Give It To Me Straight

One of your main concerns as a parent when your child gets braces is, “Is there parking at the orthodontist’s office?” That’s the one aspect that’s may be in your control.

When the braces happen is not in your control. You want your kids to get braces in their teens, primarily because of shidduchim. (Most of what you do at the dentist is for shidduchim.)

Whether or not it happens is not in your control either. When I got married, I thought, “My kids will never need braces. I’ve never had them, my wife never had them, and apparently we didn’t need them for shidduchim, because both of us have gotten married. That’s 2 out of 2!” But apparently, we’re currently in the process of putting braces on a second child of ours. So far.

I’m more of a root canal guy. I think I have more crowns at this point than original teeth. I cannot eat gum. So the thought was, “At least our kids won’t need braces. Just root canals.”

Do you know how much braces cost? About 2 root canals.

“That’s not true!” all the dentists are saying. “A root canal is a lot less!” But that’s because when dentists quote a price for a root canal, they don’t include the post and the crown. They look at those as additional, optional expenses, as if anyone just gets the gaping hole in their mouth and decides, “That’s it. That’s all I’m getting. I don’t need to look like I have all my teeth. I’m already married.”

Whereas our braces place said that everything’s covered, including merch. For example, they gave my son a hoodie. A hoodie is great, because some teenagers are embarrassed of having braces, so this way they can put their hood on and turn their back to people. Except that on their back, there’s a huge ad for the orthodontist.

And my son asked, “Where am I going to wear this hoodie? I can’t wear it to yeshiva. It has words.”

I wouldn’t even want him to wear it to yeshiva. I’m nervous that the yeshivas are going to say, “Well, if you can afford braces, you can afford to pay us more!” I’d already figured that we’d have to hide his braces. I told him, “Don’t smile in yeshiva.” And he said, “I already don’t smile in yeshiva.”

I never get a sweatshirt when I get a root canal. I get a pessimistically huge pile of gauze.

But the price of braces isn’t under our control. At least this time. Our older son, Heshy, didn’t have such a fancy dentist that gave out hoodies, but on the bright side, his braces were free. So pros and cons.

Turns out that Heshy’s braces were deemed a medical necessity. In that he had two adult teeth that were coming in horizontally. If you ever want to decide whether your kid should get braces, you should make it a medical necessity.

It took us forever to get them approved, though. I wrote an article years ago about going for a consultation, and my plan was to revisit the topic from time to time. But then I never did, because it took two years for the insurance company to get back to us, and then my wife took it upon herself to take him for the adjustments every month.

To be honest, COVID started soon after the evaluation, and dentists weren’t super excited to be accepting new patients, because dental patients are notorious for not wearing masks during procedures. So we called the insurance after 2 years, when we were switching him from a mesivta that was a half hour away to one that was 4 hours away, and we really wanted it finished before this year, when he’s in Eretz Yisrael, which is more than 4 hours away, and they said, “Oh, we totally forgot. Let’s look again.” And they sent us to a new place that was a half hour away and had no parking lot, and was across the street from a hospital, so there was never parking.

Whoever decided that teenage years are the best years for braces never had a kid dorming in yeshiva 4 hours away. Every off Shabbos was about going for adjustments.

And we kept going to this place. We weren’t sure if the braces were actually supposed to be free or if this was a mistake, and we didn’t want to rock the boat. I’m also not sure you can switch doctors in the middle or whether it’s like contractors, where the new guy will take a look and rip the whole thing out to start again.

So with our next son, Gedalyah, we tried getting started in eighth grade. The dentist sent us for a consultation, and the orthodontist took pictures and said, “Come back in a year. What date is he available?”

“I don’t know what… um… high school he’s going to be in.”

“Does it matter?”

“What if it’s a half hour away?”

“Why would you send your son a half hour away?”

“What if it’s further? I don’t even know what days he’s off!”

“We’re open President’s Day if that helps.”

“It does not.”

This office is just as far as the other, but it’s in a strip mall, and there’s parking. There are only five patient chairs, and there at least 40 parking spots. I counted.

The thing is that this place is run more like a car dealership.

First, they take you into a side office and tell you that you’re not covered by insurance. In our case, they said that there were 26 points we needed in order to be covered, and my son was at 24. I bet they tell everyone they’re at 24. They would not have this room if they dealt mostly with people who were covered.

Then they said, “Our base price is X. But if you want, then just for today, we can give you a price of Y.”

And I said, “Oh. Can I go home and talk to my wife?”

And they said, “Sure. But we can’t guarantee the price after today. And you’ll have to pay $250 to hold the price even for today.”

So the salesperson left the room, and I called my wife, and she said, “If they’re charging, why are we driving a half hour? We can’t find a closer place that charges?”

And I said, “You should see this parking lot.”

The seat they had me in faced their parking lot. This was their biggest negotiating tactic. That, and making us wait a year.

The problem is that even at a car dealership, I am not a good person to have on your side in a negotiation, because I’m eager to please. When we buy a car, I bring my wife. Here we not only didn’t have my wife, but we had a teenager in the room. The braces dealership feels this is good enough, I think so that parents won’t, by way of negotiation, say things that’ll sound to the kid like they don’t care about his teeth. Or anything likewise embarrassing.

At a car dealership, they specifically want both spouses to be there so they can not have you run out of the room and come back with, “Okay, so my wife says…” And they know you’ll do this because it’s exactly what the salesperson is doing to you. Why is the manager sitting in the other room? He works here! How many people are buying cars at this exact moment?

But this happens to be our most easygoing son, so he heard the price and said, “It’s okay, I don’t need braces. Really.”

The one thing my wife wanted me to ask before sealing the deal was how flexible they are with appointments. Because it turns out that our son’s in a yeshiva that requires him to sit in a van for 40 minutes each way in the opposite direction as the braces dealership, and we can’t get him a morning appointment before the van comes, because it comes at 6:40.

And then I said, “There’s no way there’s not a camera in this office so the salesperson could hear how it’s going.” And as soon as I said that, the salesperson walked back in and said she’d spoken to her boss, and if we signed up today, she could knock off some more money! But this is not at all like a car dealership.

So my wife, who was still on the line, said, “Uch, fine.”

So I said, “My wife said, “Uch, fine. If you can be flexible about dates.”

And they said, “Well, when your kids have off of school, the practice is closed.”

So I had to explain to them about Isru Chag and Shushan Purim and fast days. 

And my son said, “I don’t want to go on fast days!”

And I said, “Why not? You can’t eat anyway.”

And they said, “You make your child fast?”

My wife wanted to know if they were willing to stay open after night seder.

We can’t control the times of yeshiva either. And they don’t have parking. n

Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia and is the author of seven books, published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send questions, comments, or ideas to [email protected]. Read more of Mordechai Schmutter’s articles at 5TJT.com.