To those who don’t see anything wrong with an infant ear piercing: would you be ok if it was an eyebrow, nose, navel, or some other piercing that so many posters are claiming are all “painless”? Or what about a tattoo? I mean, if it’s a really cute butterfly tattoo, then it’s ok that the baby is in pain for it, right? :rolleyes: (and thanks to laser removal, cover ups, etc…, tattoos aren’t really “permanent” anymore, either, so you can always remove it when their old enough to not like it, right?)
Your daughter is a meanie!
HEY!
If I want to Bedazzle my baby’s face, I’m gonna! My baby’s gonna have a labret, she’ll be the hippest baby in her Montessori class!
She has some baby fat, but Imma take care of that. Baby GBS (not to be confused with Baby Gap). Mah kid’s gonna be skinny, pierced, medicated, and in therapy before she’s three! Her fourth B-day present is gonna be a huuuge butterfly tramp-stamp right above her ass.
She can’t have her first iPhone until she’s six though. Studies show that four and five year olds tend to waste texts with missspelings.
Has Britney wroten a baby book yet? I swear that girl is feerce! If she can handle two chillrens, I can probably make one do ok.
the only thing that it hurts is my feelings. because its trashy.
Judges? …Ok, we’re going to accept that!
Next category please.
In latino cultures, the ears of infant girls are routinely pierced at or very soon after birth. There are many stories told about why this is so, but it has been going on for quite some time and is not (for them) a new phenomenon. One story is that it stems from the superstitious belief that witches do not have earlobes. So the fact that your baby daughter has earrings means that ipso facto, she is not a witch. Another story is biblical – ear piercing is mentioned in several places in the bible as an outward sign of submission to god and so on.
The function it seems to serve (which is not the same as the reason for doing it, for most people) is the same as that served by infant jewelry of other kinds in that context – it serves as a visible demonstration that this child is 1) cared for and cherished, thus valuable; and 2) a member of the community; and 3) of a certain status.
In that context, the idea of personal choice for the child is sort of meaningless – you do not, in this world view, choose to be a member of a community. You just are, even if you are a member of the community who decides to reject it. And a permanent marking makes this distinction clear.
Its perception as trashy probably has to do with the fact that most people who come from a culture that pierces infant’s ears are, in the US, lower class. The practice has, of course, since spread to people who don’t do it for any of those reasons – I seem to recall reading that the Beckhams had their 3 year old’s ears pierced – and those people seem to do it because they think it’s cute.
I was wondering when the cultural aspect of this would come into play. Marienee seems to have done a pretty good job of explaining her POV on the matter.
However much I hate the custom I believe Marienee is right, it’s not only done out of vanity. As a Latin American mom, living in a Latin American country I have received anywhere from scorn to extreme curiosity for the fact that my daughter doesn’t have her ears pierced.
It was much, much worse when she was a baby, and out of convenience I kept her hair very short. I also refused to use those baby headbands :rolleyes: or even particularly care that she wore things that were an outward sign that she was a girl. Now that she’s older, has long hair and is provided with a constant inventory of girly clothes by relatives almost nobody asks.
It seems to me that making sure that your child’s gender is obvious to anyone is really an important reason too. I have no bloody idea why.
Seriously? Someone have a cite for this? I’m certainly no biblical scholar, but of all the behaviors in the world that I’ve heard biblical justifications for, this isn’t among them. I am ready to be educated.
Lobe piercings, which are the typical first ear piercings, do not go through cartilage. The earlobe itself doesn’t contain cartilage. If it did, it would be stiff like the helix and the conch, not floppy.
Now I wouldn’t consider piercings to be painful, and I’ve got nine of them. Mine are typically sore for about a week after that but only when i’m actually moving the piercing during cleaning.
I tend to take the position that this applies to all body modification that is not an immediate medical necessity.
Ivygirl got her ears pierced when she was 13. We made a whole day out of it, invited the aunts and grandma and a schoolfriend of hers, then spent the day shopping for earrings and having a ladies’ lunch at a tea room. Very girly.
