Actually, Dangerosa, this remark (post 24):
is the first mention of ‘trashy.’ Just a snide drive-by post, with its general blanket statement.
Okay, I’ll try and do better this time- no promises, though! 
Do I think it’s okay to run a needle through a baby’s ear for earrings? Yes, I have no problem with it.
Do I think it’s okay to run a needle through a baby’s arm? Actually, this happened to my baby a lot- they are called immunizations. Or is that not what you meant?
Do I even consider the possibility of infection? Well, with even just basic care, most people don’t have a problem with infected lobe piercings. When I was young, I wore only 14K gold and cleaned them regularly. With a toddler, you wouldn’t even need to take the earrings in and out a lot- you just get some peroxide on a q-tip, clean around and just under the stud head in front and the backing in back, then turn the earring a few turns. That’s generally all there is to it- certainly less work than keeping a cord removal or a circumcision site clean.
Does ear piercing hurt? Actually, as you have seen from this thread, different people have different pain responses to ear piercing. Some people get their ears pierced and hardly feel a thing; others said it hurt like hell. Lots of things I have had to do hurt my babies- it’s part of growing up. That doesn’t mean I enjoy it at all- I just understand that many things hurt. Of course, I do realize that ear piercing is optional, as that is what you will jump on…
The ear/arm thing- do you have a more specific example you could use? The ear thing I “get”- it’s about piercing for earrings. The arm thing, I don’t understand- is there a purpose, no matter how silly or lame? I could answer better if you were more clear.
Finally, for me the point is basically moot, as both of my children are boys. Would I pierce my daughter’s ears as a baby or toddler? Probably not, actually. But I certainly have no objection if someone else does. In the realm of scary, dangerous situations for toddlers, this doesn’t ever register for me.
And I think that the “gateway drug” thing is silly- ear piercing is practically turning the girl into Jon Benet Ramsey? Oh come on- only the ninnys in this thread could equate a girl with small earrings to a pageant doll… :rolleyes:
I think I got to everything, but I’m sure you’ll let me know if I didn’t!
dnoonman, I have plenty of friends who have circumcised their sons with the reasoning ‘To look like Daddy’. They’ve told me nothing about the health benefits of circumcision when discussing it (because we had to make the decision whether or not to circumcise our own son last year), but I’d say about 75% of the reasoning is “Because it looks better” or “Because my husband is circumcised”. To me, that IS circumcising for ornamentation. And I’m against that as much as I’m against ear piercing in infants. It doesn’t mean that I don’t understand why people choose to do it - I may not agree with it for my own family, but I can understand why others would choose to do it.
(FTR, we chose not to circumcise, although my husband wasn’t fully agreed at the time. Now that our son is a year old, he doesn’t understand what all the fuss was about and why he wanted to circ in the first place. And should we have a daughter in the future, she will not have pierced ears until she decides that she wants them at an older age.)
Note that I didn’t claim that, either.
Bottom line: some here are of the opinion that baby piercings (girls only, unless you live in Romania) is OK-even great. Some here don’t. Some here (apparently) feel so strongly about it that they would defend baby piercing to the end. Some here feel so strongly the other way that they would attack that position to the end.
Net result? status quo.
I know, and that was exactly what I was reacting to. I have no problem with people who say they don’t find it attractive, or they don’t believe its necessary. I actually don’t have a problem with people who say its too risky or dangerous (though I think they have a different way of evaluating risk than I do and I am interested in how they raise their kids so as to avoid all unnecessary risk - do they put up a Christmas tree? Do they bolt it to the ceiling so a small child can’t pull it over? Do they let them ride bikes? Are they the parents that bumper the edge of the coffee table? Do they stick to a single child so there isn’t any risk that your brother pushes you down the stairs?).
I think we should discuss something a little less contentious, like whether or not you should remove your shoes inside the house or if it’s a good idea to de-claw cats. 
Sadly, I think this is exactly the case, and is one of the reasons I do not support baby piercing. I think the whole construct is messed up. My opinion won’t change a thing and I know it.
I think the broader question here is how does one express support or disapproval of a culture without coming across as bigoted? Stuff like this:
doesn’t help. I guess you southern border state people are too busy holding babies down and putting holes in their bodies to get much done, either.
