She looks like she did a great job! And she looks so thrilled! Awesome.

Compare this photo to this one. Hee hee HEE!

OMG! it'll be drugs and PG movies next! both at the same time!!

kidding. how cute!

Okay, that's so cute even I am rendered gooey. Damn you, richat! Gooey!

Wow...dame gooey? What IS this world coming to?

And that's funny Mike.

Also funny, I thought, was when I jokingly asked Sophie if she wanted a tattoo while we were there. She instantly agreed, then it hit me: She thinks ALL tattoos are like the kid's versions that come off with baby oil!

So...I talked her down.

I'll never forget when my mother asked our family doctor if he would pierce my ears. This was back in the day, before you could walk into a mall or parlor and get your ears pierced. The doctor (who was a notorious asshole) refused to pierce my ears. His exact words were, "Women have too many damn holes already. They don't need any more".

Your daughter is adorable, and brave. She barely flinches. My mother took me into the bathroom and put sewing needles through my ears. I remember doing some flinching!

Wow ico...that's quite the story. No way I would have been up to doing what your mom did!

Cute kid, richat, and I'm glad that everything worked out okay. Now pay attention to aftercare, and keep Sophie's little ears clean, and don't go overboard with chemicals.

This is awesome!

I'm glad it was a great experience, richat. Adorable pics. Good on ya, mike9322 with the compare and contrast, that's funny. Ico that IS quite a story. Disturbing. How old were you? Do you remember him saying that, or was it part of family lore - that's how the story was told? What a prick. (HA!)

Compare this photo to this one. Hee hee HEE!

or this one. heh.

Really cute kid, richat. Nice pics.

God she's cute enough to eat - a slight flinch and then patiently waiting for the job to be done. Great timing in the shots there!

What a prick is right, rainbaby...hehe.

He said it while I was in the room. I heard him with my very own unpierced ears. My mom worked for him, so he was being perhaps a bit more flippant than he would with a regular patient, but still in all, he was an asshole!

"Women have too many damn holes already. They don't need any more".

OMFG. He should be sued. So many MDs are just sheerly assholic.

Those tattooists/piercers are so wholesome and Canadian looking! Here in Seattle they have a much "scarier" fashion sense.

At five I am totally down with girls getting their ears pierced because its their choice. When its done at three months, that seems a little loopy to me (as my teenaged niece did with her daughter).

Richat, I'm headed to your Flickr stream to comment on the shot of Ev at the sink that I saw in my Bloglines feed. Awesome!

I love the Seattle fashion sense!

Those tattooists/piercers are so wholesome and Canadian looking! Here in Seattle they have a much "scarier" fashion sense.

I was actually hoping for a greater sense of cool. They were VERY nice and all, but I hoped for more eccentric types so that it would be more memorable for soph, you know, the whole event idea.

Richat, I'm headed to your Flickr stream to comment on the shot of Ev at the sink that I saw in my Bloglines feed. Awesome!

Yeah that one's cute. If anyone can't see the one fenriq is referring too, let me know and I will add you to my contacts. It's a bare bum shot, and I noticed that all my naked baby shots had the highest views, and have since made them visible to friends and family only. Could be coincidence, sure, but...

Yay! So very cute!

When its done at three months, that seems a little loopy to me (as my teenaged niece did with her daughter).

The one upside to getting it done that young, Fenriq, is that they are less likely to close up when you get older. I had mine done when I was six months and though I don't really like wearing earrings, I like that I can go for years without and then still have the holes work. Ones I got when I was older have all closed. And the holes aren't that noticeable.

Glad it went so well. Sophie looks like she flinched less than I did when I got my first piercing [ that one was an eyebrow ring, and having needles near my eye was a little... unnerving.]

dame, okay, that makes some sense. I was under the impression it was just the parent's bling-blinging their kids for show.

At five I am totally down with girls getting their ears pierced because its their choice.

Here's a question for people who know more about five-year-olds than I do (a group that includes almost everyone in the world): is a five-year-old capable of making informed consent about something like body modification?

Here's a question for parents of five-year-olds: if you'd let your kid get their ears pierced, what about other forms of body modification? Hair dye? Genital piercing? Gold fronts?

box, I'd be a lot more ambivalent if it were a tattoo or a nose ring or something like that. But regular, basic pierced ears are so ubiquitous and such a part of our culture that they're almost a default setting. Chances are extremely high that if she didn't choose it at five, she would have at ten, twelve, or eighteen, if her parents resisted.

I got mine the day after I turned twelve, which was the soonest my parents would allow. I knew I wanted them since before I could remember, though. And I've never regretted it; in fact, I've continued to add one every few years.

Incindentally, my mom was not permitted to have pierced ears when she was a kid. The day she took me to get mine done, she was 37, the age I almost am now -- and she got hers done, too.

Red Dragon Tattoo

Miko: I have a question (as a future parent?). What was the pressure to have holes punched in your ears for you and your mother? I mean, was it an "everybody does it" or an "I don't feel like a proper woman" or "I feel pretty" or what? I'm sorry for the phrasing; due to my upbringing as an icky boy, I can't think of an un-misogynistic way to ask that question. We were just talking about social norms and resisting them yesterday, so I'm interested from that perspective as someone who sees earrings as terribly silly (there's that condescension again!) who fears having daughters someday that are "brainwashed" into it by glossy magazines. I mean, I've never looked at a woman and gone: "Ooh, look at the earrings on that one." (and I tend to date the no makeup, no earring type). Though when I was a kid, I used to buy my mom earrings for a present often because they were 1) Cheap and 2) I thought that was something that would make her feel 'pretty'.

