Parents indulging adolescent insecurities with $$$$$ procedures

Middle-class parents are catering to the insecurities of their teenage girls with beautifying procedures that cost tens of thousands, says this article. Of course, this has always gone on: nose jobs, ear jobs and the like. It's the scale and detail that have changed, along with technological solutions.

In 2007, teenagers got 67,523 (laser surgery) procedures -- more than double the number that age group had in 2000, according to the society, which surveyed its members and board-certified dermatologists but not aestheticians or other doctors.

Many children seek to be denuded because excess fuzz embarrasses them. Others want to avoid a lifetime of battling hair. For Christine Furman, of Greenwich, Conn., getting laser treatment for the unibrow of her 16-year-old daughter Teresa was a celebratory event, not unlike ear piercing. Classmates had also nicknamed Teresa "Uno Brow."

Ms. Furman was wary of electrolysis because it had left pockmarks on her chin. But she wanted to give her daughter the gift of never having to maintain her eyebrows again. "She got the first treatment the day after she got off her braces," she said. "It hurt a little bit, so she squeezed my hand. Then we went to Bloomingdale's."