6-Year-Old Is Bullied Because Of His Ears – Parents Make Drastic Decision

Dec 04, 2020 by apost team

Back in 2015, a six-year-old boy from Utah underwent plastic surgery for his ears after being bullied for them by his schoolmates.

 First-grader Gage Berger dreaded going to school because of the mean things the other kids say about his ears. “That I look like an elf,” said Gage, when asked what the kids would say to him. “And that I have weird ears.”

Sometimes, Gage would even look in the mirror and try to push back his ears just to see what he would look like. “I just don’t want to be made fun of,” he told Inside Edition.

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His parents, Tim and Kallie Berger sympathized with him. “He just gets really down on himself and he feels like he’s not good enough,” Mom Kallie told the newsmagazine. Fearing that the bullying could permanently damage his self-esteem, Tim and Kallie took Gage to see facial plastic surgeon Dr. Stephen Mobley in Salt Lake City, Utah, for ear surgery.

At the clinic, Dr. Mobley used a wooden block toy to explain to Gage and his parents how he will reshape the boy’s ears. After consultation, Dr. Mobley deemed Gage fit for surgery.

According to ABC News, Dr. Mobley shared that he was once in Gage’s position. He, too, was picked on for having “big,” ears and also got ear-pinning surgery though not as a young child but as a 19-year-old. He further told the network that while he was not endorsing cosmetic surgery for children, he believed that ear-pinning can be helpful.

“They often get some not-so-nice names attached to them at a young age, they call them ‘bat ears’ or ‘elf ears’, and that name sort of sticks with them throughout later, middle school, high school,” explained the doctor before he began surgery on Gage. Dr. Mobley also emphasized that this type of surgery is “a very personal and private decision parents and children need to make together."

Dad Tim was all for it. "This isn't any different than taking your child to get braces to 'fix' the appearance of crooked teeth," the then 31-year-old father told ABC.  "We explained to him the surgery, which is only a short two-hour procedure. He was so excited for it. Obviously, if he wasn't on board with it, we wouldn't have touched him. Ultimately, we told him it was up to him."

Before the surgery, Tim and Kallie reassured their little boy with words of encouragement and a kiss from mom. “You’ll wake up, and it will be done,” said Dad to Gage. For extra love and support, Gage brought along his stuffed tiger, Tygie, who Gage said was also getting his ears done.

According to Inside Edition, the surgery started with the doctor marking where his ears will be pinned. He removed skin from behind Gage’s ear and used stitches to pull it back to his head. At this point in the video, you can already see Gage’s new ears take shape. The surgery was done in two hours.

Two days passed and the bandages are ready to be taken off. Here we see Gage ears bandaged up, and even Tygie had a bandage covering his head.

“Are you ready to see your new ears?” Dr. Mobley is heard asking Gage. “Oh my gosh!”

Gage exclaimed as he looked at his new ears in the mirror for the first time. He smiled ear to ear and looked incredibly happy with the results. 

Dad Tim expressed his joy, too. He told ABC that prior to the surgery, Gage’s ears made him a target of unwanted teasing, and over the past year Gage, who was once “playful,” and “outgoing,” started keeping to himself more and dreaded going to school.

"I'd catch him looking in the mirror and trying to pin them back, and when he got nervous or upset or when he was in trouble, he'd physically grab his ears," recalled Tim. "It was subconscious. It was him thinking that his ears were the problem and that was why he must be in trouble."

Now with his new ears, Gage is back to his old, happier self, and Dad Tim said that "he's so much more confident," 

"If anyone's picking on him for any other reason now, he'll go up to them,” said the father. “When he comes home from school, and I ask him how his day went, he isn't telling me no one wants to play with him anymore. He'll say things like, 'Everything was good! We played outside, and I made like 10 new friends!"

The story garnered generally positive feedback. Viewers commented about how good Gage looked both before and after the surgery and agreed that they would have done the same for their child. One viewer Joel Garner commented: “I’d support his parents in doing this . They have probably avoided low confidence and mental health issues for the rest of his life.” 

What did you think of the before and after pictures? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!