There's no shame worse than poor teeth in a rich world

Interesting article, thanks.

TFS, that was a good read.

I think that is an interesting aspect of those trying to better their circumstances - sometimes they are faced with criticism from their family/friends who aren't doing the same. It's just one other factor that makes it harder.

Interesting article and depressing. It saddens me that in a country so well off we see such disparity. 

Thanks good article

This article nearly brought me to tears. She pretty much described my childhood. I went to the dentist only a couple times as a child, once I had to beg I was in so much pain, my mom was angry at me when I finally went. That tooth later became a very expensive crown as an adult - that I still couldn't afford.
My brother - who is 50, still has his baby teeth - very strange deal. He's supposed to have dentures since he was 20 but he's just never done it. I know he got it from my mom, her teeth were the same. She got dentures when she was about 28-30. I have crooked teeth that can pass but they do bother me.
My 2 much younger sisters have perfect teeth, which is funny because of their ages they had different "parents" (same parents) so they had better nutrition than us older 3 did. They also have gotten along better in life than probably us older 3.

When my youngest was about 6-7 his older brother was fighting with him and kicked out his front teeth accidentally (man I was mad!) He had no front teeth for a couple years so when his teeth finally grew in, they were really REALLY crooked and stuck out. He couldn't even shut his mouth properly.
Had it been my own parents, he would still look like that.
I knew he'd never get a great job, or a beautiful girl so we all sucked it up (ex, his wife, my husband and I) and scraped up the money for the braces. He has a beautiful smile now. A beautiful girlfriend and a great job.
I consider this one of my greatest accomplishments!

Great article - real food for thought. Dental/medical care is just a visible sign of the haves and have-nots. You can be ignorant with great teeth and designer shoes, or educated with basic needs not met.

There but for the grace of God...........

Thank you for phrasing this so well. I still feel horribly inadequate regarding my home, car, clothing, etc. I feel like an imposter. We make a fairly good income, but I am constantly afraid of not being able to pay the bills. DH has to be the one to pay the bills because I freeze up when I see the bank balance go down. I am afraid of being poor again.

Whoever mentioned government cheese--lol. Nothing melts for grilled cheese sandwiches like government surplus cheese. Good stuff!

I am the only one of my maternal siblings to have all of their teeth. We did get dental care under Medicaid but daily care was neglected. One sibling has two teeth and has been that way since his mid 20's. My mom had her teeth all pulled at 30 and had a full set of dentures. I never got the braces I should have to correct a cross bite. I have made sure my kids do, though.

Though we were what I would call lower middle class, and had no dental insurance, my mother made sure she saved enough money to get us to the dentist once a year for cleanings and cavities filled. My sister and I were very fortunate that our teeth grew in straight because there wouldn't have been money for braces.

what an interesting article and so true.

Very interesting read.
We were very poor also. As I child I never had a dental check up, but did go to the dentist when a bad tooth ached so much I could not stand it. After that, I had several fillings done. My mother had bad teeth and got dentures when she was in her 40s, and went to the dental college to get the work done.

We grew up poor. I wasn't really aware of it for a long time, mostly because no one treated us as poor. But I got free breakfasts and lunches at school, new clothes came from the TG&Y and hair cuts were sitting in the dining room with my mom hacking away with the sewing scissors. There was the time that I stepped on a rusty nail and it was so awful that I had to use crutches-but we couldn't afford them and I ended up with what we then called the 'polio crutches' (this was of course years ago when polio was still kind of thing-they were the aluminum kind that had the arm braces and hand holds.) I knew that other people lived differently than we did-we didn't have air conditioning, we didn't have a tv, our house was only about 950 square feet...but we ate well (my mom volunteered at the food co-op every weekend in exchange for fresh vegetables) and my mom had a group of friends that we always hung out with-big pot luck dinners and lots of music.

And where I really lucked out? When I was about 9 my mom went back to school for dental hygiene. Thanks to her job, we always had great dental care. Free cleanings every six months, cavities covered...and when it came time for braces, the orthodontist gave steep, steep discounts because he was friends with the dentist she worked for. So I escaped the consequences of poor dental health thanks to my mom's employer who allowed her and us kids access to free dental care.

We talk sometimes about how poor we were, but usually while laughing. I had SUCH a happy childhood. My aunt lived with us for a couple of years, my mom's friends were amazing people who brought interesting experiences into my world. We spent more weekends than not camping...at the beach, in the woods, by the rivers.  We went to music festivals, we went to free outdoor concerts, we had parties where people brought their instruments and music was a HUGE part of my childhood. We were the barefoot children of the 70's...chewing on sugar cane right off the plant, sucking on oranges right off the trees, with sunburned noses playing among the blankets in front of stages listening to whoever was playing at the time. We were poor, and at times so poor that buying a coca-cola was stretching the budget, but I honestly wouldn't trade my experience for anything in the world.

We grew up with little money, too. I fell off a bike and knocked my two front teeth crooked. They did not get fixed until adulthood. Thank goodness they weren't too bad. That being said it has always stuck in my mind when people disrespect people with dental problems, "why don't they just get that fixed"- like it's so easy.

And not to get political but the one thing that the Hardee's guy that was up for Labor Secretary was quoted as saying that really turned me off on him was about this very subject. Something demeaning that all his employees at Hardees "better have their teeth" or similar. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Good teeth as a luxury is so sad.

We weren't poor, but definitely lower middle class in terms of income when I was a kid. But teeth were a big deal to my dad - because he felt, as the article says, that bad teeth would forever mark us as lower class. He found the cheapest one-man dentist shop in town - a crotchety old guy who had trained as a dentist in the Navy and did all his own work (no hygienist, just him in the office). And that's where we went, every six months like clockwork. I know my dad used to go over and help him with small fix-it projects in the office to pay off some of our bill.

I know now he was an awful dentist. Everything was much more painful than it needed to be, and all his equipment seemed to have come from the 1950s with him. I had no idea until I was an adult that dental work didn't have to be awful, or that some dentists had hygienists to do the cleanings and nice, modern, updated offices. But my teeth are nice.