In the small rural town where I grew up, braces on teeth were not at all common among the working class families. They were definitely more common among the families who lived out in the better sub-division. I wouldn’t say any of the kids wanted them, but were probably OK with it later on in life.
My sister and I both got braces as adults, once we could pay for them ourselves. Only one of my kids needed them, the other was fine.
I have a nephew who inherited my looks, and horrendous every-which-way teeth. But his parents are not “of means”, and they likely won’t pay for braces (the cycle repeats…) He really wants to be an actor. I’m almost thinking of paying for his braces myself because he’s got no chance at a career until he gets his teeth fixed up. Unless he wants to specialize in playing scary backwoods types.
Yep! I look like a rockeater but because it was cosmetic and not “medically” necessary like my brother’s truly buck teeth, I didn’t get them and he did (early '80s). I was very happy about not “needing” them but sometimes consider it now. Along with whitening.
My daughter wanted them and she did somewhat need them (for a gap between her 2 front teeth). She had them removed after less than a year because they hurt her so much. Whenever they were tightened, she cried for days from the pain, but in general, they just always hurt her. They don’t give any type of pain relief for that, other than ibruprofen.
I graduated from high school in the 1970’s and in my small rural town braces were practically unheard of - of course all the children were above average… I’d say 2 out of 100 kids in my class had braces, and they weren’t necessarily the “rich” kids.
My teeth were fine (at least the the upper ones) and my children’s teeth were straight as well, so I don’t have any experience with braces.
BUT back then it was eyeglasses that were the in thing. I begged my parents to get my eyes checked for my driver’s license and needed then ever since. At least glasses are a lot cheaper.
Right, but the question is, why do their parents tell them that? Is it because the parents want the kid to have them for purely cosmetic reasons? Is it because the general dentist says “hmm, your kid’s going to have a seriously messed-up bite down the road, causing all kinds of headaches, gum problems, infections… I highly recommend braces?” Is it because the general dentist is says “well, your kid looks like he might benefit from braces… let me refer you to an orthodontist” and the orthodontist says “of course you need braces!” because it’s more business for him?
ETA: To use myself as an example, I didn’t need braces, but could have benefited from them, but no one ever suggested this to me.
I mean, most general dentists don’t do orthodontics, so presumably they don’t have a financial interest in pushing braces, unless they get kickbacks from orthodontists. Do they?
I remember being about 12, and I guess that’s around the time for girls that their adult teeth have done what they’re going to do, save for the wisdoms. The discussion was definitely between my dentist, mom, and me while I was in the chair. My lower teeth have some crowding in the front, there’s a mild overbite, and my canines are turned a little. My bite and whatever else gets evaluated for needing braces was/is fine and my dentist told both of us that he sort of recommended braces if I wanted to be a movie star, but they weren’t medically necessary. So it was up to me - braces were affordable if I wanted them.
I said heck no. I have no designs on acting, and I like my smile. What crookedness there is, is symmetrical, so to me that makes a big difference. Plus, that was the early 80’s and seriously no one wanted braces if they didn’t have to! Braces were for dorks.
My stepsister, now she got braces when she was 14, once she moved in with us. She had one seriously jacked up mouth and needed that night brace thingy around the head and rubber bands and everything. She definitely didn’t want them, whined about them the entire time she had them, had to be bribed to wear the night brace. But she was not given a choice, her bite was nearly nonexistent, and she had teeth behind each other and sideways. When she was a little older, she was finally grateful - and it was some time after that her mom (who’s teeth she clearly inherited) finally got her own braces as a 30-something.
My current dentist never pushes straightening with me. The hygienist mentions it once in a while, for my four lower front teeth. I think she has to mention it, because I do get extra tartar buildup around those teeth, they’re pretty tight, and it’s true they would be easier to floss and keep clean if they were straightened. So I don’t begrudge having invisalign mentioned occasionally, I think it’s an attentive, kind of checking off the box thing. It’s mentioned, I’m nearly 45 and clearly am not going to do it, I say no and it’s dropped, not pushed at all.
I didn’t have a choice. I sure wouldn’t have gotten them if I’d had a choice - braces hurt like a motherfucker. Well, I didn’t just have braces, I had a Frankel device, and then a Lars device, and rubber bands… Extreme orthodontics. I’m very glad I did, now, because my teeth were obviously awful, but given my druthers as a kid hell no.
