It's rare these days that I have to accompany Lynn anywhere. Like most suburban mothers I know, I paid my dues, waiting through the piano lessons and the dance lessons and the art lessons, coordinating drop-offs and pick-ups for sports practice and school dances and church activities. Now that she has her own car she transports herself to school, to work, to the orthodontist, to the movies, to the mall, even to church for the same service I attend, since she often goes directly to work afterwards.

Yesterday, however, because she is under 18, I had to accompany her to her initial appointment with a dermatologist.

This consultation was not my idea. Let me repeat that -- NOT my idea. It was entirely Lynn's desire to seek treatment from a dermatologist for her adolescent acne, which she regards as severe and which I regard as normal. It is part of who she is. And she is perfect.

Acne is a condition of the sebaceous glands of the skin that can result in a variety of outward manifestations. Often words like unsightly, blemish, and disfiguring are applied to these outward manifestations. AcneNet has a thorough overview with definitions, pictures, and analyses of various treatment plans. Sponsored by the American Academy of Dermatology (with an unrestricted educational grant from Roche Laboratories, a prominent manufacturer of acne medications), the site explains in plain English what the condition is and how it can be treated. It tries to debunk the myths that diet, stress, and lack of cleanliness encourage outbreaks. It also makes perfectly clear that most people experience some form of the condition at some time in their lives, and that the social consequences are often more troubling than the physical ones. (And you've probably noticed that I've avoided words like disease and suffer.)

I had acne. I still do, to a certain extent, but not the way it was when I was a teenager. I am fair-skinned, so redness and other discolorations will be quite noticeable on me.

I think I was around twelve -- the end of sixth grade -- when my acne began to develop. By seventh grade it was noticeable. The summer before eighth grade my mother began taking me to dermatologists, three in all, I think, in an effort to do something about what was, to her, another in a series of disappointments about my appearance. (The first had been my hair -- absolutely straight. I had Toni home perms from the time I was three. The second was my need for glasses -- they made me homelier than I needed to be, I heard her tell my grandmother. And, I was "doppy" -- that is, I didn't do well at physical things like jump rope, and I preferred to sit on the porch with my nose in a book rather than go to the pool.) My cousins didn't have acne, the girls next door didn't have it, and my mother said that she couldn't remember having it herself. Clearly, there was some flaw in me.

In those days, dermatologic treatment consisted of admonitions to wash frequently and avoid chocolate and fried foods, as well as painful sessions where the doctor trained a strong lamp on my face and extracted some of the offending matter from my pores with instruments that looked like something out of medieval torture tales. Science now knows that these strategies were, at best, worthless, and might even make things worse.

The wisdom now is that time and patience work the best, and that's what the doctor told Lynn. The doctor is a lovely dark-skinned woman of Greek extraction in her late thirties who graduated from my university, so introducing her to Lynn was valuable in and of itself. She explained everything very carefully, with charts and diagrams. A particular bacterium is thought to be the major culprit now, and there are antibiotic medications which help control its proliferation. Finding which medication in what dose can be something of an art. Lynn left the office with two prescriptions, some samples of mild cleansers and moisturizers available over the counter, and an appointment for follow-up in November. And she left satisfied because she would be following the same regimen as her friend Janie, whose skin has improved in the past six months.

Lynn is not vain, nor can she be considered to be someone who values appearance over other qualities when choosing friends. Lynn understands my feelings in this matter. She knows that I accept her just the way she is, and she knows that I think the treatments will have more of a psychological than a physical effect. And I think we're both getting what we need from this. Lynn has met one more successful professional woman who graduated from the same college she herself wants to attend, and she feels that she is doing something tangible to help herself. And I've let her make her own decisions in this matter while at the same time being able to give someone else the gift of unconditional acceptance that I wish I'd had.