E is for Ear Piercing

Note: This post is part of an A to Z blogging challenge I’m participating in.

I originally had a different “E” word in mind for this post, but then something surprising happened over the weekend: Our kiddo asked to get her ears pierced!

For those of you who know our daughter, this was monumental. She had expressed major anxiety about “putting a hole in her head” (her words) and kept telling us that she wasn’t going to get her ears pierced until she turns 13, full drama-llama style. So when she asked over the weekend if we could go, we were at once shocked and excited for her.

The should-I-or-shouldn’t-I ear-piercing drama has been an ongoing topic in our house. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may remember that last year, I wrote a post for Pittsburgh Moms Blog called “She’ll Pierce Them When She’s Ready.” In that post, I wrote:

Some parents have their daughter’s ears pierced when they’re infants or toddlers, and I certainly understand why. It’s easier, for starters. If your daughter is going to want her ears pierced eventually anyway, you might as well do it while she’s too young to realize that it’s going to hurt. And I also understand and respect the fact that infant ear piercing is a cultural tradition for many families…

But…I simply feel that pierced ears are a decision that my daughter should make when she feels ready. It’s her body, not mine, and I want her to learn that the decisions that affect her body — even seemingly harmless ornamental ones like having her ears pierced — are hers to make.

We didn’t overthink it. After some discussion, I told her to sleep on it and let us know in the morning if she still wanted to go. When she woke up, she immediately asked if we could go. Saturday afternoon, we took her to the mall, ponied up to Piercing Pagoda, and were in and out and 15 minutes. The employees were warm and friendly and treated her like a queen. They gave her a lollipop and she even picked out an extra set of earrings for when her freshly pierced ears heal.

And here is why I wanted her to make the decision on her own: After we were done and had left the store, our growing-up-too-fast-eight-year-old turned to us and said, “I can’t believe I did that! And I didn’t cry! I’m so proud of myself!”

It may be a simple rite of passage, but for our little family, it was so much more.

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