kids: wait until you are married and ask hubby for earrings

[Minerva]

I think piercing a baby's ears is horrible. It's partly about bodily autonomy and hurting a baby for vain reasons, but it's also the fact that when it's done that young, the holes will probably be permanent! No fucking way am I forcing another person to bear a fairly obvious gender marker for the rest of their life. What if your "girl" ends up being trans and has to spend his adult life hiding his ears? What if your girl just doesn't like earrings? What if she wants to experience getting her ears pierced just like her friends?

I got mine done for the first time when I was 4. I didn't really care about earrings, I just wanted to be able to say I got them pierced. I took a lot of pride in how I never cried when getting needles. My mom agreed on the condition that I do the aftercare myself, and we'd take them out if I couldn't do it. Long story short, I couldn't do it, we took them out, and I had them done again when I was 6. I had to beg my mom to let me get second holes a few years later. This is when my metal allergies first surfaced.

My partner doesn't like that I have a lot of earrings. Interestingly, however, how I look is only a small part of who I am as a human being, so he had no trouble getting over it.

I totally recommend titanium if you have a nickel allergy. If you buy "titanium" earrings from Claire's, you'll probably get shit quality (I made that mistake once - the earrings them selves may have had a thin coat of titanium, but the backs were just cheap, cheap metal). I totally recommend buying titanium barbells, though. Buy them straight from the piercer if you're really worried. There are also pretty decent plastic earrings. I'm pretty sure Ardene will still sell you plastic piercing studs if you ask.

[HopelessWanderer]

I had my first holes done at 3 months, its a cultural thing which I think I'll continue with any future girls. My momma's reasoning was that at that age she could clean them and let them heal properly without me fussing with them too much, and then if i ever went through a phase where I didn't want them only to change my mind again later then they wouldn't have closed up in the mean time. I was then allowed second holes when i ask, around 13 and had my nose pierced on my 18th birthday...which my parents were a little less thrilled about.

My inlaws are pretty fundie lite however and I know my mother in law completely disagrees with this notion, she thinks babies with earrings look gaudy and "takes away from their cuteness" .

[lilith]

On the topic of holes not closing, I had my ears pierced at ten and I've gone for years without wearing ear rings and my holes have never closed. I had my nose pierced when I was fifteen and took the stud out at about twenty, and I think that closed pretty quickly, but I had only ever worn studs with a very thin post in it. It's still visible that I had a piercing there though.

[Mama Mia]

I think piercing a baby's ears is horrible. It's partly about bodily autonomy and hurting a baby for vain reasons, but it's also the fact that when it's done that young, the holes will probably be permanent! No fucking way am I forcing another person to bear a fairly obvious gender marker for the rest of their life. What if your "girl" ends up being trans and has to spend his adult life hiding his ears? What if your girl just doesn't like earrings? What if she wants to experience getting her ears pierced just like her friends?

I got mine done for the first time when I was 4. I didn't really care about earrings, I just wanted to be able to say I got them pierced. I took a lot of pride in how I never cried when getting needles. My mom agreed on the condition that I do the aftercare myself, and we'd take them out if I couldn't do it. Long story short, I couldn't do it, we took them out, and I had them done again when I was 6. I had to beg my mom to let me get second holes a few years later. This is when my metal allergies first surfaced.

My partner doesn't like that I have a lot of earrings. Interestingly, however, how I look is only a small part of who I am as a human being, so he had no trouble getting over it.

I totally recommend titanium if you have a nickel allergy. If you buy "titanium" earrings from Claire's, you'll probably get shit quality (I made that mistake once - the earrings them selves may have had a thin coat of titanium, but the backs were just cheap, cheap metal). I totally recommend buying titanium barbells, though. Buy them straight from the piercer if you're really worried. There are also pretty decent plastic earrings. I'm pretty sure Ardene will still sell you plastic piercing studs if you ask.

Why would a transgender boy need to hide their ears ? The marks from the holes are tiny, and regardless there are tons of boys and young men who pierced their ears and then changed their minds and have the tiny dots to show for it. It would hardly be some big deal to explain. Now if you get the huge ear plugs and change your mind -- that is definitely more noticeable.

And if a little girl changes her mind - she can take them out - big deal , if she changes her mind later it is easy to put the earrings back in or re-pierce if they've closed. It's much easier, in my experience to have them heal with an infant than an older child who is likely to snag their hair while playing, get muddy while playing etc. I also don't see the problem with an "obvious gender marker" -- being a girl isn't something to be ashamed of.

[fundiefun]

Why would a transgender boy need to hide their ears ? The marks from the holes are tiny, and regardless there are tons of boys and young men who pierced their ears and then changed their minds and have the tiny dots to show for it. It would hardly be some big deal to explain. Now if you get the huge ear plugs and change your mind -- that is definitely more noticeable.

And if a little girl changes her mind - she can take them out - big deal , if she changes her mind later it is easy to put the earrings back in or re-pierce if they've closed. It's much easier, in my experience to have them heal with an infant than an older child who is likely to snag their hair while playing, get muddy while playing etc. I also don't see the problem with an "obvious gender marker" -- being a girl isn't something to be ashamed of.

I agree I know transgender individuals who had their ears done as little girls and have no issues with it since both genders wearing earrings in both ears is the social norm. Plugs are a whole other camp of body modification that doesn't heal back easily if at all. In my family ear piercing as an infant is cultural (I'm of mixed puerto rican heritage) and none of us are scarred for life by it or angry that our parents pierced our ears.

