If not done properly, as a medical procedure, hell yes.
Do some piercing places have policies on ages? I could see no younger than four or five.
(I was six. My aunt just decided to take me one day when we were all up at my grammas, and I was like YES YES YES!!!)
I will add that it hurt, but not that much. Mostly it just pinched a bit. They used a needle, though.
When I had my second holes done years later, and a cartilage piercing (both of which closed up, dammit), they used the gun and THAT hurt. It throbbed quite a bit.
ETA: Miller, it depends on if you use a needle or a gun. Like I said, the needles didn’t really hurt. The gun, however, where they just shoot the studs in, and since they’re thicker than an injection, hurts like hell.
sigh Stupid editing time restrictions! It pissed me off with the lagging on this board!
There are two usually given, usually by different people. One is psalm 40 which in some translations says something to the effect that god did not ask for sacrifices or burnt offerings but instead that the ears be pierced. Other translations render this as god piercing the ears of the speaker in the sense that he made himself heard.
The other is a passage in Exodus somewhere. Slaves could be owned for six years, then were to be set free in the seventh. If a slave refused to go, then the master was to have the slave´s ears pierced as a visible sign that the slave had been offered freedom and refused. This became then a metaphor for voluntary servitude to god´s will.
To avoid going into a huge anthro-socio-psychological discussion which would be tangential and a massive highjack, may I just say that the notion of witches as defined in northern europe and america is not the only one which exists. Witches is the best translation of who they are trying to differentiate themselves from but it isn´t exactly the same.
The short version is, girls who come from families of curanderas are highly likely to have their ears pierced.
I had Lebanese friends when I was little (really little, like 3) and I always wanted to have earrings like theirs. Lebanese people pierce baby girl’s ears in their first few weeks of life.
I got my own way when I was about 7, as my birthday present. Not sure how i persuaded them, but my parents agreed.
Didn’t hurt much, not enough to make me cry and so little that I forgot all about it as soon as I got to choose the pair of earrings I could wear once the sleepers came out.
Never got infected, never caused much problems. I don’t really wear earrings much now, but it’s nice to have the option, even if I do have to sort of “re-pierce” the holes if I leave it too long between wears. I use the earrings themselves and some antiseptic, and it only stings for a second.
My mother got her ears pierced when I was a baby, so she was older than I am now. She said she wished she’d known it hurt so little, because she would have been spared years of agony wearing pinchy clip-ons.
I won’t pierce my baby’s ears, because I don’t think it looks nice on babies, but if I have a daughter she can have earrings as soon aas she asks for her ears to get pierced, as long as she understands what she’s asking for.
I’d probably pierce them myself- I can get sterile needles, antiseptic wipes and local anaesthetic cream from work, so at least I know it’ll be clean and painless.
For the record, both my younger sisters got their ears pierced for the first time when they were 6 or 7 (when they asked, and as their birthday presents too). They both have pierced noses and combos of tragus, aurical, pinna and daith piercings which they have got in the last few years. My parents are cool as long as no-one gets tongue or navel…and after being in enough ante-natal clinics to see what pregnancy does to navel piercings…no thanks!
My daughter’s ears were pierced the day she was born as were the rest of the females in the family as it is tradional here. I don’t thnk she feels it was cruel.
:dubious:
I don’t think anyone is declaring an entire culture “trashy.” Just some aspects of said cultures. I don’t think it’s being a bigot to say there are SOME cultures out there that have some unsavory and disturbing practices.
And again, some people have different thresholds of pain. And I don’t think that piercing the ears of someone who does not have a say in said procedure is a bit fucked up.
I just wanted to add that both of my piercings (well, four if you’re counting each hole) were done with a gun, not a needle, so maybe that’s part of why it was so painful for me. It’s good to know that a better option may exist, if I ever decide to get another piercing.
Just wanted to give another vote for: it hurts. Not enough so that I wouldn’t have done it, but enough that I remember it.
Not just Latino cultures.
My ex was born in a convent hospital in rural Ireland in 1969. Just after she had been delivered, she was taken by the nuns to clean her up, and was returned to her mother a few minutes later with gold studs in her ears. Her mum says she was somewhat surprised by this, but she was expecting it when her next two daughters were born, and the same thing was done to them too.
