Eye glasses, especially myopia - what's real what's myth?
Kid's vision just keeps getting worse: it's -3.0 now in one eye. The rate at which I have to get the kid's vision tested and new glasses (plural because kid) is alarming.
My husband and I both have 20/20, as did both our parents before they got old people eye stuff....so I'm really new to the world of prescription glasses.
What's real and what are just old wives tales? Go outside more, get sun, limit screen time, don't read in the dark, these are kind of obvious but are they scientifically backed? I take super terrible care of my eyes and eyeballs are nearly touching the screens all day and I still have 20/20.....
Eye drops that fix your eyes? Omega 3 do anything or just in general a good nutrient for everyone?
Myopia control lenses (Miyosmart) -- legit or marketing hype? They seem to be a bunch of money and the brochures / site reads a bit like marketing nonsense...... How does a piece of lens fix eyeballs?
Did you get Lasik? Is it still the thing to do for correction, and has it gotten better? Could my kid reach a point where even Lasik can't help?
When did you get glasses and did the uh, progression (?) slow down or get better with age?
Edit: what about blue light lenses?
My personal theory is that it's not sunlight exposure per se. It's that spending a lot of time inside during your youth simply limits the distance at which your eyes can focus on things, so your eyes develop disproportionately during that window of opportunity. I've never come close to publishing any kind of study though, so who cares?
Many, many thanks for the meta analysis link -- exactly the kind of thing I was looking for
To be honest, you rpost implies you go to an optometrist, and you should really ask them - they're the professionals, after all.
But in the world of layman knowledge, I would try to get your child to proportionately spend less time focusing on things close to their face. Which most of the time these days is some kind of screen, but could be a book, or tiny figurine pieces or something. This is associated with myopia (but not 100% either - there's a large genetic componenet as well).
In terms of the vitamins, there's very weak links with everything. Omega 3's are good, though, for general health. Just don't expect any miracles on the vision side. Studies seem to show it's better when you consume them from natural sources (e.g, fish), although that may also just be correlation.
In terms of preventing myopia, the best treatment is either ortho-k or multifocal contacts. Ortho-k has a 50-80% success rate in slowing the rate of myopia growth in children.
I don't think any of the glasses options are strongly linked to myopia prevention. I wouldn't bother anymore.
Lasik is one of the things you can do for eye surgery, although there's more options now, like SMILE and ICL. You should not do these until adulthood once your vision stabilizes.
Myopia progression tends to halt in adulthood, where at that point your eyes are what they are, for better or for worse, until you start to get farsighted at old age.
Blue light lenses don't do anything.
Our optometrist didn't mention going outside more, and recommended the miyopia control lenses.
From my personal experience with doctors (plural) and conditions have more experience dealing with (eg ADHD), there's sometimes a delay or gap between newer studies vs what they learned vs what their personal (professional) biases are.
I'll more than likely take their advice and pony up for the myopia control glasses, but thought I'd ask you all smart people for more things to look into :) and as a quick check if the smart people on Tildes have heard something, since search engine results are so terrible these days.
Another example, previously I've had a different optometrist recommend blue light lenses to me.....that was before it was more known that they're nonsense :/ they could have been sincere and worked off of what they knew at the time, or maybe took a "can't hurt" stance.
The Atlantic reported a couple of years ago on the rising prevalence of myopia, and the improving quality of various myopia management technologies. There's a population-wide French study which suggests that the most significant ages for myopia progression are 14 - 19, which may be relevant for your kid. It's important to avoid high myopia (< -5 diopters) if possible, because that enhances risks of more serious eye conditions. If your kid gets an ophthalmologist's recommendation, you can afford it, and your kid is interested, I'd say go for the management treatments mentioned in the Atlantic article.
I'm a little biased here - I've had high myopia (as severe as - 7.75 diopters) plus astigmatism for most of my life, and it's a giant PITA. Between ages 8 and 21, I needed new glasses every 6 months, and wore bifocals at 16. It turns out that high myopia is a predictor for more rapid and variable vision change.
At the time, "glasses" were actually made of heavy glass. They were comparatively much more expensive, so the frequent vision changes were a huge financial challenge. Contact lenses were completely unwearable (and even more expensive), so the sports I could play were limited. Breaking or losing my glasses meant being literally blind. I keep spare pairs of glasses at strategic locations around the house, because I can't find my glasses without glasses. I've never found even the latest contact lenses comfortable, due to thickness, weird behavior of toric contacts, plus allergies. When LASIK came along, I still wasn't a candidate - it's not as effective for high myopia, and my vision never stopped changing.