Kids/teenagers are terrible at long-range decision making. Very, very few are going to choose painful dental appliances now for pretty teeth in the future.
My teeth started shifting after I turned 30 or so, with a noticeable squeezing of one of my front teeth that has caused them to be uneven. For years I asked my dentist if it was going to be a problem, and he said it was all perfectly fine. And this is a dentist who has the hygienists ask if you want all sorts of extra treatments and screenings, so maybe he just doesn’t have a orthodontist that gives kickbacks for referrals. It’s been several years now and it hasn’t gotten all that much worse, so I guess it’s not a big deal. The dentist said I could get braces if I wanted, but they would be entirely unnecessary.
I also have a slight crowding in another area of my mouth that’s been there for as long as I can remember, but neither my parents nor dentist ever talked to me about getting braces.
I’m thinking that for a certain segment of the upper-end population, they have no problem blowing a small wad of cash on getting their teeth perfectly aligned, while middle-class folks only get them if there’s something drastically wrong.
Purely anecdotal, but when I was a kid we moved around a lot. It seemed that when we were in poor areas the dentists would say my teeth were fine and didn’t need anything other than cleaning and flouride. When we were in more upscale areas it was OMG she needs braces it’s critical and her wisdom teeth out NOW! OMG, this will be such a problem…
Frankly, my teeth have always looked pretty straight to me. Not perfect, but good enough. In fact, a lot of people over the years have assumed I had braces but no, they really did line up that nice all by themselves.
Got a wisdom tooth yanked recently but that was due to decay, not it coming in sideways or anything, and the other three seem to still be just fine.
I have no doubt there are a lot of kids who need and benefit from braces - I recall some classmates in that category who, while miserable during the orthodontics, were actually happy to have the work done due to what can only be called deformity - but there are also a lot of dental types doing wallet biopsies.
Likewise, when I had a dentist find out that I flew airplanes* all of a sudden *I “needed” a lot more work done than I had six months before - he claimed my teeth were loose (they weren’t), I needed skin grafts for my gums (he’s the only one who ever claimed that), I needed oral surgery, orthodontics…
Um… no. I got a second opinion. And we now have a strict No Discussing Expensive Hobbies in Front of Certain Professions rule in our house. Not that expensive hobbies are really an issue anymore for us, but I continue to hope and aspire to a higher socio-economic class than my current one.
My personal opinion is that if a kid from a poor or blue collar family has braces he/she probably really does need them (and some of them that needs them don’t get them as kids, sadly) but the higher the parental income the more likely it’s to be for minor cosmetic reasons than actual need.
The OP should consider himself fortunate that he avoided braces. I didn’t. Like him, I grew up in a lower middle class family with little money to spare. Our dentist said I needed braces for a mild overbite and that I would pay a big penalty in later life if I didn’t get my teeth straightened. But they felt they couldn’t afford orthodontia. But they heard about one orthdontist that accepted payment of $15 a visit (this was about 1950) instead of hundreds of dollars all at once. They felt they could afford that. So I started and got this big heavy appliances on and a retainer I was supposed to sleep with.
This worked for a few weeks or maybe months, but it eventually happened that they didn’t have the $15 and I had to skip that appointment. And the next. And the next. A couple years later a dentist took those braces off, but the damage was done. I had never had a cavity before, but all the teeth that the appliances were on have decayed. Three of them, molars on the upper and lower right and upper left, have been removed and I have three bridges. With one exception, I have still never had a cavity in any of the other teeth and the overbite has never caused the least problem. I know there are people with really bad buck teeth and they really need orthodontia, but for most of us it is a racket.
Bump. I’m rereading this thread because I feel my front teeth are continuing to slowly wear on each other, that specifically the fronts of the tips of my lower front teeth seems to have worn against the backs of the tips of my upper front teeth, meaning my upper front teeth would now have a “wedge” shaped appearance when viewed from the side, with the point in front, and this thin edge is the reason for the chipping. Anyway, I’m moving soon and am thinking of asking if there is anything more that can be done once I find a new dentist my new area.