Not only that, but earlobes are clearly visible, even without jewelry!
<rapidly losing sympathy with baby piercings>
Meh-I take back the rapidly losing sympathy bit. It’s not a decision I would make. In my “culture” (and what would that be, exactly–suburban soccer WASP world?–earpiercings are not done in infancy. I know many women who don’t have pierced ears at all. I got mine for graduation from college. IMO, this decision should wait until the child is old enough to have some say in it. This view does not make those who do practice infant piercing “trashy”. But I will say that using the Bible as a rationale for this practice strikes me as silly. Using superstitions is silly as well. I’m more comfortable with “I like it and we’re comfortable with it” rather than mumbo jumbo that tries to elevate a custom to some higher plane.
As a latino, my certain way of knowing whether a baby is a boy or a girl is looking at their ears. It is either done at the clinic when the baby is born or at 2 months.
Will the baby want holes in her ears when she is older? Well, parents make all kinds of choices for their kids. Should we not feed them or dress them or vaccine them until they are 18 and can decide if they want to be vegetarians, goth or immune? Not talk to them until they can decide what language they want to talk?.
Yes, I know, not the same and all that. Still, we steer our children’s lives with our choices. Music classes, types of toys, school systems, play friends, music they listen. Every thing we do to kids make changes in them that can’t be just undone at age 18 at the discretion of the kid.
I will assume that a parent making this choice for their kid is just trying to give the best (to their perception) to the kid.
I would first call the police on parents giving McDonald’s french fries to a toddler than on a parent having their kids ears pierced.
Babies with pierced ears are common in my culture also, (black American urban culture).
In fact, my doctor pierced my ears when I was a baby! And I had my daughter’s ears pierced at about 6 months.
Those who may have thought I was abused for having pierced ears when I was a baby…I wish they were also up in arms and gung ho to help when my mom and dad both got laid off in the same summer. My hunger pangs were way more painful than ear piercing, of which I have had several.
Now, nipple piercing hurts like hell, but that is another story.
We don’t pierce our ears in infancy in India but we do pierce noses as young girls and teens. Now it’s a big old fad in the US so when people see my nose piercing they sigh and think “ah, just another blind follower to a fad”. But I did it because of thousands of years of culture behind me, because I don’t look Indian (someone just told me this again yesterday, and I *had *the nose piercing in :smack:), and because I value my culture. I may not believe in the superstitions behind it, but I still hold it in high value. So you see it’s not always what it looks like at first go.
That being said, I wouldn’t pierce a child’s ears until she was old enough to ask for it. On the other hand, my mother was 100% against my nose piercing, even though she had one as a teen, so it just goes to show - not all people within a culture want to follow the culture, either.
Please pardon the minor hijack (and my ignorance). Are you saying that you have a pierced nose but sometimes you go out with nothing in it (no jewelry, just the empty hole)? Is this common? Can you see the hole at all? Do bad things happen if you blow your nose like that?
I wouldn’t pierce my child’s ears either. It’s their choice when they’re old enough to make it, but I would make sure that they knew the consequences and that they were able to take care of the piercings.
I had my ears pierced when I was 14 when my mom finally gave in, but I regret it. Turned out it provoked some allergies I was not aware of and even though I haven’t had piercings in for at least 10 years (probably closer to 15) the holes are still open and will occasionally get infected.
Allergies would be a big concern for me when it came to ear piercings on children, but considering how widespread piercings are it’s probably not that big an issue.
Maybe because gold looks better on darker shades of skin, but Italians are notorious for literal intrauterine ear piercings as well. If hospitals could mark-up the procedure as much as they do for aspirin, they’d be wise to set-up piercing stations in delivery rooms.
These morons market hoop earrings for babies. I wonder how many infants tear them out each year swinging their arms too close to their heads.
back in the 80s, I got my left ear pierced (back when it was rendy for guys just to get ONE done). They used a numbing cpray and I didn’t feel a thing. Later on my ear lobe felt “hot” as if it was flushed and I could vaguely feel a throb but not really a painful one.
Got a belly ring a few years back and that pinched but didn’t really hurt.
All of my female cousins on my mom’s side had their ears pierced when they were babies. None of them remember anything about it.
Cultural trend prediction for the next decade: Baby boys getting foreskin piercings.