One Parent's Guide to Braces

Being a parent entails many concerns and worries. There are so many fears that a parent must keep at bay. The most dreaded words a parent can hear are, "Looks like the tike's going to need braces." Sure, nobody really uses the word "tikes" anymore, but what does it mean that they're about to shove a hunk of metal into your offspring's head? Well, I'm not really sure. But I've been reading a lot of brochures in the dentist's waiting room and I think I've put together some fairly coherent thoughts on the matter.

The first thing a parent needs to know is why braces are required. There are several major reasons:

• To straighten crooked teeth
• To correct and align crowded or gapped teeth.
• To adjust an overbite.
• The dentist has to make the down payment on his new Italian villa.

In my trips to the dentist for my daughters, I learned the strangest thing, braces are now considered "cool" (actually the terms are "phat" or "stoopid", but I digress). This was a shock. Growing up as I did, braces were a fate worse than cooties. Kids were known to pull out all their teeth rather than suffer the humiliation of wearing braces. You could usually find them seated in the cafeteria at the table with the kids who had plucked out their eyeballs rather than wear glasses. It was traumatic for them having to endure insulting nicknames like Tinsel Teeth or Jaws. And Metal-mouth or Tetanus Breath. Or Brace-face. Maybe Buick Mouth or Tinhead. Perhaps Oraluminum or Bumper-beaker. And whatever else I could think of at the time.