist earn his money for the past three years.
While the braces are off for our younger one, the trips to the orthodontist are not over. Next week, he’ll get his retainer, which will join the cell phone and iPod on the list of things likely to be misplaced once a week in the Breen household.
He will now have to wear the tooth-straightening contraption every night to keep the teeth as straight as they are now, but at least he can take it out to enjoy that Bit-O-Honey – or better yet, a Golden Delicious apple.
Adam Breen teaches newspaper and yearbook classes at San Benito High School and is a reporter for The Pinnacle. He is former editor of the Free Lance. He can be reached by e-mail at
ab****@pi**********.com
.
