Who gives a toddler an expensive bracelet or necklace?

[aceplace57]

I feel bad for the two mugging victims. But why in the heck were those toddlers wearing expensive jewelry? Haven't they heard of kids plastic jewelry in the toy section? Or at least buy a cheap pot metal chain for a toddler. I wouldn't dream of giving my kid real gold until they were teens.

Man this country is going to hell fast. Mugging babies now.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/b...KUzwEe9rmZ5pLI

A heartless thug mugged a 2-year-old toddler in a Brooklyn elevator — saying nothing as he snatched the young girl’s bracelet while her terrified, pregnant mom looked on, The Post has learned.

Michael Andrews, 30, was arrested yesterday morning for the sickening attack, which happened a half-mile away from where a thug ripped a $400 chain off a 3-year-old boy’s neck as he sat in his stroller, sources said.

“He didn’t care that I was pregnant and he was stealing from a little girl,” said Adriani Espinal, whose daughter, Destiny Maizanche, was mugged six days before her third birthday.

Law-enforcement sources said Andrews allegedly targeted Espinal and her daughter as they entered an elevator at about 7:20 a.m. on July 6 at the building on Flushing Avenue where the tot’s grandmother lives.

The thief took the child’s $300 bracelet off her tiny wrist as well as her mom’s $300 necklace, according to the sources.

[Taomist]

Kiddie bling! It's for the parents to show off, obviously. Same reason adults wear bling.

[Nava]

The prices seem high, but in Hispanic countries and some other mostly-Catholic ones it's very normal for a little kid to get a gold medal on a gold chain for his baptism; there may be a cross to go along with it. My two sets of "baby earrings" were pearls on gold (baby earrings are designed to be very difficult for the child to take off, the beam is a screw). They may also have gold or silver brooches used to anchor the pacifier. Note that Espinal is a Spanish lastname.

I know from previous threads that Indians also use baby earrings. Several of the medal manufacturers I've found in Spain while looking at prices also offer "Hindu medals", but I have no idea whether those are intended to be worn by babies or not.

[anu-la1979]

If they're Indian they might have been given gold at birth. Believe it or not, sitting in my parents' safety deposit box are impossibly small rings and necklaces of 24K gold that they had made for me and my sister for our naming ceremonies and such. Normally they'd be boiled down and made into something else but my parents are oddly sentimental about them.

That said, we were both born overseas and my mom keeps all of our gold here in the bank for this very reason.

[LurkerInNJ]

It's an inner city trend that has been around for a very long time.

[ZipperJJ]

What the hell kind of journalism is that? "Heartless thug," "sickening attack"?

Oh, the Post.

"He didn't care that I was pregnant."

[aceplace57]

The dramatic prose doesn't change the facts.

Mugging a pregnant mother and young toddler does require a really unique piece of slime. No telling what rock he crawled out from under.

[elbows]

Ditto for Chinese, big part of the culture, giving gold.

Just because it's outside your own culture doesn't mean it's truly 'baby bling', but it does make it hard to understand.

[Siam Sam]

When I lived in Albuquerque, I worked for some time in a jewelry-supply shop, selling turquoise to and cutting sheet silver for Native American craftsmen. One thing I saw that was common in the area were little baby bracelets made of silver and turquoise. Not really expensive though, just a few bucks at the time. Looked cool though.

[Cat Whisperer]

It sounds like the same old argument - should you be able to run around sporting a thousand bucks worth of jewellery on you and your children? Of course. Is it reasonable to expect to be able to do so and not get mugged for it? Maybe not.

[MeanOldLady]

The same kind of person that names her daughter Destiny.

[Anne Neville]

Giving a toddler expensive jewelry and letting said toddler wear expensive jewelry on all occasions are different things. It seems rather impractical to let a toddler wear expensive jewelry all the time. Even if she doesn't get mugged, she's likely to lose or damage it. Do these cultures that encourage people to give expensive jewelry to toddlers also say that the toddlers should wear the expensive jewelry most or all of the time? It sounds like the Indian culture anu-la1979 was raised in doesn't require or expect the child to wear the expensive jewelry all the time.

