Should I have a nose job? Teenage tales from the wild world of rhinoplasty 

I remember the exact moment I first became concerned about the shape of my nose.  I was in Year 10 and a boy at the same Jewish high school told me I had the “best hooked nose” he’d ever seen. Confused as to whether I’d been given a compliment or not, I relayed the comment to my mother in the car on the drive home. Mum’s jaw dropped. “What’s a hooked nose?” I asked, urgently. 

Buying time, Mum proceeded to tell me that she had a straight nose, my best friend had a button nose and my older sister had our nanna’s nose. “And who has a hooked nose?” I pushed. “Your father,” Mum replied. 

I started to hyperventilate. 

My father’s schnoz resembled the prominent Jewish nose caricatured in the Nazi propaganda I had studied in Jewish History class. 

“I have a f***ing hooked nose?!” I gasped. Mum put her hand on my leg, “It’s hooked but it’s not big. Yours is a beautiful hooked nose.” 

For the record, I appreciated my mother’s compassionate brand of honesty. One might even call her response mild when compared to other teenage girls’ experiences. 

My friend Talia’s mother was the first to point out that her nose was far from ideal and instigated rhinoplasty when she was in high school. Having had a nose job herself when she was a teenager, Talia’s mum “strongly encouraged it. She really really wanted me to get it done. She thought I'd be happier.”

Talia hesitated at first, not wanting to “be Jappy (aka Jewish princess) or conform to societal norms” but when she turned 16, Talia started to feel more self-conscious and told her mum she wanted to have the surgery. “Pretty much the next day Mum had called the surgeon because she was so excited and so worried that I would change my mind.”