Both eyeglass technologies and costs have gotten better over the last couple of decades. I can get lightweight high index plastic lenses that don't look like Coke bottle glass or leave semi-permanent grooves in the bridge of my nose. My nearsightedness has actually improved with age - I'm down to - 4.75 diopters in the worse eye. In my late 50's, this is the first full year I've gone without a significant prescription change, but the cataracts are beginning to become noticable...
In one way, I'm fortunate - I don't have presbyopia. I take my glasses off for very close work and reading on my phone. There's a little bit of genetic and gender correlation here - my mother followed the same course. My father was actually far-sighted; my brother was far-sighted as well, but needed corrective contacts for keratoconus. Needless to say, we all had roughly the same propensities to read and indoor vs. outdoor time, but it's a sample size of one family.
I do use blue light filtering apps on computers and phones, but that's for preventing circadian rhythm effects, not anything to do with nearsightedness. However, I wear a different prescription in computer glasses than everyday glasses. It's mainly to prevent neck strain from tilting my head to see through the right part of multifocal lenses.
Hope this answers your questions helpfully!
Edit: I've recently discovered that prescription swim goggles are super-cheap. The correction doesn't need to be exact, it's just an amazing improvement to spend less time worrying about how close the pool wall is and being able to see lane markers and other swimmers.
I got glasses at age 9 and it just got gradually worse from there (about -1.75/-1.50 then IIRC to about -5.75/-3.75 now at age 36) 🥲 It sucks but it's really just a hassle, not something that causes me a lot of grief. It's very manageable with glasses and contact lens. I'm considering LASIK, though I'm also ok just continuing to use glasses and contacts. My parents are nearsighted too (my eye grade is similar to my dad's, while my mom's is closer to where I started as a kid). My dad got LASIK I think a couple decades ago? It's not permanent, he has less-than-perfect vision again now (but not as bad as pre-LASIK) due to aging.
Oh~ I didn't know it's possible to have one's vision change again after LASIK. Is it a reputable procedure? Probably not since your dad's is possibly age related?
Did you find contact lenses less fiddly than physical glasses? I'll leave it up to my child to decide on getting contacts or keep going with glasses, they're kind of little right now and things-that-touch-your-eyeballs aren't really a selling point lol . Right now they're happy to have them as fashion accessories.
Thank you for your perspective :)
It's a reputable procedure, but eyesight still does tend to deteriorate due to age-- this isn't something LASIK can prevent. At my age LASIK could probably get me 1-2 decades of perfect vision before I start getting the age-related deterioration.
https://www.healthline.com/health/eye-health/how-long-does-lasik-last#after-lasik
Oops I forgot to answer your other question! I find glasses less fiddly in the sense that I can roll out of bed and just put them on. Whereas contact lens, I have to sanitize my hands to put them on and take them, have to clean them well, etc. But I actually find contact lens more comfy to wear, as in, they seem to "fix" my vision best without any awkward feeling. I think because they sit right on the eye so the correction is very stable. While glasses are some distance from the eye and can shift around, slight changes in angle etc. can affect the correction.
I asked an optometrist about this a few weeks ago and they told me that the eye is essentially always changing. But the reason why they don’t recommend it on children is because their eyes are changing much faster than adults, so it’s not worth all the downsides.
I personally preferred glasses over contacts. Less hassle, less things to go wrong. If and when my vision deteriorates again, I'll be getting glasses and not going for contacts.
Contact lenses have a higher risk for complications as well. My sister did go for contacts, wore them somewhere that she shouldn't have (I think it was a water park) and got a nasty eye infection. Now she can't wear them anymore and has to wear glasses all the time.
I'm going to add that I think the worst thing about my impaired vision is that if I don't have my glasses on, I might see a dark spot moving and I won't know if it's a roach (I have a phobia) or a lizard (these are ok). If this is what troubles me the most about my eyesight then I feel I don't have it too bad!
Btw, clarity is just one aspect of vision. It's still possible to be good in other aspects even if one is nearsighted. For example, I'm pretty good at color differentiation, which is super helpful in my work as a visual artist. What I'm trying to say is, your kid could still do some visually-heavy hobbies/work in spite of the myopia. I hope that's comforting! :)
Oooh that's pretty unsettling if you can't tell at a glance if that moving blobs could be a "bleh" or something benign. But I'm glad to know that's quickly sorted out with glasses :D hurray for science!
