Last October, the state of Queensland in Australia made it illegal for teenagers under eighteen to have cosmetic surgery. Other governments may soon follow. Germany is drafting a similar law, and advocates in the Netherlands are calling for one there. The trend reflects the tremendous growth in the number of minors having these procedures—and in the number of parents who are consenting to them, paying for them, and sometimes seeking them out.

Earlier generations of children and teenagers had surgery to correct abnormalities such as cleft palates and protruding ears. Nose jobs arguably fell into this category, too. Today, things are different. The goal in many cases isn’t to look normal; it’s to look better than normal. The bar that justifies permanently altering a child’s physical nature may have reached an all-time low.