Kids with Dad’s Noses
“He’s got your eyes,” joyful grandparents coo at the infant they cradle in their arms while seeing in their memory their own son, father to this baby. While an infant may resemble his mother’s or father’s baby pictures at birth, the likelihood of the child manifesting other inherent traits, like a large nose, are likely to show up as the child gets older.
That inherent propensity along with the fact that the first thing that’s noticeable when you see someone’s face is usually their nose when they’re younger and their eyes when they’re older, make nose jobs a real consideration today for young people with outsized noses.
Dr. Jeffrey Raval prefers to postpone nose surgery on a child until they are past puberty and their nose has reached the size it will remain.
But some unique cases call for surgery before that time.
Take for example the case of the young teenage girl who had a natural stage presence and loved to act. In elementary school and junior high, she’d found her niche. But when she got to high school and was as anxious to star in the school play, a thoughtless boy had ridiculed the size of her nose. It was humiliating enough to the girl that she withdrew from acting and increasingly retreated to being a solitary child, keeping to herself.
Her parents were aware of the ridicule their daughter had suffered by her classmate and sought out Dr. Raval to assess their daughter’s candidacy for a nose job. She was a fit for surgery, Dr. Raval determined.
“This was a case that surgery totally changed a life,” says Dr. Raval. “I could see an entire revision of her self-esteem and personality.”
The young lady regained her confidence and reinvested herself in participating in stage plays, regaining her stage presence because of her innate talent, only now without the embarrassment of having a naturally outsized nose. Hollywood will likely chronicle her story years from now.
“It’s this kind of surgery that is so rewarding,” adds Dr. Raval.