To Pierce or Not to Pierce

There are so many things people see as normal when it comes to kids. They all have the terrible twos, they put everything in their mouth and little girls have their ears pierced as a baby.

When did we start thinking it was normal to pierce a babies ear? Has it really effected parenting or are we just becoming to sensitive as a society?

My parents didn’t pierce my ears as a baby. I’m not sure why they just didn’t. As I got older I think I asked for them to be done which seems like something a six-year-old understands. They took me to the mall just like everyone does (more on why this is not okay later) and they pierced one at a time. I screamed and left that day with one ear pierced and the other left intact. I went years with just one; I fabricated this lie of “my dad is going to take me to get it done on Saturday.” No one knows where that came from and it never happened. One day, when I was about 13, I just did it myself. Rebellion at its finest. I’m 30 now and have gone through wearing earrings everyday to stretching them to a two gauge and then letting them go back to normal. For me earrings have never been a big deal or a needed accessory in my life—just something I have the option for.

I now have a daughter who is quickly coming up on one and she doesn’t have hers done. A friend of mine had her second daughter a few days after I had mine and she got her ears pierced just like with their first. I never asked why but just assumed they did that in her family. Will her daughters grow up resenting her for it? I highly doubt it. Will they wear earrings all their life? Probably not but who cares? Why should society tell them “you’re a girl so this is how it’s done” or have someone tell them “your parents took away your right to consent.” Being a parent means making choices for your kids that you believe is right for them and their well being. That is your job for the rest of their childhood. Once they are 18 they get to make any choice they want; that’s why so many things require parent consent if you are under 18.

Piercing an ear on a baby is really just to show the world “hey if you can’t tell by the pink she has on this is a girl.” Men and women have been piercing their ears for cosmetic and ritualistic reasons for many centuries. We know it dates back at least 5,000 years thanks to a mummie discovered in the Alps. Fast forward to the 1500s and you will see the rise in male ear piercings thanks to people like Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake, who all wore gold rings in their ears. Sailors were also known to pierce one of their ears for various purposes during that time, but it wasn't a new trend for them like it was for English gentlemen. Between the 1920s and 1950s, clip on earrings were more popular than traditional earrings in the US and other modern societies; "good girls" wore them to show their conformity to societal standards of the time. For a period of time between the 60s and 80s, before ear piercing kiosks started popping up in malls and dedicated piercing shops were established, it was also common for parents to have their family doctors pierce their little girls' ears so that the procedures were done in sterile environments.

If you're considering getting a cartilage or earlobe piercing, it's a good idea to find a professional piercer who uses sterile piercing needles to pierce your ears. Piercing kiosks typically use piercing guns to perform ear piercings, which is not ideal. Piercing guns shoot relatively blunt studs through the ear with great force, often tearing the skin raggedly on the way through. If used for other types of ear piercings, piercing guns can completely shatter ear cartilage. They're also not very sterile, because piercing guns can't be autoclave steam sterilized in between uses. If you get your ears pierced with a sterile piercing needle instead of a piercing gun, the healing process will be faster and smoother, and you'll be much less likely to develop an ear piercing infection. Going to a piercing/tattoo shop when the child is a little older not only helps the risk of infection go down drastically but it also is done by a licensed professional and not the part-time mall worker named Brittani and a happy trigger finger.

Think about that—this gun cannot be sterilized. The kid before yours bleeds a little and all they can do is wipe it off with some kind of wet wipe. If you get a shot are you ok with that type of cleaning? Ok the gun doesn’t use a needle so let’s think of something less extreme that still enters your body. You go to a restaurant and they use the same cutting surface for the chicken that goes in your entree as they do for the strawberries on your dessert. Cross contamination and you get sick. They also happen to cut their finger but just wipe if off and put on a bandaid. What now?

It is all up to the parents and what they want to do. I don’t think it’s taking away my daughters right to choose if I do it now but also I see no reason to rush it. Once she is older and can clean herself and take responsibility for it she can decide. She will grow up seeing girls with them and with out them and she can say yes or no. I am sure if I did pierce her ears now I wouldn’t think twice about it just like so many others out there.

Bottom line is you do what you think is right for your child. It’s okay if Susan didn’t pierce little Baileys ears, but you pierced Ashley’s. Just because they didn’t doesn’t mean you can’t. If it is your culture to do this and you want to help your daughter grow up in that rich environment knowing her families past don’t let anyone tell you no. At the same time please always take the child's safety into account.