Eyeglasses and Your Child – How I Overcame the Four Eyes Jokes

I remember my grandpa wearing a thick rimmed eyeglass every time he read the newspaper. His eyes used to change its shape and size and used to appear gigantic through the thick glass. Yet nobody made fun of him as he was wise and old.

When I went to school wearing a similar type of eyeglass at the age of eight, I was teased and taunted so much that I thought I would never wear it again. I came back home and looked in the mirror to see if it was that funny. The plastic glass with the big thick rim covered almost my entire face but without it I could hardly see anything clearly. I hid it when I went to school and was more concerned about not being teased rather than being able to read the chalkboard. Unfortunately, all my luck ran out when I realized I couldn’t do without them. I was named “four eyes”. 

Twenty years later, we find a classroom full of children wearing eyeglasses and not one of them teasing another. Fortunately, now when I see those grown up chaps who used to bully me wearing eyeglasses, I don’t tease back. I just have a slight grin on my face.

 It is true that nearsightedness and farsightedness do not spare any individual. But nowadays, there are sight screenings held in schools to test a child’s sight which spare him from having a toll from his schoolwork. But it isn’t that agonizing to get an eyeglass now and I feel relieved that my son is spared from the bullying that I went through. 

Things have changed so drastically and for the good that when I went to the optician to get my son an eyeglass, they showed a thousand type of designer eyeglasses that are now in fashion. I realized that the idea was to make the eyeglass fit proportionately on the child’s face so that they don’t look funny. Thus, the enormous range of designer eyeglasses! 

Possibilities of having a handsome face with an eyeglass seemed to be a joke twenty years back. But now with the specific size, shape and lens coming into consideration, I can say that any face can look good with eyeglasses. But you cannot undermine the fact if you still make the wrong choice regarding your eyeglass; it is likely that you will be called by weird names, if not “four eyes”! But just shrug it off and move on. Remember: “Sticks and stones…”