Those Were Dark Days

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Is it sad that, amidst all the launching of American Girl's MMO and the rebranding of the modern dolls again and the eclipsing of the historicals and the STRONG OPINIONS of fellow doll geeks, I am most amused by this?

That’s right, kids! Now you, too, can inflict the horrors of orthodontia upon your doll! Grind her cheeks into pretend hamburger with these braces! Make her more aware of the back of her neck than she’s ever been with this headgear!* Even comes with bolus decals you can stick on her teeth to simulate half-chewed food caught in her braces and retainer!

Okay, it doesn’t come with that last one. It does come with braces decals, though, and what they say is a retainer but as far as I can tell is a mouth guard.

One thing it does not come with, for which I am eternally grateful, is a hideous personal memory called a Herbst, which I think was complex enough to reach the status of “contraption.” What happened was, your evil orthodontist would put stainless steel bands around your upper molars. Bolted to these, with hinges, were tubes that actually just hung loose in your mouth unless you put in the rest of the contraption, which was a giant plastic blob like a mouthguard over your bottom teeth. It also had little metal rods bolted to it, which fit into the metal tubes flapping around from your molars. The idea was that the rods could only go back as far as the length of the tube, keeping your lower jaw from moving too far back, and thus theoretically correcting your overbite.

And, in the process, trapping food, hacking your gums and mouth to pieces, making it impossible to talk,** and earning you the scorn of your friends.

I’d say leaving it out was a smart move on AG’s part. Doll headgear is plenty mean all on its own. My dolls are molded better than I was, so they get spared that indignity anyway.


*Not just a rash, neither! I honestly believe that it was misaligned headgear that caused my neck to wrench painfully one morning in the shower, causing me to actually pass out from pain. (For the record, I do not recommend passing out in the shower.)

**“What’s that thing?” “Ihh a hurhhhn.” “I’ll bet it hurts!” “Nuh, ihh cahhd a HURHHN.”

Comments

[spiffikins]

(giggle)

so sorry - but I will forever be grateful that my mother just rolled her eyes at the dentist who suggested that I start with braces for my overbite.

My best friend in elementary school did the whole route - braces and headgear and then retainer for years and years and years. I remember in grade 5 and 6 when she wore the headgear - she'd come over and we'd babble on like the 10 year old girls we were...afterward my mother would ask me, with great seriousness, "can you understand anything she says?"

The closest I've come is a partial plate that I wore for nearly a year, when I had a tooth pulled and was waiting to complete the implant - you have to re-learn how to talk and pronounce words with this giant plastic THING in your mouth. I would literally practice talking and singing along to songs in the car on the way to work, so that people could understand me when I got there....

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

My mom had to wear one of those partial plates for the same reason. She would get no sympathy from us when she whined about it.

I only had to wear the headgear at night, but the time of the Herbst sucked because I could not take it out without having those motherfucking tubes flailing around in my mouth. God, I must have sounded GROSS.

[bean-bunny.livejournal.com]

True story: bitty Bean had to have headgear. But, the kindly orthodontist (probably figured out that no kid would wear headgear to school and) said that I only had to wear it at night.

Hooray! So I decided to be good, really good, and wear my headgear to bed.

Every morning I woke up with the headgear on my pillow.

I had figured out how to get out of it in my sleep, and thus we had to figure something else out. I still kinda feel bad.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

AHAHA! Mini-Bean has a survival strategy! ("Maybe we should PADLOCK it?")

I only had to wear it at night, too--I think that's one standard way of doing headgear. Possibly for just the reason you mention--even I, social hater that I was, would not wear headgear to school.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

I think it's a smart move to have a doll orthodontics set, actually; for kids like me who sometimes worked out stresses through roleplaying, it might be very helpful to have a copy of a source of stress, so that they can work out how their doll feels about the braces and perhaps identify their own feelings in the process. I was an imaginative kid, and told myself stories constantly, sometimes with props, sometimes without, but working through my problems through a character intermediary was a big help for me.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely--that's one of the reasons it amuses me so. I expect kids will love it--hell, I want to work through the trauma with those things.

The thing is, AG doesn't really do stressors for kids. AG has a tendency lately (well, it always has, but especially lately) to do the cartoony thing and leave out some of the unglamorous realities, the less than pleasant parts of being a tween. I'm the kid who loves realistic stuff, so the inglorious world of orthodontia actually pleases me. But it is a little bit out of the usual Disney Channel comfort zone of AG, which is the source of my amusement.

Plus, no matter how much it helps your mouth later in life, headgear is mean. Possibly necessary, but mean all the same.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

True that! I hated braces with a passion, and considered myself lucky to escape headgear.