One of the things my wife Carol and I take for granted these days is excellent dental care. We both have cleanings and check-ups four times a year, and a full set of x-rays once a year. I have one implant, one bridge, and about ten crowns. Every few years the dentist finds a cavity, or a loose crown, and he makes the appropriate correction. Additionally I see my periodontist once a year for maintenance on my implant. Recently Carol had a molar that was too far gone to save, and she got an immediate appointment with a dental surgeon. Both of us had our wisdom teeth out more than thirty years ago.
Fortunately we have enough assets to pay for all this, but more importantly we don't have to because we have fairly good dental insurance as part of our State of Illinois retirement benefits. It costs about $18.00 a month, and some years the insurance pays out more than we pay in.
It hasn't always been this good, dentally speaking. When I was a kid we didn't have enough money for dentists, and at least in our income bracket there was no such thing as dental insurance. My parents told me that it didn't make sense to spend money on "baby teeth", since they were going to fall out anyway. But they gave in when I was a teenager and took me to a dentist when I had very bad cavities in my adult teeth.
Until I was in my late twenties I assumed that I would have all of my teeth taken out by the time I was thirty. That's what had happened to my mother when she was 27 and to my step-father when he was 31. Both had ill-fitting and very cheap upper and lower dentures. They were both significantly limited in what they could eat. So I never imagined that taking care of my teeth was very important.
This extended to my daily cleaning regime; I was taught to brush my teeth once a day in the morning, and I got it into my head that this was primarily for fresh breath. I don't think anybody in my entire family knew about flossing, and I was certainly never taught to do it. I eventually heard about mouthwash, but even that was reserved for special occasions. And since I never saw a dentist regularly, no one was around to bully me into brushing more frequently, or flossing.
Once when I sent to the dentist when I was about 14 I had a cavity that was so bad the dentist strongly suggested a root canal as the only way to save the tooth. When they found out how much it would cost they immediately said no and instructed the dentist to fill the cavity and let it go. I had little idea what that meant, but for years I walked around with a partially completed root canal packed with filling material.
By far the worst thing that lack of money ever did to my teeth was keep me from getting braces. Those of you who know me know that I have a weird bite with extremely crooked teeth. This became obvious when I was a young teen, and I badgered my parents into taking me to see an orthodontist. After a thorough exam and a set of x-rays, the dentist told us I had too small a mouth for all of my teeth but that he had a plan. This would have involved pulling a couple of teeth, taking out my wisdom teeth when they came in, and wearing metal braces for a coupe of years. But it would have solved all of my problems. The cost, however, was prohibitive; as much as my step-father earned in a year. And they had a hard time qualifying for a car loan, let alone a loan for (as they thought) unnecessary dental work. So they told the dentist no, and they told me he told them privately that my teeth were too soft for braces and that I would end up losing all my teeth.
Who knows? If I had had braces I might have ended up as an actor, or an attorney.
Speaking of which, when I went into private practice as an attorney in 1995 I went to see an orthodontist. He examined my teeth thoroughly, took a full set of x-rays, and told me my mouth was too small for all of my teeth but he had a plan. It involved pulling a couple of teeth and wearing braces for a couple of years (I had already had my wisdom teeth removed). The cost was not prohibitive, and our dental insurance would have paid a good part of it. My teeth were not too soft for braces, and by then they had developed "invisible" clear plastic braces. But I couldn't stand the thought of removing a couple of healthy teeth. So I decided against it.
My reason may have been different, but I reached the same conclusion that my parents had come to some thirty-five years earlier. Under these circumstances is it reasonable to blame them for the state of my teeth today? Perhaps not. And yet I do. It just seems to me that one of parents' responsibilities to their children is to care for their health: their physical health, their mental health, their dental health. If we had children I certainly would have provided them with braces if they had needed them. Or with the treatment of a dermatologist if they had needed it. Or with anything else they truly needed, regardless of the cost. Of course that's easy to say, since we have no children, and since we have sufficient money. What we would have done if we didn't have the money, as my parents did not, I cannot say.
I do know that when I was an adult, out of college, married, and with a job (well, a graduate assistantship is sort of a job), I did not go to the dentist regularly. I had a molar pulled in 1970 because I had let it go too long to save, but fortunately I did not have any other serious problems. Finally, when I was in my 13th year of full-time teaching I started seeing a dentist regularly. I looked into having my missing molar replaced, and agreed to have a bridge installed. This involved having the two teeth on either side reduced and covered with caps, with a false tooth attached in between. If implants had been available I would have had one, but I was not offered that option. It was also during this time that I was referred to an oral surgeon to remove my wisdom teeth. And when I began having teeth capped as well as having cavities filled.
Straightened and capped teeth are important in some fields. There is no direct discrimination against attorneys with messy mouths, but anything that calls one's trustworthiness into question is not good. Clients of course must trust their attorneys, but so must judges. I have written elsewhere about my belief that I once won a case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit by making a judge laugh in oral argument (see For Three Weeks I Owned the University of Illinois). There is no question, though, that missing teeth and gaps between teeth are fatal for actors. I had a student some forty years ago who got an excellent review in a major Detroit newspaper for playing a leading role in a local professional theatre, but the reviewer also referred to the unmistakeable gasp between her front teeth. She had them capped immediately, and worked regularly on stage and on TV until she married the son of a Pultizer Prize-winning playwright and shifted her focus. And I have heard it said that Georgia Democrat Stacy Abrams might have won the Governorship or possibly become Joe Biden's VP candidate if not for the gap between her front teeth.
After I stepped down as Chair at SIUC in 1988 I began seeing Carol's dentist regularly, for cleanings and fillings. I kept seeing him after I became an attorney and moved to Charleston in 1995. Along the way he referred me for a root canal, and that turned into an extraction and an implant. My periodontist regularly tells me that I have the strangest bite he has ever seen, and he keeps a cast of my mouth in his office. He says he expects my teeth to shift one day, endangering my implant. So far there's no sign of it, but I see him annually just to make sure. Our regular dentist has retired, but we continue to see his son who took over the practice.
Most of the time these days I don't even think about my teeth. I have cleanings and check-ups regularly, and my dentist catches any problems before they get too big. I don't expect ever to lose another tooth. In my family, that will be a first. I hope my brother and his kids are as diligent, but I have no confidence in such an outcome. What we learn at our mother's knee is difficult, if not impossible, to change.
