Don't do it!

A woman I know (and respect) has a teen-aged daughter in her senior year of high school.

The girl is beautiful in ways that only a 17-year-old can be. She's also smart, thoughtful and a delight to be around. And she inherited her nose from her father, a Jew.

Now I've heard that the mother wants to give her daughter a nose job for a graduation present.

Well, it's none of my business, and nobody asked me, but they don't read the blogs, and so I'm going to tell everybody in my little corner of the world (who also haven't asked), what I would tell this girl if she asked me.

Don't do it! Take the money to buy a car, travel to Europe -- or Israel, for that matter, put a down payment on real estate, invest it to start a business when you get out of college.

You've got a great nose. It's not a little Barbie nose; it's a nose with strength, character. Your new cookie-cutter nose may serve you through your twenties, but you won't be in your twenties very long. Later, you'll want respect, rather than cuteness, but you'll have sacrificed your face to the whims of a decade. Look at the majestic women of history and today: do they have cute little noses? No, they do not.

And don't cut off this link to your father's people, who have given so much to the world and probably contributed to your genetic disposition to a powerful intellect.

You don't need a button nose. The world needs you as you are: beautiful as a young girl today, beautiful as an indomitable matriarch tomorrow.