Childhood
Jepson was born with a congenital jaw defect - her top jaw stuck out by eight millimetres and her lower jaw hung down into her neck. This resulted in a deformed appearance which she herself described made her look "like a chipmunk". She was forced to wait until her late teens before she could have reconstructive surgery, as it was necessary to wait until her facial and jaw bones had stopped growing.
Between 1991 and 1993 she underwent corrective operations in order to correct her jaw defect. These operations involved removing flesh from her upper jaw, breaking and resetting her lower jaw, and rebuilding her chin using muscle. The process was highly traumatic and involved Intensive Care treatment in hospital, a lengthy period of swelling, and having her jaw wired.
Jepson believes that this gave her an insight into human nature - she was bullied because of her appearance at school, but became part of "the pretty, popular crowd" at university, after her corrective cosmetic surgery. Her feelings about this change, as well as those brought up by the attitudes of other people she met after surgery, influenced her interest in a much-publicised trial following the abortion of a fetus in December 2001.
Read more about this topic: Joanna Jepson
Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“From his childhood onwards this boy will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers.... In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour of the world and probably rumours of a morganatic marriage alliance will follow, and the end of it will be the country will be called upon to pay the bill.”
—James Keir Hardie (1856–1915)
“Oh! mystery of man, from what a depth
Proceed thy honours. I am lost, but see
In simple childhood something of the base
On which thy greatness stands; but this I feel,
That from thyself it comes, that thou must give,
Else never canst receive. The days gone by
Return upon me almost from the dawn
Of life: the hiding-places of man’s power
Open; I would approach them, but they close.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)