Supposed To

‘He has your mouth,’ noted our dentist.  

‘I gave it to him,” I chirped, hoping this was not new information for him.  

‘See how it’s shaped?  It’s ‘V’ shaped.’

‘What am I missing?  Looks normal to me.’ 

‘It’s supposed to be ‘U’ shaped.  His, and yours, is ‘V-shaped”

‘And that’s a problem?’

[droning, dentist-y things]

In dentistry, there’s a “supposed to:”  

    'This is what your jawline is supposed to look like.’ 

    ‘This is what color your teeth are supposed to be.’ 

    ‘Your child’s teeth are supposed to fall out at these ages.”  

‘Supposed to’ happens a lot in medicine:

    'The human body isn’t really supposed to carry more than one baby at a time.’

    ‘You're not supposed to get this disease.  It’s an old lady disease.’ 

    'He wasn’t supposed to recover. He should be dead’ 

So I wonder: who decides what is ’supposed to’ be?  

    Is it what is ‘normal’?

    How about ‘average’? 

    Or maybe based on some exemplar?  

If she wasn't supposed to have twins, did something go wrong?  

    What was it in the natural order of things that went awry?  

If he wasn’t supposed to have the old lady disease, why does he? 

    He’s neither ‘old’ or a ‘lady’ and yet, here he is. 

So I asked the dentist: 

    ‘Have you ever seen the model jawline?

    ‘Only in school.’

    SMH.

What is and what is ‘supposed to’ be may or may not be the same thing.  I know very little in life that is as the model says it should be.  This is not comment on the social construct of society’s norms, but an observation that everything has ranges. 

’Standard’ should include the word ‘range’ and ’supposed to’ should be buried deep in the ground.