Physical Ideals, Charlotte Mason, and Orthodontia

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]harlotte Mason should be glad that my husband wasn’t her editor. He’s my editor for Newbie Tuesday, and I’ll tell you right now that he’d never allow some of the passing comments she’s included in her chapters. They seemingly come out of nowhere, and when I do that, I get in trouble. That thought isn’t connected to any of the previous thoughts in the whole article, he says.

He’s right, you know.

And yet.

I’m still glad we have these little snippets from her. Some of them seem strange and antiquated. Some of them say things we aren’t supposed to say in this politically correct world of ours. And some of them pack a punch and let on that this woman knew so much that even though she wrote thousands of pages, she was still holding back on us.

Take this bit as an example, nestled at the end of her commentary on country air in Home Education:

There was a charming picture in Punch some time ago, of two little boys airing their English-French on their mother’s new maid; two noble little fellows, each straight as a dart, with no superfluous flesh, eyes well opened, head erect, chest expanded, the whole body full of spring even in repose. It was worth looking at, if only as suggesting the sort of physique we delight to see in a child. No doubt the child inherits the most that he is in this respect as in all others; but this is what bringing-up may, with some limitations, effect: — The child is born with certain natural tendencies, and, according to his bringing-up, each such tendency may run into a blemish of person or character, or into a cognate grace. Therefore, it is worth while to have even a physical ideal for one’s child; not, for instance, to be run away with by the notion that a fat child is necessarily a fine child. The fat child can easily be produced: but the bright eyes, the open regard, the springing step; the tones, clear as a bell; the agile, graceful movements that characterise the well-brought-up child, are the result, not of bodily well being only, but of ‘mind and soul according well,’ of a quick, trained intelligence, and of a moral nature habituated to the ‘joy of self control.’

To me this begged the question of whether we’ve ever envisioned a physical ideal for our children — or for each individual child in our families. Have you? I know that, for me, it’s very tempting to emphasize the spiritual and the intellectual over and above the physical — to forget that they are embodied souls.

We’ve had our share of health issues over the years, as many of you know. And health issues seem really common these days. When we first had things pop up, it felt like we were all alone, but now I often meet people with the same challenges we’ve had — it’s almost normal, except that we all remember our own growing up well enough to know that it’s not.

Normal, I mean.

These days, we’re not supposed to hold up a physical ideal for our children, while at the same time, we’re encouraged to help them “be healthy” — a really hard thing to do without a clear vision of an ideal. But still, there is the whole body image/body shaming thing. If you say something like “no excess flesh” like Charlotte did {and, mind you, I’m saying this as a person who has her share of the excess!}, you’re said to be setting your child up for an eating disorder or some other psychological disorder.

But still.

We can’t ignore that these ideals still ring true: good posture, trim, alert and shining eyes, head up, breathing well, with energy in spades. We know it, and then a lot of us see our scrawny {or overweight}, pale children struggling to breathe through their noses and coughing from exertion, breaking out in rashes from eating what should be innocuous foods, and we wonder.

Where in the world did we go wrong?

Well, that’s a whole issue I won’t get into, though my friend laughingly told us at book group, after we discussed this exact quote, that Hal Huggins once wrote a book called Why Raise Ugly Kids? {which she lent to me and I am now reading} that has a physical ideal spelled out, along with some strategies for moving in the right direction. His book focuses a lot on orthodontic issues.

Which is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.

Now, I know you’re wondering how we got here, but stick with me. Instead of thinking of the physical ideal for the whole child, let’s just think about the dental part of the child for a moment. My children were born with extremely crowded teeth — so much so that they had crooked baby teeth. Two of them also struggled with cavities.

I had read enough about teeth to know that this was not the ideal. We all know cavities aren’t the ideal, but I mean the crowding — and I don’t mean for aesthetic reasons {though aesthetics are important}. I knew the super crowded teeth meant higher chances of sinus infections, environmental allergies, snoring, and even sleep apnea. I also knew that braces could only fix the aesthetics — they didn’t actually solve the underlying problem of too-small bones.

So I did a ton of research. I discovered there was an orthopedic, bone-stretching type of approach to orthodontics, and then I went on a mission to figure out if I could afford it. We were in luck: it was way cheaper than braces, at least in our neck of the woods.

When I went to one of the early appointments with our orthodontist, I wasn’t sure what to expect. After all, most of his business consisted in braces work, and my goal was for our children to avoid braces. I was very honest with him — I told him what I’d read. And then I said, “Their teeth don’t have to be beautiful. We’re not doing this for aesthetics. We’re doing this because we’re concerned for their long-term health.”

The doctor’s response floored me. “You don’t understand aesthetics, then. The aesthetics are the sign of health. When the bones are right and the teeth fit, the face just is more beautiful.”

All of these memories came back to me during our book group discussion. Miss Mason was encouraging us to have a physical ideal in the same way that we have ideals for other areas of their lives — intellectual, spiritual, etc. And when a child embodies that physical ideal, he’s pleasant to look at — but that’s not the point.

The pleasantness is simply the sign of good health — the good form is the sign of good function.

And when that good health is coupled with what Miss Mason mentions — agile movements and a joyous self-control — it’s a beautiful thing.

Fast forward many years and our oldest child is the poster boy for orthodontics. His bones stretched and grew so nicely after all these years that he may just have room for his wisdom teeth, which is sort of unheard of.

And I feel like I’ve learned that it’s worth it to aim for a physical ideal, even though our children will never fully attain it. One of my desires was to take burdens off their future families — to present them to their future spouses in as good a condition as possible so that they might be fit for service, rather than in need of care.

Of course, life doesn’t always work out that way.

But even in light of that fact, I still think Charlotte Mason was on to something.