[Minerva]

Why would a transgender boy need to hide their ears ? The marks from the holes are tiny, and regardless there are tons of boys and young men who pierced their ears and then changed their minds and have the tiny dots to show for it. It would hardly be some big deal to explain. Now if you get the huge ear plugs and change your mind -- that is definitely more noticeable.

And if a little girl changes her mind - she can take them out - big deal , if she changes her mind later it is easy to put the earrings back in or re-pierce if they've closed. It's much easier, in my experience to have them heal with an infant than an older child who is likely to snag their hair while playing, get muddy while playing etc. I also don't see the problem with an "obvious gender marker" -- being a girl isn't something to be ashamed of.

The problem with an obvious gender marker is that you can't necessarily predict what a kid's gender will be based on their genitalia. Being a girl is nothing to be ashamed of if you actually are a girl.

Not all guys want pierced ears, though. Wearing studs in both ears is the style within certain groups of young men, but if that's not the look you're going for, you're probably not going to want holes in your ears. And if a guy already struggles to pass as male, that's probably not going to be the look he goes for, and having pierced ears might be the last thing he needs. Case in point, my friend felt the need to stretch his ear lobes with plugs because it's considered "manlier" than having two pierced ears. And those holes do show. The chances of a child ending up in that situation are small, but it's a lot more serious than a 5-year-old getting their hair stuck in their earring (which happened to me plenty of times and it's about the farthest thing from the end of the world), and it's not a chance I would take.

[Cheetah]

When I was younger I was appalled at the idea of piercing babies' ears, but now that I live in a pretty high Hispanic area it seems normal and not a big deal. My own daughter is nearly 16 and does not have pierced ears. She has wanted them a couple of times but is pretty afraid of the process. One year she wanted them, I think she was about 10, and I agreed, but told her to wait until swimming season was over to cut down on infection. By then she was back to not wanting it. So in some ways I wish I had done it when she was too young to really notice. Although I didn't even have my sons circumsized, so that would be a little backward to do the one and not the other.

[Val78]

Husband went through brief phase in college of wearing an earring, a simple stud. Hole is still there, which is great fun (or horror for our kids) at Halloween time & stuff. But as a professional male, it's never come up as a disadvantage or anything less than straight male.

I was too nervous about ears growing up and having holes being lopsided to have it done to our daughter, otherwise no preference :-/

[Jenny]

Just saw an article on Yahoo... when should I get my Foster Daughter's ears pierced?

shine.yahoo.com/parenting/culture-clash-foster-daughters-ears-pierced-142200754.html

From the article:

In talking with friends, I expressed that I do want to get my 7-month-old black foster daughter's ears pierced now (with her mom's consent), but not my lighter-skinned 3-month-old daughter. Why is that? I started to ask around amongst my white friends who echoed my involuntary, visceral response to the topic. Earrings on a black baby are adorable, but on a white baby they look was described as "cheap" or "trashy." These descriptions are always whispered in shame. Where do these stereotypes arise? How do these biases come about? And do we need to talk about it in order to undo them?

My question: Should a foster parent really worry about getting a baby's ears pierced?

[gravelmonkey]

slave would bind himself to his master (why would he do that?)

If I remember right, it's from the old testament and I was taught it was done because only a MALE slave could be free--the dude's wife and child (assuming they were also slaves) would still belong to the owner. So the slave had to renounce his freedom in order to stay w/ his family--otherwise male slave got freedom and left his wife and kids behind.

(this is what ive got for the passage:

Exodus 21:5,6 “And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for ever.â€

Thanks! That's really interesting. (Still doesn't speak very highly of the girl's "relationship" to Christ, but that's kinda the point of FJ.)

[halfheartedheroine]

Just saw an article on Yahoo... when should I get my Foster Daughter's ears pierced?

shine.yahoo.com/parenting/culture-clash-foster-daughters-ears-pierced-142200754.html

From the article:

My question: Should a foster parent really worry about getting a baby's ears pierced?

I think (in my state, at least) that foster parents need to get approval from biological parents before letting the foster children get a haircut... Although grain of salt, I might not be remembering that correctly. At least she asked for the biological mom's consent, I guess...? Still odd to be up on her list of priorities imho.

[PinkChampagne]

Since so many people have mentioned allergies to their earrings, I want to chime in. This is my first post on this board so if I break any rules, please don't ban me! I have a pretty strong nickel allergy, which is what most people have when they can't wear jewelry. You can also be sensitive to wearing alloyed metals!! I find that fascinating. Anyway, several posters have mentioned Titanium and they are right- that's a good choice. Buy the purest grade you can find, some of the cheaper ones won't be pure. Also, Niobium is wonderful and works sooo well for me. A word about Simply Whispers. They are a company that makes "nickel free" jewelry BUT by law it is only required to be no more than 5% nickel to be called "nickel free". Their jewelry is not actually free of all nickel. I react to Simply Whispers now, although I did not for a few years. For a good source of great, nickel free jewelry, try www.wear-earrings-again.com. I don't own that business or make any money off of it, I promise. Delete that if I'm breaking any rules! But the woman who runs the website is fabulously knowledgeable about this allergy and offers lots of good information on her site! Anyway, I hope that's helpful to anyone out there who has a jewelry allergies. I had to stop wearing earrings for two years and it was a big deal to me. I am not myself without earrings! Please feel free to PM if you have any questions or want some other ideas or links to good companies as there are several out there.