That's a wonderful remark about clarity being only one of many aspects of vision!! They are very good at spotting differences and sensitivity to motion, and I only wish I were as sensitive to UI and visual elements on screen or otherwise. And heck, vision is just one part of being human and childhood. Overall they're so wonderful and delightful as a person, I guess the "skill points" have to deduct out of somewhere to maintain the vaneer of cosmic balance :)
That is very comforting indeed :) thank you
You got a lot of answers about how myopia develops, glasses etc., so my answer will be a bit more from the practical side.
I started needing glasses for myopia when I was 10, but only really started wearing them when I was 18 and needed them to drive. I started wearing contacts pretty soon after that, but by my mid-20s, I was already sick of them - they would dry my eyes out, they were sometimes uncomfortable, they could get expensive etc. I switched from monthlies to dailies to wear just for sports, and finally stopped wearing them altogether when I stopped doing the kind of sports where your glasses can fall off easily.
In my early to mid 20s, my myopia stabilised and my vision stopped deteriorating. This seems to be a common experience and at least where I live, they won't let you have any kind of corrective surgery until your vision has been stable for a few years (I think it's something like 3+ years). When I was 30, I had a PRK surgery, which is similar to LASIK, but I decided for it over LASIK because it looks like it's safer in the long run. I went from -3 in both eyes to perfect vision, and was surprised to discover that I now get much less glare at night. I have to use eye drops at night still, but apparently this is a relatively rare side effect that I was unlucky enough to get. It doesn't really bother me. I was told that with age, I might need reading glasses, because of the way our eyes change as we age.
My experience (and the experience of my friends who all also have myopia) is that once you're out of your teens, myopia is not such a big deal anymore. Your vision stabilises, you get used to your preferred vision correction method (glasses or contacts), and if you want to, you can get surgery. My cousin got LASIK 15 years ago and she still has perfect vision; she originally had something like -8 prescription with strong astigmatism. My dad had surgery (lens replacement) at 55 to correct both near- and far-sightedness. It's really come a long way.
That said, what helped me the most when I was a kid with myopia was my parents' willingness to let me wear contacts. When I was a teenager, I found glasses annoying and I didn't like wearing them. I loved the option of contact lenses both for my self esteem and for practical reasons.
Progression seemed fastest in my teenage years. I don't remember the worst my vision got, but I had LASIK to correct it in my late 20s when it had mostly stabilized. I've dropped about 1 diopter in the decade since (-1 prescription) and have glasses/contacts again which I don't wear all the time (mostly driving and when I want sharp detail on things >5ft away). With regards to LASIK, there's a lot of other factors besides myopia which can make you a good or poor candidate for it. You can also get PRK in most cases where you can't get LASIK, but these are discussions to have with an optometrist when you're in your late 20s at the earliest. But who knows, we might have stem cell and other solutions by the time your kid is of that age, I think the most important thing to do is to support them.
Hmm~ good to know they kind of stabilize after teen years, and will keep in mind they it'll still change after late 20s
Prescription glasses aren't as expensive as I thought they would be / or were. So materialistically, we just buy our child as many pairs as they want (currently 5; <20 probably reasonable? No clue what is a fair number?) as fashion accessories, and as back ups in case they break or get lost. (At the optometrist's they're ~$200 a pair. Online they're $25)
Emotionally, are there things your parents or peers or teachers or relatives did, or things you wish they did or wish they knew, that would have been nice?
Indeed! Big fan of Zenni, they are cheap and have way more options available. Don't forget to also get a pair or two of sunglasses - they are a bit more expensive because you have to UV coat the lens, but a major reason why I bothered to get LASIK was the annoyance at having to get custom sunglasses or plan in advance to wear contacts on days I knew I'd need sunglasses.
In childhood its more likely that kids will get picked on for having glasses, but they're so ubiquitous that there's maybe only a few years where the likelihood of having glasses is low enough that it stands out. Within a few years of development more kids will have it and it'll stop being a thing to cause teasing.
I had to get hyper independent at a young age, so I might not be the best person to ask this question. But there are considerations that I only expected other glasses wearers to understand, like how a nice pair of headphones was also about the comfort and how much it compressed the arms of my glasses as much as they were about the sound. But that's extremely minor and not something that I felt I was discriminated against or upset about someone else not thinking about.