I’ve noticed that of the people who responded, none really provided the information I was most interested in, which perhaps is my fault for asking the question vaguely. Lots of people said why they had braces, that is, what was the mechanical issue being fixed (underbite, crossbite, crooked teeth, gaps, etc.) What I’d like to know from those who had braces as kids, is: how did the discussion first arise? Did you yourself ask for braces? Did your parents get the idea, and ask your dentist if you needed braces? Did your dentist tell you, unsolicited, that you needed braces? I realize lots of people may not remember, but if you do, that’s what I’m interested in.
I didn’t actually get braces, but when my adult teeth started coming in my dentist said, unsolicited, that I needed braces because one of my bottom front teeth was misaligned (my jaw is a bit too small). My parents decided against it. The misaligned tooth has never bothered me.
Our dentist has said, unsolicited, that my older kid may need some kind of appliance for the same reason. She’s got the same crowded bottom front tooth, but he’s waiting a couple of years to see how her jaw develops and more of her adult teeth come in.
It makes sense to me that it would be the dentist who mostly suggests braces, because he’s got the expertise to spot potential problems before parents or kids would. Our guy mentioned my daughter’s smallish jaw years ago, way before her adult teeth started coming in - her baby teeth were perfectly straight, and we had no idea that her jaw was small, but he did.
My understanding has always been that incorrect teeth alignment can prevent a proper “fit” when you close your jaw, making it harder to chew. It can also cause pain and make teeth harder to clean, in addition to being unsightly. YMMV, of course. I’m sure many people are perfectly fine with their teeth, even if they are not attractive.
But as far as looking nice goes, my teeth were really obviously messed up (I had the elevated vampire-fang looking teeth). I didn’t really notice or care at the time, but in retrospect I am happy I got them fixed. There’s not much a person can do to improve their looks, and plastic surgery often leaves much to be desired, but fixing your teeth with braces is relatively simple and returns predictably good results so… Why not? A little bit of pain and embarrassment as a child is totally worth it in the long run.
At a normal dentist checkup when my adult front teeth had started in both a bit bucked and with a gap, my dentist mildly recommended it to absolutely ensure everything would sort itself out. My parents asked me if I wanted braces and I said, “no, definitely not” due to hearing all my classmates moan and groan about how much their braces hurt them. My parents had insurance that covered a fair amount of the cost but were probably relieved to not deal with it entirely. My teeth did end up sorting themselves out so I only have very mild buck teeth and the gap disappeared all by itself. I’m happy with my teeth.
What’s funny is the dentist was getting a bit up there in years and by the time I was there for the last time (18 years old at a pediatric dentist) he’d forgotten my history and mentioned how “your braces did such a wonderful job” while looking at my teeth.
Both of my kids have braces. My personal theory is that our dentist sized us up, decided that we have good insurance and a little bit of money, and so recommended braces for both kids. Evidently, they (dentist, hygienist, etc.) have been telling my kids they wouldn’t have “that all-American smile” unless they got braces, and other related nonsense.
To be fair, my daughter had a very slight lisp (which I found rather charming), which I suspect will disappear entirely once her choppers are relocated, and both the kids had some crowding going on with the bottom row.
They (again, dentist, hygienist, etc.) have been telling my wife and me that the need for braces is mostly cosmetic, but cited concerns around the crowding and long-term impact of same. We explored the route of “medical necessity” to get the entire thing covered by insurance, but my dentist admitted it was not strictly necessary, reminding us again about the crowding and painting glorious pictures of perfect teeth and glowing smiles, etc.
Bah.
Both my kids took it all in stride. My daughter is a bit more aware of and concerned with her appearance, and based her opinions about her teeth in large part on what They had been telling her (literally, for years) down at the dentists’ office, and many (many) of her friends have braces. My son definitely had more of an evident “need” but couldn’t care one way or the other going into it.
TLDR Version: Dentist sized us up, determined we’ve got some bucks and good insurance, brainwashed kids
I had braces for years. I didn’t have much feelings one way or another about them. No one ever teased me, and I never felt self-conscious about it.
At the time, it was because my mouth was too small for my teeth, so they were coming in crooked. I was a bit bucktoothed, too. The orthodontist pulled four bicuspids and used the braces to fill in the space. Though, as a bonus, there was plenty of room for my wisdom teeth, so they came in normally.