:rolleyes:
What I don’t understand is why people who support a traditon or a custom seem to think that they must prove that it’s “ok” or even superior to those who look askance at it. This applies to circumcision, piercings, arranged marriages, child disciplinary tactics-you name it. Just because a culture does X, doesn’t mean X is a great thing. Your culture is not inherently “better” than mine (and vice versa) because you do X and I don’t (and vice versa).
In order to elevate X, supporters “dis” the critics. Why not just say, as one poster did, the real reasons? “I like it” or “it looks pretty” or even “gee, I never really thought about it, and it’s not that big a deal to me”? But even those honest answers, while deserving of more respect than fingers pointed supposedly to highlight hypocrisy in others, skate over the real issue in this matter: the marking of girls.
It bothers me that baby girls are subjected to this. It raises vague thoughts about bride price, dowries and females being a “burden” on the family and frankly, “marking” which is not done to males. That’s fucked up in my book. Sure, I might overthink this, but my first reaction to any baby’s pierced ears is dismay. And that’s MY culture speaking. I can tolerate another culture doing this, but to say doing it is Right and Just and Good is crap. You do it for various reasons-very human reasons. That doesn’t mean you get universal approval of having done so. (and just so I’m clear–the disapproving ones should make an effort to clarify that they are not disapproving of an entire culture–but this practice of a culture).
Sapo-I’m with you re the gender roles. I was happy to let my sons play with dolls (how else to impart nurturing into a future Dad?) and wear pink etc. My daughter couldn’t stand hair ribbons and bows, and she’s as feminine as she wants to be at 17.
Or should you remove your shoes and sit next to the cat while you breast feed your circumsized son, while her daughter plays with her earrings as she watches TV?
What? Wait. No.
Pierced ears on a baby does look pretty to me. However, brass rings around the neck looks pretty to me, also…and I wouldn’t do it to my baby. My point is that, while I admit I did it because it is pretty, that doesn’t negate that fact that it actually is a part of Black American culture, and I would never have considered doing it if it weren’t.
This “marking of girls” stuff is outrageous. My daughter is not the typical girl at all. She delights, indulges and excells in all the standard, stereotypical boy stuff, with much encouragement from her dad and me. From bugs and dirt, to science and math, to all things gross, to flat out authorative mannerisms. I have never discouraged these characteristics, nor indicated in anyway to her that she should be ‘marked’ as a girl. Her dad,whom she worships, has both ears pierced. My daughter loves her earings.
Dnooman, I don’t know if you are being fair by suggesting that we take the circumcision argument to a new thread. I think it fits well in this discussion. Another part of Black American culture is the circumcision. Not every black man is, but very many young black men are circumcised. I am sure it is done because ‘everyone else’ does it. Also, I believe we think it ‘looks better’, cause it looks like what we are used to.
I would make a wild ass guess that this is the reasoning behind most circumcisions in this country these days, outside of the Jewish households.
The truth is, a doctor can pierce a baby’s ear in a couple of seconds with no problem. One moment of discomfort.
Once you are a parent, you realize there are tons of times your baby will be hurt. You will clean up dozens of scrapes, bandage dozens of tiny cuts, or bumps. They will take risks that they don’t understand and that you don’t know about. They will attempt backflips on a dirty mattress behind Becky’s house, because all the other kids are doing it. They will hurt their little leg in the attempt, and they may even learn to backflip. Mostly, if you take good care of the kids, they will come out of childhood having sometimes had experienced some discomfort, but they will be fine.
There have been more female presidents (or prime ministers) and vice presidents out of countries where girls are routinely pierced than from countries where they are not. Make of that what you will.
I make absolutely nothing of that. What possible cause and effect are you proposing between female body piercing and political success? :dubious:
[QUOTE]
Sadly, I think this is exactly the case, and is one of the reasons I do not support baby piercing. I think the whole construct is messed up. My opinion won’t
But only women wear jewelry, by and large, in all western cultures. Which probably has to do with their status as objects of adornment and so on. So unless
we are prepared to consider jewelry in general fucked up, I don’t see what difference it makes that the ears being pierced belong to a baby.
It bothers me that babies are subjected to sleeping alone, night after night. It bothers me that people think that kids, upon attaining preadolescence, ought properly to be more interested in spending time with their friends than with their families. It bothers me that people think it’s right ot be born and die in a hospital. A lot of things bother me about dominant American culture, any one or two of which would get me targeted for a flame war of enormous proportions. Lots of things are fucked up in my book. But I understand that the dominant US culture places its emphasis on independence and not on interdependence, that it in fact has a crawling horror of 'not pulling one’s weight"and that this analysis takes place not over time but moment to moment.
