THE SOUND OF silence
WHEN I WAS 12 YEARS OLD, I hated having braces on my teeth. But when I begged my parents to have them removed, my mum responded simply: “Sure. We can have your braces taken off. You’re old enough to make this choice. But having the braces taken off now means short-term easy and long-term hard. Leaving them on for another few years means short-term hard and long-term easy. Which one do you want?”
Well played, Mum. In the end, I didn’t get my braces taken off until I was 14 when the orthodontist decided it was time.
These days, “short-term hard, long term easy” is my
