*Grabs herbal tea and carbonated drink for the occasion*

Braces. Yes, I said braces.

Earlier today I went to the orthodontic specialist, my family dentist has been saying that I would need braces since I was eight years old (apparently my mouth is over-crowded and my bite is off). If you are around me in real life and/or stalk me, then you’ll know that I honestly don’t give a %&@! about my appearance (and if you didn’t know that before – you do know). Do I care if my teeth don’t look great? No, because I don’t ever plan on being a toothpaste model. Do I care if my bite is off? No, because I don’t ever plan on being one of the kids in the snap-crackle-and pop commercials. My bite is fine for the food is eat, and my teeth look nice in my opinion so why change them and make then look terrible with some metal on my mouth for two years? I’ve had something on the top of mouth that the dentist put in to try to help my bite…but all it did was give me an annoying lisp.

What I’m trying to say here, is that most of the time you get braces as a teenager who are under the roof of a parent. They don’t get a choice as to whether they get crap on their teeth which I find completely and totally wrong. Would you like it if I said “OK, go get a tattoo. You can’t get rid of it for two years” and you couldn’t object to it? And I’m not implying that I have anything against tattoos – I think that they are pretty and plan on getting one, it was just an example. But that’s how it is. Your legal guardian makes you get something that is painful and restricts what you eat when you really don’t need it.

I think that the teenagers should have a choice as to what gets put in their mouth. It is their mouth after all. Not everyone wants to have perfect teeth or a perfect bite and are perfectly satisfied with their normal one. If you have red hair and your trichologist wanted you to be born with brown hair, would you like it if he changed it for you without your consent or agreement? I would think not, and that’s basically how it is with teenagers and braces. I think that if a teenager does not want to have braces then they should not have to have it. Yes, you may argue that every teen that needs it would then not want it and not get it, but is that any of our business? Does someone really need to have perfect teeth? If your speech is legible and you can chew without hassle, then you should have a choice.