Mum criticised for letting her 11-year-old daughter get plastic surgery

A mum is being criticised for allowing her 11-year-old daughter to get plastic surgery.

Bella Harrington had been teased for years about her ears which she thought "stuck out too much." Her mother, Sabrina, knew that her daughter wanted to change her appearance, so she allowed Bella to undergo an otoplasty surgery to pin her ears back and make them appear smaller. The Virginia mum told local news station WRIC that her daughter had been teased a lot from other children who said that she had "elf ears." The procedure is actually not that uncommon among young people. Bella's surgeon, Dr Joe Niamtu, said that he had treated children as young as four or five-years-old. He said:

"The reason is bullying, or peer pressure. It's been shown to psychologically have the ability to affect their self-esteem or body image for the rest of their life."

Since her surgery, Bella has said that she feels far more comfortable with the way she looks and that she can even wear her hair up now without fear of being teased. However, some parents have criticised Sabrina's decision to allow her daughter to get the surgery. They have been responding to multiple news sources with their thoughts. "Momma should raise her daughter not to care about what people think," said one person on Twitter. "She's not even fully grown," argued another. "This is ensuring that all that matters is how you look (...) Terrible lesson for a child to learn." Others stated that the surgery was regular enough for young children to undergo and that parents shouldn't be so judgement if they hadn't experienced a similar situation themselves. "I hope this will boost her confidence and self-esteem," said one supportive person. "Sadly there's no surgery to fix her bully's hateful heart."