Thank you for your insight! My child is around nearly teenaged now and glasses aren't totally uncommon, and I sort of get the second hand impression that kids these days are kinder I'm general. Like, they're horrified by stories we told them about casual bullying that was common place back in the day.
Headphones, I wouldn't have thought of that. Ear buds are rejected outright, so maybe there's a similar comfort / sensory thing with headphones + glasses, I'll make a note of it.
But I'll keep being careful with myself as parent, and do my best to support them trying different fashion things and trying different things in general :)
Oh man I would love to hear everyone's thoughts in general about all kinds of things they wish adults / peers in their youth did/said/knew.
Well, remember that you get what you pay for in the end. Indeed, D2C sellers like Zenni show that the lens manufacturing isn't the most expensive part, but the frames are instead. As someone that use to wear glasses, it's hard to overstate how much of an affect different frames can have on how you look to other people.
There is perhaps no single piece of jewelry or clothing that has as big an impact as glasses. Humans are designed to learn and focus on faces - and glasses sits right where people look, your eyes. It's seriously massive - you can look like entirely different people just with a change of frames.
A good pair of lens that complements how your child wants to look is much better than 10 pairs of cheaper D2C online lenses imo.
That makes sense - so far we've taken the approach of saying "yes!" to whatever styles they picked from online retailers because they're not expensive. (The online retailer has a digital AR "try them on" type feature on their app/site.)
Do we....gently push for which one is their favorite and get an expensive name brand one that's similar in style? Or do we take them to a physical boutique and pick there? I don't have any experience shopping for glasses beyond $15 sunglass kiosks at the mall.
For regular fashion, fabric and cut and stitching can make a dress that looks the same feel completely different. And then there's peer acceptance and name brand recognition. And I remember when I was a kid there were certain articles that were simply "required" at school, and off brand substitutes just don't cut it at all. My parents didnt go for brands and there were some teasing and sad feelings..... So if/when that request come, that they simply need ray bans (or whatever equivalent) in glasses..... we'll do some budgeting and try to make it happen...... At least for a couple pairs. :/ hopefully.
I appreciate your approach to ensuring your kid feels comfortable in their glasses. I was given really ugly frames because they were likely cheap and I had no real say in it. Real "blunder years" material of my youth there. As I got older, I got more say but those first few years? Thinking back it makes me shudder.
As for how much to spend on the frames: I would consider how rough you expect your kid to be with them. It's not worth going out of the way to buy the fancy, designer frames if they're going to end up breaking them (Bridge and arm joint are the two most likely failure points)
Personally? I learned that the best look for me were thinner frames that frankly had no room for logos on them. People notice brands of sunglasses, but I've never heard of that for eye glasses. I'm sure it exists, but if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't put too much weight in that. I got teased for lots of things, but not having a designer brand glasses wasn't one of them.
Phew that's reassuring that name brands isn't so much a thing for regular glasses.
I'll hold onto that advice and @stu2b50 's regarding trying them on in person, and then cheering the heck out of whatever they ended up picking. And be prepared to buy some more if/when they change their mind again - it's called being young.
I wouldn't be able to do this if they were still $200 a pair, obviously. Glasses and braces have come a long long way for looks and prices and social perception, thank goodness.
I will say that contact lenses have also come a long way. For ordinary myopia, it can be cheaper to get daily disposable lenses than to maintain multiple pairs of glasses with rapidly changing prescriptions. Your kid might appreciate going without glasses (except fancy sunglasses) altogether, too.
If your kid participates in sports, contacts can be a big help, for full field of vision if nothing else. Spouse wore contacts while he was practicing contact sports on a near-daily basis. He says it was great being able to see clearly in all directions, and not having to worry about the sheer physical presence of another thing on his face (besides the helmet and mouth guard). I've had minor facial injuries in sports from getting my glasses hit, even when they didn't break, that were worse than simply getting a ball or elbow in the face would have been. (And eye protection for sports has gotten better, too.)
Oh my.... Maybe I'll look into sports....goggles? Surely something like that exists. :/ but then it may not look good and might invite teasing....
