Oooh! ooh! Can I play? (I love it when someone moves the goalposts!)
Why yes – I think parents of multiples who have trouble telling them apart are absolutely correct in having a tiny identifier tattoo placed on the bottom of their newborns’ feet.
What do I win?
Mom? Is that you? 
I’m a guy and I’ve had both my ears pierced for ages. Done with a hot needle and an ice cube in my teens.
My daughter, now 9, had hers done around 3 because I refused to allow my wife to do it earlier. No reason other than I wanted my daughter have a say. Which she did as soon as she could talk.
She hasn’t stop talking since but I don’t think it’s related… :smack:
I think “not a big deal” is a fairly arbitrary standard, considering both are
and I do come from a culture where piercing baby girl’s ears is common, and I would never do it until my child could ask for it and I was reasonably sure they were aware of the potential risks and complications and implications of it (so probably no younger than 15).
How am I moving goalposts? If someone thinks the have a right to alter their kids appearance, in a painful way, permanently and for cosmetic reasons only, shouldn’t they think that it should be every parent’s right?
I do think a distinction can be made for functional tattoos.
If you don’t want earrings, you can just not wear earrings. If you could choose to instantly and painlessly turn a tattoo in a barely-perceptible dot (and if it took just a quick poke to get one), then it wouldn’t be a big deal either.
How many parents pierce baby’s ears out of a sense of vanity? I mean, is it that much of an affront if a stranger mistakes your bald, plump baby for the opposite sex for a few months? Why not go with pink/blue outfits or lacy headbands?
I begged to have my ears pierced and parents allowed it at age 10, same age my older sister was granted the privilege. I wish I hadn’t. I developed an allergy to metal in my 20’s, and now have two small but obvious, irritating and itchy keloids. The holes never closed, and now and then become infected. It’s disgusting. They aren’t tiny pinholes; they are scars.
It was my choice to have my ears pierced so of course I’ve no one to blame but myself, but I wish I’d never done it. I understand that some skin types are more prone to keloids than others. Isn’t that a deterrent?
But it is still largely permanent, and visible, and I honestly don’t see a good reason to not wait until the kid wants one beyond, “I think it’ll look cute on my baby girl.”
I know parents do a lot of cosmetic things because they think it looks good, but most of them aren’t permanent or painful to do.
That cracked me up.
I hate that I got sidetracked with the legal issue, because I only brought up the legalities of the topic to make a larger point…it is up to the parent to decide what cultural norms is going to be foisted on the child. Unless restricted by law.
A parent can slice the skin of their kid’s penis because that is legal. Just because it is legal, that doesn’t mean I will do it. But if I WANT to do it, it is my right as a parent to make that decision for my child. In this society, it is no big deal. Ear piercing is infinitely less of a big deal, in my opinion.
In other cultures, tattoos are no big deal either. But in this society, tats are a huge deal on a child.
I realize this post is all over the map, but I hope I’m getting all of the salient points out, because I am working right now and can’t focus well.
I didn’t care about strangers mistaking my daughter for a boy, I just thought earrings looked cute. So yeah, vanity. So what? The lacy headbands are vanity too.
No, because I knew she’d almost certainly have her ears pierced eventually anyway.
Actual photo of a tattoo a student of mine got from a friend’s dad.
I thought it would lighten up the thread.
I didn’t have a great reason not to wait, but I didn’t need one, because I don’t think it’s a big deal one way or the other.
I also think it’s barely painful (and that’s coming from someone who at the time was really scared of IVs and blood draws), and wouldn’t have done it otherwise.
Anyway, you said you’d make your daughter wait until she was at least 15 to have her ears pierced. That makes sense at least when you’re talking about something that you apparently see as a pretty big deal (I just don’t see the point of letting a little kid “decide” for themselves…little kids don’t have the maturity to make meaningful important decisions), BUT I can’t imagine making it that big of a deal either. I believe in choosing your battles. My mom didn’t, and would arbitrarily decide at what I age I could wear what make up, what I could do with my hair, etc, and all it did was make those things into power struggles and forbidden fruit, for no good reason.
All geared up for an argument, my daughter (11) recently asked me why she couldn’t put some colored streaks (blue or purple or something) in her hair and I said, who said you can’t? Go ahead. So she decided against it. If I’d said NO WAY, not while you’re under this roof, she’d probably have decided she wanted that more than anything.
I once had a group of school kids (16-18) come in for a tour and I had a hard time placing the age of a young woman. She had a full set of sleeves running down both of her arms, a rather large tattoo that took up a good chunk of real estate on her back and she went outside and took a smoke break during the tour. I’m not an expert when it comes to tattoos but these were colorful and obviously done by someone who was either a professional or a very talented amateur. (i.e. it took a lot of time/money to get these tats.) Only by observing her interactions with the other students and adults was I able to figure out that she was also a student. She may have been eighteen (maybe), but the amount of work she had had done suggest to me that she started getting tatted up as a minor. So I don’t think it’s illegal to have a child tattooed.
I don’t really care one way or the other about pierced ears. Parents will make far more meaningful decisions that will continue to affect their children throughout their entire lives without actually waiting for the children to be capable of consenting.
Did they leave out the “e” in “judge”?
My ex-GF doesn’t have pierced ears and, when people noticed this, they would quite often tell her of a good piercing place and assure her that it wouldn’t hurt. This despite her having a nose and lip piercing already. They didn’t examine her ears, but they could see her ears and assumed that she wanted them pierced.
That’s part of the reason I didn’t get my daughter’s ear’s pierced; it leaves it as something she can do herself, for fun, when she’s older. She can go with her friends and choose nice earrings and actually get something out of it.
The other reason is that I’m allergic to anything except surgical steel in my piercings and couldn’t be arsed potentially dealing with that with a baby.
That scar tissue does also mean that she can’t get a new piercing in the same place. Not a big deal really, but it does mean that, if the hole closes up, you can’t usually get a new piercing in a position where earrings usually go. Just stop the hole from closing up and it’s fine.
Hmm… Given how painful tattoos are compared to piercings (especially on the bottom of the feet! Owww!), and how permanent, I think that’s changing the game rather than moving the goalposts.
Different clothing would probably be a little easier than pulling the kids’ shoes and socks off every time you wanted to know which one to tell off.
Oops. That looks like it was done in biro too.
I don’t see it much around here. It seems to be most common in Indian and Latino families.
I think performing cosmetic body mods on young kids is morally wrong, but I know most people don’t feel anything like I do, so I try not to think about it. It won’t happen to my own kids and that’s what matters.
Yes.
My Wife didn’t get her ears pierced until she was 22. I didn’t get an earring until I was 45. Our girls got their ears pierced when they were old enough to ask for them - younger daughter hasn’t worn earrings so far as I have noticed for about five years, older daughter has several ear, nose, and other piercings that she wears all the time.
I have no beef with anyone who gets their kid’s ears pierced. The kids will wear what they want when they get older.
I do baby story times at my library, and in spite of the high number of mothers (and dads) with piercings and tats, I don’t see many pierced ears on babies. As everyone else has pointed out, it’s more common among latinos.
I’m not getting the “so people know she’s a girl” angle. It’s TOTALLY common for guys to have pierced ears nowadays.
But how common is it for guy babies to have pierced ears? Also, don’t most guys have just one pierced ear instead of both?