[Nava]

Baptismal medals and baby earrings are worn all the time, yes. And the brooches are worn while the kid likes pacifiers. Since the jewelry has safety clasps/bolts which are made to be specifically hard to open and close, it's a lot less complicated than taking them on and off. Earrings are barely noticeable if you've been wearing the same unmoving pair since you were born; the medals, only a little more. And how is the kid supposed to damage them? Not even my cousin whose name became a curseword in our hometown from the troubles he got into as a little kid was able to do that. The earrings are pretty much impossible for a kid to take off, and while the kid is little the chains get knotted to shorten them, so the kid can't suck on them and they won't get caught on stuff such as clothing's buttons.

My baptismal medal didn't get off me until someone gave me a different necklace which was uncomfortable when worn with the medal. Turns out I find anything necklaces heavier or bulkier than that medal and its chain uncomfortable...

[LurkerInNJ]

Originally Posted by elbows

Just because it's outside your own culture doesn't mean it's truly 'baby bling', but it does make it hard to understand.

One of the children was wearing a christening chain, but the baby bling phenom is real. I see it day in and day out. Not a penny in college savings for their child, but he's wearing three giant gold necklaces.

It's the same mentality where someone won't have enough money to pay their rent, but they have an iphone, fake nails and ghetto gold doorknockers. Screwed up priorities.

[MsWhatsit]

Originally Posted by MeanOldLady

The same kind of person that names her daughter Destiny.

Granted, although I still give her massive props for managing to spell "Destiny" correctly.

[ZPG Zealot]

Originally Posted by Anne Neville

Giving a toddler expensive jewelry and letting said toddler wear expensive jewelry on all occasions are different things. It seems rather impractical to let a toddler wear expensive jewelry all the time. Even if she doesn't get mugged, she's likely to lose or damage it. Do these cultures that encourage people to give expensive jewelry to toddlers also say that the toddlers should wear the expensive jewelry most or all of the time? It sounds like the Indian culture anu-la1979 was raised in doesn't require or expect the child to wear the expensive jewelry all the time.

Mine does, though usually toddler jewelry is 14K and under gold or sterling silver. Costume jewelry is viewed the same as feeding your children Twinkies instead of nutritrious food.

[aruvqan]

Originally Posted by MsWhatsit

Granted, although I still give her massive props for managing to spell "Destiny" correctly.

Sorry, that was a misspelling by the newspaper ... as soon as the babymomma screams about it they will print a correction

[Chicken Fingers]

My Vietnamese in-laws gave our babies engraved gold baby bracelets, and expected them to be worn.

[grude]

My wife insisted on buying a strange gold bracelet with black beads for our son, some kind of cultural superstition probably involving mal joe protection.
At some point we stopped putting it on when he started trying to dismantle it.

Pretty sure my mom from Germany saw buying some jewelry for a baby was a nice way to buy something of lasting value for the child, I get the impression the view of jewelry has changed over time.

So yea not all baby jewelry is showing off status.

[grude]

Originally Posted by LurkerInNJ

It's the same mentality where someone won't have enough money to pay their rent, but they have an iphone, fake nails and ghetto gold doorknockers. Screwed up priorities.

From your perspective maybe, from the perspective where ANY kind of savings will inevitably get eaten up by some "emergency" or will cause family to ask for loans and cause trouble if those requests are ignored, buying items of tagible value and worth like gold might seem like a good idea.

[MsWhatsit]

Originally Posted by grude

From your perspective maybe, from the perspective where ANY kind of savings will inevitably get eaten up by some "emergency" or will cause family to ask for loans and cause trouble if those requests are ignored, buying items of tagible value and worth like gold might seem like a good idea.

There's a Cracked article (of all things) that actually does a pretty good job of explaining at least one of the reasons behind this phenomenon. The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor. Item #4, "Extra Money Has To Be Spent Right Goddamn Now!"

[Lust4Life]

Way to put your litle child at risk, it doesn't matter if its the thing back home where you come from, you're not back home where you come from .

You're in a violent inner city environment.

I worry for the kids who have parents who are so obviously lacking in basic common sense as the ones in the article.

Whats the betting that they replace the mugger magnets for their children very shortly ?

If nothing else, those kids will be incredibly streetwise if they survive to adulthood.

Thats of course if their parents don't exchange them for a handful of beans.

[Shirley Ujest]

Originally Posted by MeanOldLady

The same kind of person that names her daughter Destiny.

This.

[robardin]

Originally Posted by elbows

Ditto for Chinese, big part of the culture, giving gold.

Just because it's outside your own culture doesn't mean it's truly 'baby bling', but it does make it hard to understand.

