Like Mother, Like Daughter...

We all know mothers and daughters shop together, travel together, laugh together and consider themselves best friends. But in today’s day and age, it’s realistic that these duos even share the experience of plastic surgery. I have noticed a trend in couples cosmetic surgery, including husbands and wives, sisters, friends, and, the most popular of all, mother/daughter plastic surgery, particularly in Beverly Hills.

Last month I had the privilege to perform surgery on a mother and daughter. It’s interesting to witness the differences in the desired outcomes from surgery on two ladies merely one generation apart. Expectations vary greatly from mother to daughter because, as our bodies change with age, so do our ideals, our identities and our social groups and activities. For daughters, plastic surgery strives to achieve to aesthetic perfection by enhancing and maintaining youthful contours and curves. Mothers, more often, desire restoration to a more youthful, rejuvenated version of themselves without the appearance of surgical enhancement or dramatic change. The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS) reports that here were nearly 11.7 million surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures performed in the United States in 2007, including an increase in couples cosmetic surgery. The majority of the cases seem to be mother/daughter plastic surgery. While we don’t know what the increase is linked to, speculation is that the shared surgical experience increases mother-daughter bonding.

Overall, mother-daughter bonding can occur through simple moral support, the shared experience itself, and/or the recovery time spent together. The most popular mother- daughter plastic surgeries include facelifts, tummy tucks, nose jobs, and breast surgery. In my experience, whether the surgeries are done at the same time or separately, once a family gains trust in a plastic surgeon, it is only a matter of time before mothers, sisters, aunts and uncles come into the office with questions and “wish lists” for better bodies and more youthful features.