The point it, Ivygirl was old enough to know what was going on, consent or not to the piercing (I wouldn’t have forced her, but she did have to wait until she was 13), and have a choice in what earrings to select as well as being old enough to take care of the piercings until the holes healed.
I can’t understand having a procedure done on a baby too young to know what is going on, only knowing that it’s scary and it hurts, to satisfy a parent’s vanity.
I appreciate Marienee’s perspective and insight, but it still doesn’t stop a chill running up my spine when I see some sweet little tot screaming with tears running down her face at a piercing kiosk.
Previous thread on the subject.
I got my ears pierced “late” compared to others. I was 3 months old and my pediatrician did it (he didn’t like the idea of his clients going to noisy unclean places to have the babies’ ears pierced, so he did them all himself). I also had a physical exam and probably some shots at that time. 
I don’t find it weird, I don’t find it trashy, and if I can find a non-public clean place to get it done, I’ll have my daughter’s ear’s pierced (that is if I ever have one).
I don’t consider it torture, and I don’t remember pain nor suffering.
The only infected ears that I ever saw were not from the babies, but from the teenagers. Babies don’t move a lot, don’t get in trouble, and have a whole family looking after them, making sure everything is clean and healing as it should. Teens run around, get messy, act like pigs, forget proper cleaning, etc.
I had my ears pierced when I was a baby and do not remember if it hurt or not. So did my daughter, if I remember correctly she was about 7 mos. She was startled but didn’t cry.
I’ve seen teenagers cry and bleed while there moms stuck burnt needles in their ears. Perhaps different people have different experiences. Imagine that.
I hope to hell that no one in this century in this country is that fucking superstitious and ignorant. Witches do so have earlobes - cite.
A couple of years ago, we went to a tattoo parlor down in the French Quarter with a 16-year-old who wanted to get her belly button pierced. She was told by the tattoo/piercing artist that he couldn’t do it even if her parents agreed because of state law against child abuse. She had to be at least 18 in order to get it done. We left, but I also worked at a day care center where I saw lots of infants with pierced ears and had to wonder why the tattoo guy had said that. I don’t know if there really is a law or not, but it seemed strange to cite that as a reason not to pierce a 16 year old belly button, but be able to pierce a infant’s ears.
My son at about 10 months was showing off his “running” and fumbled into a coffee table, it took his mom, me, and a nurse to hold him down while he got his stitches put in. Kids can be so thoughtless at times 
Having had lobes pierced with both a gun and with needles (failed third set of holes, twice, at piercing places; the others were gunned) I have to say that the big scary looking needles hurt less. Yes, less. And my ears weren’t nearly as sore afterward – I just couldn’t seem to get them to heal up completely, after weeks and weeks, no matter what I said in that earlier thread. Oh well.
I wouldn’t pierce a baby, and I certainly wouldn’t do it at the mall with a gun. Those things are painful. Poor kid.
I have seen this thousands of times, living in SoCal. Baby girls in Hispanic families usually have pierced ears, and when dressed up usually sport at least one gold bracelet and necklace as well.
As a cultural beauty thing, infant/toddler ear piercing barely registers on my radar.
Granted, we actually had this discussion when my goddaughter was very small. Her mom figured that she should hold off on the ear piercing until her daughter was much older and REALLY wanted it done, and pretend to be against it at whatever age daughter was at the time. Then, daughter would think she had won a huge battle when she “got her way” and pierced her ears! 
It isn’t just Latino cultures. My FATHER has his ears pierced as a baby. Superstitious as hell, believed to protect him from evil spirits. He’s a second generation Romanian. I love it when people declare an entire culture “trashy.” Pierced ears are trashy on babies in certain places, and in other places it is normal and natural. You should probably consider the culture of the parents before passing judgment.
My daughter, who is about to turn eight, had her ears pierced for her sixth birthday. She begged like anything to get it done for over a year - so it was her decision. And about half the girls around here have it done by then - girls of all cultures and “classes” - so we didn’t feel it was going to tag her as “trashy.” While she was scared (it took two trips, the first time she chickened out) she said it didn’t hurt at all.