Yeah, but giving and receiving gold meant for children is different from actually wearing it out in public. My kids all have their "birth gold" in lock boxes in our house. They wore some of it for milestone events like their first birthday or first Chinese New Year, but that's about it. I could never imagine putting my baby daughter in a stroller with her solid gold bracelets or pendants and going for a walk, especially in some parts of Brooklyn...

[ZPG Zealot]

Originally Posted by Lust4Life

If nothing else, those kids will be incredibly streetwise if they survive to adulthood.

Some people consider that a very desireable thing. Also, 10K gold jewelry is considerably more durable than most costume jewelry. My nieces went all through childhood with one pair of gold earrings each bought (when gold was cheaper for around $60.00). That breaks down to less than $10.00 a year for earrings.

[even sven]

It's a cultural thing, not much different than a wedding ring.

Gold jewelry in particular is often sold by weight and thus holds it's value through the years and can be passed down. In many places it is seen as a conveniently portable way to store wealth, rather than as a consumption item. Giving a child jewelry is much like giving them a saving's bond. This is especially true in countries that have a mix of shaky banking systems and currency controls. Would you rather hold your life's savings in the Bank of Chad's CFA, or in as gold bullion in a secure deposit box? In China, it's not at all unusual for a well-off family to have hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold. Given China's history, people see the value in wealth that can be retrieved anonymously and packed in a suitcase should the shit hit the fan. In this case, the family had a Spanish last name. I wouldn't be surprised if they have roots in a country that has been hit by a currency crisis. It only takes losing your life saving's once to no longer trust banking systems.

For women and girls in particular, jewelry often serves as a sort of safeguard agains absolute poverty, and thus symbolizes how much a family treasures a given women. In many places, other forms of wealth are absorbed into the husband's family. But a woman's jewelry is often hers and hers alone, and may be the only wealth she has sole control of. Having a substantial amount of jewelry is protection and buys you choices in life- if your husband is bad, it gives you the option to leave. If something happens to your husband, it keeps you from being entirely dependent on your in-laws for charity. If everything goes to hell, it will buy you a little bit more time. A very loving family will load their daughters up with as much jewelry as they can manage, showing great tenderness and care for their well-being. It's a strong symbol of familial love. Jewelry is preferred because it is easy to keep under your control (keeping it on you keeps it safer from a vindictive mother-in-law trying to pawn it off while you are out running errands, for example) and very portable. These may be cultures where women are traditionally a lot more home-bound, so robbers are not as big of a worry as family members, household staff, visitors, and other people who might swipe something out of a lockbox but probably wouldn't tear the earrings out of your earlobes.

So you can see how cheap jewelry wouldn't work in this context. Costume jewelry would be absurd and insulting- implying that a child is unloved and the family is unconcerned about their future well-being. It would be like giving someone a pile of monopoly money for their graduation gift.

[Anaamika]

As others have said, it's a common Indian thing. That doesn't mean the kid wears it all the time, but I would no sooner give an Indian child a 14 K anything than I would give her a $2 toy from the corner store. When I finally have a niece, I definitely plan to give her a piece of 22K gold, and I am as Americanized as they come.

However, they don't generally wear them all the time. Less because of thieves and more because of little fingers working at the latch, though.

[Guinastasia]

There's also the old-fashioned "Add-A-Pearl" necklace, where the child is given a chain and a tiny pearl at birth, and every year on her birthday another pearl is added to said chain.

[Anne Neville]

Originally Posted by Anaamika

I would no sooner give an Indian child a 14 K anything than I would give her a $2 toy from the corner store

There's another interesting cultural difference. My parents recently gave my nieces each $5 to spend at the dollar store. My nieces loved getting to pick out five toys from the dollar store.

[Anaamika]

Originally Posted by Anne Neville

There's another interesting cultural difference. My parents recently gave my nieces each $5 to spend at the dollar store. My nieces loved getting to pick out five toys from the dollar store.

Oh it would be different to give them $5. I wouldn't buy them a $5 gift, though!

[Anaamika]

Mised the edit window. I also wouldn't give you $5 to give them; like for a birthday or something.

[Chimera]

Maybe it was an Elder Sign. Would certainly fit with the child's name.

[Anne Neville]

Originally Posted by Anaamika

Mised the edit window. I also wouldn't give you $5 to give them; like for a birthday or something.

I'm sure my parents don't do that (or at least that wouldn't be the only thing they'd get for a birthday). They spoil my nieces, and I know they will spoil my daughter when she is born. Ah well, I guess that's their job as grandparents.