“Rec specs” were common when I played soccer as a kid. They can look a little dorky, especially the old giant goggles with elastic strap, but I didn’t hear much related trash talk at all. Looks like they have some more stylish ones these day, though I’m sure different sports have different requirements (e.g. baseball can probably use the glasses-style while soccer or basketball probably need secure goggles)
It is important for kids (and adults!) to wear eye protection appropriate to their activities. You'll see kids in softball leagues with helmets and faceplates these days. There's a lot of not-totally hideous prescription sports eyewear available for all ages and activities.
You'd think PE teachers and children's sports coaches would be the first to insist on appropriate injury-minimizing gear, but it's another expense and thing for parents as well as kids to gripe about.
You brought back some pretty traumatic memories of bad glasses (and questionable parenting) there... In middle school, I had a pair my mother picked out (cheapest and therefore ugliest) that I hated so much I intentionally dropped them down a multiple floor stairwell. I said they just fell off when I looked down, one of the first times I remember lying to my parents with malice aforethought.
That was costly - no allowance until the new ones were paid for. I also had to wear a strap to hold my glasses on for a couple of years thereafter, which made me even more of a social target. [Admittedly, it was after breaking a pair in intramural dodgeball, another pair fighting with my brother, etc., but being young wasn't treated with fondness.]
When I was making my own income, I always tried the most expensive glasses frames first, but found that my face shape worked with almost all the styles and I could do well with moderate pricing. These days, EyeBuyDirect does fine for stylish frames- the bulk of the cost for me is still in multifocal, high-index lenses.
I actually don't think that brand recognition matters for normal eyeglasses as it does for sunglasses. I don't think most people could name a brand for any particular pair of glasses like they could for wayfairers.
I think the most important thing is to actually try them on, in person. There's also things like Warby Parker's free try ons. Most optometrist and eyeglass stores will also have staff that act as stylist, essentially. Obviously your own opinion matters the most, but they're there for guidance if you have no idea.
The only other advice is to be adventurous - I think a lot of shyer kids can get stuck not wanting to try more out-there styles when it'd actually look quite a bit nicer.
If they ever feel like none of the glasses work for them, I have been a long time contacts wearer and greatly prefer them to glasses, not just aesthetics but qol as well. It's something to consider.
Some optometrists had free repairs/replacements when I was a kid. Meant that me falling asleep with them on (I was reading) and rolling over on them, or losing them during soccer and stepping on them or whatever wasn't financially crippling.
You can probably do the same with several pairs from Zenni but ymmv on the cost/benefit there.
I'm going to echo the stabilization bit: My vision fell off a cliff really fast during my teen years. My glasses prescription kept needing to be updated all throughout high school until it really leveled off in college. In the span of 10 years or so, I only needed to update my prescription once and that moment was when I realized I should look into getting corrective surgery. I ended up being a solid candidate for SMILE, which is a special version of LASIK about two years ago and it's been great. I ended up getting it in my mid 30s, but I could definitely have had it in my late 20s if I really wanted it.
I thought this article was informative about the myopia control lenses, it cites some studies though it does reference a product of theirs, but you can skip that paragraph and still get good info. It also has some diagrams that helps illustrate the theory. Basically, the theory goes, that traditional correction causes the eyeball to grow in a manner that worsens vision and that by directing the focal point of light to a different spot, it encourages the eyeball to grow in a way that doesn't worsen vision as much.
https://coopervision.co.uk/practitioner/clinical-resources/myopia-in-children/myopia-manangement-vs-myopia-correction
hmmm interesting....thank you for the article!
From what I have read, children are less likely to develop myopia or their myopia will begin at a later age and progress more slowly if they they spend more time (I believe something like 1–2 hours per day?) outside during the day. Children who plays sports and get outdoor recess at school are more likely to get the required daylight hours that protect their eye development.
There a few competing hypotheses for why this one. One is that it has to do with the wavelength of light. Artificial lights have a longer wavelength, which focuses more to the rear of the eye than outdoor light and may encourage the eye to elongate to compensate.
Another hypothesis is that sunlight produces dopamine, which functions as a growth inhibitor for children's eyes and prevents them from elongating. This one is supported by an animal study, where they induced myopia in chickens by reducing sunlight exposure to their eyes—but when they injected chickens with dopamine, they developed normal eyes despite the reduced sunlight.
Another hypothesis is that indoor activities tend to involve focusing on nearby objects, while people doing outdoor activities will spend more time looking at distant objects. There does seem to be a correlation between using computers/books at a young age and developing myopia over time. (However, I don't know how well these studies corrected for sunlight exposure, since most reading and computer usage is done indoors.)
