Doctors and parents can be... it's difficult.Let me tell you a story. My parents were both highly educated individuals. When I was five, it became apparent that I had a medical condition which the medical community advised warranted surgery. It was a potentially fatal condition, but it could also go away over time, because I was still growing and the body could just resolve it on its own. Until and including discovery of this, I had never had any problems with it.

It took my parents a long time to make the decision to go for surgery. The surgery went without a hitch and I was fine, but the medical rigmarole around it was severely problematic, and to top it off, the surgeons asked if, while they were doing the whole surgery anyway, my parents maybe wanted my "outie" belly button corrected straightaway? They said no.

They were both well educated. I can't imagine a family going through that, with all its associated pressures and I-know-more-than-you vibes, who didn't have the same educational background. So I wasn't surprised that there are parents out there who were genuinely led to believe this was the best thing for their child.