Which does not make any culture better than another. They all suck, really. But one can, I think, prefer one’s own values. If one did not, I expect that one would, er, change one’s mind. No?
Your daughter may be as feminine as she wants to be, but it is not and never will be a question of self determination. for good or ill, she will be affected in profound ways by how feminine others understand her to be. The best we can do I think is to prepare our kids to fake it when necessary.
She wasn’t at all proposing a cause and affect. She was making the statement that your culture’s practice of not piercing a baby’s ear does not elevate your culture in the ‘balance of the sexes’ issue.
So you can save your pity for a culture that does ‘mark a girl’.
Okay, it’s not abuse in the same sense as buning a child with a cigarette. That kind of thing is continual and destructive. Ear piercing is over with quickly and the child forgets the pain. I haven’t relived my circumcision either. It happened before I can remember. But I still class body modification of babies with the docking of puppies’ ears and tails. It is an unnecessary and painful (if only briefly) exercise, and it seems to me to represent more an expression of power than of love.
I think the purpose of this thread in the first place was to get people to look at the reason they did certain things. The actual result may have been to stiffen the resistence to such thought.
I am proposing nothing of the sort. Nzinga, Seated said it already, but to clarify in my own words:
“The practice” can raise all kind of thoughts in eleanorigby’s mind. But I propose that all this is entirely in his/her mind.
These things (dowries, bride price, etc.) have never been part of our culture, so I have no idea where he/she got that from. It is entirely possible that she/he’s drawing these connections out of either ignorance or prejudice. I am more inclined towards ignorance.
Darn slow edit window!
Anyways, I was saying that despite the ear-piercing women in a lot of ear-piercing societies seem to be fending pretty well for themselves thankyouverymuch. Please come to our defense when we are being flogged, stoned, or something.
Look, I am against all-non medical interventions on young children, be it (from mild to worst) ear-piercing, circumcision, plastic surgery, ritual scaring, neck elongation, foot binding, female “circumcision”, etc. Some reconstructive surgery I agree with, if it improves the child’s outlook in life and creates a healthier environment for him/her to grow in. However, ear-piercing is frankly no more uncomfortable than having a case of gas, from the amount of time these children cry. In countries with that tradition medical complications are basically unknown. It is usually done at the doctor’s office by an experienced nurse and the kid is under medical care for a while anyways.
In our world I prefer to leave my outrage for parents whose kids, for example, are on perma-McDonald diet. Things that, like piercing, are not considered legal abuse but that will have a long-term deleterious effect on the child’s health.
Obviously YMMV.
What “pity” have I voiced along those lines? What thread are you reading? Cite?
Alright, having explained your brief and illogical prior post, it now makes more sense.
I am not going to speak for Nzinga, Seated, but isn’t it possible that he was talking about “you” in general and not “you” as in Una Persson?
You see that’s what I don’t like about the English language, too few words. Hopefully some day you guys will evolve and start speaking Spanish.
My comment was directed at Eleanorigby.
She said this:
and this
Which I think indicates some pity. I mean, when I read that she was dismayed with what OUR culture were doing to OUR babies…well, I figured she thought, what a pity…That is how I read her post.
Mighty_Girl responded that cultures that practice infant ear piercing seem to have some very forward ideas concerning equality for the sexes, for instance in the area of politics. She invited Eleanorigy to make of that what she will.
At that point, you responded to Mighty_Girl, as if she was talking directly to you, and chimed in that you make absolutely nothing of that. So I quoted you, not Eleanorigby, since you were the one that exclaimed that you make nothing of **Mighty_Girls ** very good point.
I have lurked for three years on this cite, and have posted for five months, and when someone* finally* feeds me the coveted word, “Cite?”, it is from someone with no real point to make. Sigh.
And I insist it wasn’t clear at all. You posted exactly this right back to me:
And since even you admit that the other poster hadn’t even said “pity” but only indicated it in your opinion, it’s pretty clear that if you had been more clear in what you posted originally, there would have been no dispute. Alternately, since Mighty_Girl is smart and can post for herself, you could have just let her post for herself - as she did.
How much further do you really want to get into this today? There isn’t any “issue” any more on this exchange which requires your comment or opinion.