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player ready...Life with kids is full of all sorts of rites of passage, those moments and experiences that not only make us stop to recall our own youth but also mark the gradual passage of our children’s youth as well.
There’s the first solid food, the ability to feed themselves, and later — if that child should require orthodontia, as many do — the inevitable regression through the loss of those first two.
That’s what we’ve been through the last few months at hour house, since our eldest got braces. We’d known for quite some time that he would need them, likely the first of all three of our children who will. But that doesn’t make it any less momentous when that time finally comes for those brackets and wires to be installed.
We did the due diligence, seeking dental and orthodontic referrals from other parents whose children have or had braces.
“Go to this place,” one family would say. “They’re the best.”
“Go to this other place,” another family would say. “They have the best prices.”
“Get me a drink,” I would say. “This is going to kill me.”
Nonetheless, the boy went in for his consults, with one place saying it would cost an arm and a leg and another letting us keep the arm at least. Amazing the perspective that orthodontia can give you on what suddenly seems “affordable.”
By last November we’d pretty well settled on which doctor we’d go with, and consequently which estimate. That timing is significant as it is also the annual time the government refers to as the “open enrollment” period, when employees are legally allowed to change their benefit options without a qualifying life event such as birth, death or change in marital status. I don’t know about you, but to most people, plunking down thousands of dollars to fix your child’s teeth does indeed appear to qualify as a “life event,” but not in the eyes of Uncle Sam. Who, come to think of it, I’m pretty sure never had braces himself.
So with the “leg-only” option in hand, I dutifully updated our Health Savings Account withholding for 2016 to reflect what would soon be the addition of new hardware on the boy’s chompers, because if you’ve got to spend that kind of money, you ought to at least be able to reap a modest tax benefit for it – provided the child’s braces are needed for medical purposes, as they are in our son’s case, and not merely cosmetic ones.
I was hoping he’d get to at least July or August before having the braces put on, allowing us to have a bit more cushion set aside for the upfront payment and letting him get through another baseball season. Because, worry as we all do about our children being hit in the face by a thrown or batted ball, orthodontia will only make you worry more.
This I remember from my own experience with braces more than 30 years ago, which brought concerns of which activities were no longer acceptable, the use of mouth guards in those that were, and more than a few items that were on the “can’t eat” list.
Popcorn, nuts, caramel and gum are just a few children’s favorites that the orthodontist will quickly tell patients are now off limits for the duration of their treatment period, which ended up starting in April for our boy. But nothing brought the new reality closer to home than the first night I watched my wife cut our son’s corn on the cob off of the cob for him, just as she’d done years before when his front baby teeth had fallen out and he lacked the chewers required to remove the kernels himself.
My wife and I both had braces at about the same age our boy does now, so we know what he’s dealing with – the annoyance of wires that pop out of place, the pain endured when the orthodontist tightens them, and the occasional ribbing from friends. “Tin grin,” “brace face” and “metal mouth” being just a few of the classics that have no doubt stood the test of time. Thankfully, our son hasn’t had to put up with too much of that, at least not that we know of.
He’s already looking forward to the day he gets those braces off, roughly two years from when he got them on, ensuring that he starts high school without them. Looking ahead, that will no doubt start the cycle anew, of taking our daughter for her initial consults and treatment plans, and our younger boy for the same about two years after that.
Guess we’ll be cutting that corn off the cob for a while.
Rob Manker is a freelance writer who lives in Naperville.
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Twitter: @RobManker