In any case, I would recommend getting your child involved in more outdoor activities during daylight, ideally averaging around two hours a day.
Anecdotally, I come from an extremely myopic family. My parents, my grandparents, my sister, my aunts and uncles, etc., almost all have extreme near-sightedness (to the extent that it causes a lot of other eye problems, like retina detachment) that began at an early age and progressed rapidly throughout childhood. I am a very rare exception: I am definitely myopic and require glasses, but I only developed myopia when I was 18, it was mild enough that I only needed glasses for distant things (8-10 meters away?), and it has not progressed all that much in the two decades since then—such that I still mostly only wear glasses when I go outside.
However, a big difference between me and most of my family is that I practically lived outdoors to the extent that it was feasible. I never liked any sports and I was extremely introverted, but I would wander off alone to play in the creek, catch bugs, make mud holes, follow the neighborhood cats to see where they went, etc. Even when the weather was bad (honestly, especially when the weather was bad), I just wanted to be outside exploring and pretending that I was a wild animal or a lost orphan raised by wolves.
It's a shame that I developed myopia anyway, but I blame my genetics and my difficult high school curriculum, which forced me back indoors during my later teen years in order to spend hours studying and doing homework until dark. (If I could go back in time and give my parents some advice, I would strongly urge them to set up an outdoor space for me to study.)
What bothers me about your post is it sort of comes across like the goal is for the kid to not need glasses.
Why? Are glasses some sort of horrible disease, a crippling disfigurement? Lineage and genetics do have an impact, but there are variations and differences from one generation (parents) to the next (child). Sometimes that'll manifest in eyes that don't form 20/20 vision.
This is a touchy subject to me because it sounds an awful lot like some certain parental segments, whose children have various other traits. Things like autism, for example; where a lot of parents act like it's a reflection on them. And a negative one at that. Further, one they're ashamed of, and want to hide or train or drug out of their kids.
Glasses aren't the end of the world. Some of my siblings wear glasses (including me), some don't. One of my parents has probably needed glasses for quite a while now, but refuses to wear them and gets by with squinting and magnifying lenses and that sort of thing.
You go to the optometrist, they test the eyes, and the facts are the facts. The eye's either shaped to produce what we call "good uncorrected vision", or the eye's not. If not, we have wonderful technology that enables good corrected vision.
The "magic cures" are bullshit. If they worked, everyone would have heard about them. Everyone would be using them. There wouldn't be glasses anymore, because the magic would work. Since the magic spends a lot on marketing, probably the magic doesn't do much except cost money the sellers are more than happy to collect off you.
Glasses are fine. There's contacts, but I wouldn't recommend those for a kid. Maybe a teenager, but still. Surgery to correct vision? I mean, I guess; but on a child? Whose eyes might still be developing? And whatever the eye surgeon tells you, there are risks to surgery. You hear "one in a hundred thousand have complications" and think that's fine.
Until it happens, and your kid is the one in 100K, or the one in 800K, or whatever the odds were. And now the child is blind, or scarred, or can't tolerate spotlights or camera flashes without pain, or something else.
Maybe just go with glasses. And the kid can grow up to become a mature, rational adult who can decide for him or her self if they want the risks of surgery or something else that's not reversible?
Thank-you Rez :)
Yes for sure, none of those kinds of surgical intervention would be on the table until well after puberty and/or when the condition stabilizes to the point where it makes sense to go through, and when the child has the ability to really fully consider the risks involved.
As the adult responsible for their health and wellbeing and happiness, it's hard to watch them struggle with something I didn't have to, and there's so little I can do.
I can see how annoying it is when glasses fog up, or not being able to find a certain pair to match with an outfit, not being able to see well for swimming, for sports, or with masks, or inadvertently sitting/rolling on them, and a million other small-but-always-there hindrances that we can only do our best to empathize with....
Ahh, my apologies, and I will take your comment to heart and triple examine my own tone and attitude, especially when it comes to communication with my child about their glasses.
It doesn't matter that I'm frustrated with marketing, with finances and budgeting and insurance, and puzzled by "where is this coming from" since I was told that genetics is a big factor -- it doesn't matter because if there's even a slim chance my kid could perceive my attitude as being targeted towards them, then I need to pay attention and make sure they don't feel like anything is wrong with them or that I'm frustrated with them needing obviously normal things humans have the blessing to be able to make.
Thank you for your perspective