Hopefully, the fact that I can recognize my tactlessness mitigates it somewhat. I appreciate your feedback, no matter how trivializing the question may seem.

Sophie is one cool chica!

Like Miko, I wasn't allowed to get my ears pierced til I was older, although I'd wanted it done earlier. Mum said yes, dear ol' dad sperm donor said 18 and they compromised on ten. Mum couldn't get hers done as a kid either (grandpa called it trashy) but got them done when she was 16 (and married).

I added two more holes in my left ear at 16 and 27 and have been thinking about more. Nose got pierced when I was 36. Body mods are fun. :^)

Eideteker, I'm not Miko but, for me, it was the pretty/fun aspect. I like wearing and buying earrings for me. I'm not out to impress anyone or to "keep up with the Joneses". And I'm lucky that the mister likes them as well. The first pair he (still at boyfriend status) bought me were a $15 pair of big silver hoops and it made me cry. It was the first gift I had received from someone who wasn't family or somehow felt obligated to buy me something.

What girl doesn't like one more place to wear sparkly things?

When my mom was a girl it wasn't done unless you were a poor Mexican, so her family wasn't happy when she did it.

My dad's family wasn't happy when he got his ear pierced in the 50s or 60s either.

I wanted to have my ears pierced because my sister got hers done when she was three. I was too sick as a kid to do that, so I had to wait till I was 11 and going in for kidney surgery (because I am a wuss and hate pain). Hey, I was going to be under general anesthesia anyway, so I figured that as long as I was under...

For me, it was a need to "keep up" with my older sister as well as a "Wow, those are so pretty--oh wait, I can't wear them because they're not clip-ons" sort of deal.

It's funny what Eide says how he doesn't notice them, but other women do notice what you wear. So, in a way, when I dress up and wear earrings, I'm... trying to impress other women?

That kinda makes sense...

Eideteker, unless you take some sort of radical no earrings stance, you might as well get them pierced, because the clip-ons aren't as available or fashionable and are more likely to fall off. It's more practical to have them pierced and not wear earrings, figuring you'll find yourself in a formal occasion at some point in your life. It does have right of passage elements to it, but that's not even specific to girls anymore - I know 14 year old boys with an earring. I don't know why humans adorn the ears, but many do. You're not an icky boy, it's a fair question, and the answer is surely complex, but not one to loose sleep over. If your future daughter wants breast implants, then you worry.

But regular, basic pierced ears are so ubiquitous and such a part of our culture that they're almost a default setting.

That's what they say about female circumcision.

Speaking only for myself, I just liked earrings. I thought they were cool, and I guess there's sort of a natural urge to adorn yourself somehow.

Your concern is well placed, Eideteker, and I was never a big makeup girl myself. I feel the way you do about 'beauty' magazines ('they will only make you feel ugly'), but earrings, to me, are not much of a sign of oppression of women. There's a lot worse stuff in those magazines, most of it having to do with cultivating a totally self-conscious and critical body image.

But earrings? It's just that they came in nifty designs like peace signs and feathers (hey, it was the 80s) and were a means of personal expression. I remember that some of my friends already had pierced ears and I really wanted them as well, but there was absolutely no actual pressure about having them done. As part of the negotiation process, my bluestocking mom did feel obligated to discuss with me the tribal connotations of body modification, the misogynist symbolism of the ankle bracelet, etc. So it wasn't an uncritical process.

I still do like earrings. Though I'm a big shopper, but I will browse little silver-drop gemstone earrings for half an hour happily. They're very, very pretty.

That's what they say about female circumcision.

Hey, if piercing ears had the same effects that female circumcision does (like medical complications and total loss of sexual pleasure), you can bet that there is no way I'd be defending 'em.

The difference is one of degree, I recognize, but that's a pretty long continuum. I mean, 'ubiquitous, default setting'is also what they say about wearing clothing and brushing our teeth.

That's what they say about female circumcision.

That's a flawed analogy, box. Pierced ears don't cause damage beyond a small hole.

amendment: not a big shopper.

Female circumcision is about pleasing men who have sex with women.

Ear piercing is (at least ostensibly) about women being pleased at their appearance.

Big difference.

My mom inherited an old bias against pierced ears, so I didn't do mine till I was 18. She was pretty contemptuous when I did, too, evidently belonging to the same school of piercing criticism as Miko's mom.

Of course, at some point since then she's had hers done too, since she finally figured out that (as rainbaby rightly points out) if you're going to wear earrings at all, you might as well get the kind that doesn't pinch.

Me, I just like them. One of my first sets I made myself out of dollhouse kitchen equipment; in one ear I had a sieve, in the other a a potato masher. I was delighted about those as I am about the silver-and-peridot ones I just scored on ebay yesterday.

Miko said that pierced ears are popular, and that earring-wearing is deeply ingrained in Western (?) culture. I observed that these are some of the same arguments advanced in favor of female circumcision. I don't mean to imply any further similarities between the two.

Upon further reflection, though, maybe I'm playing devil's advocate a little. Or maybe I'm considering the situation in light of dame's thread about conformity and social norms, or else blithely skipping the part where I better explain my feelings.

Don't get me wrong--I'm a big fan of many, many kinds of body modification, and I support the rights of consenting adults to do pretty much whatever they want with their bodies.

But how old is the typical kid before they can make informed decisions about something like this? There is a tiny but non-zero chance that serious complications and/or permanent scarring (keloids, e.g.) could result from ear-piercings, and, as such, I'm kinda reluctant to subject my hypothetical kid to what is, in a manner of speakign anyway, unnecessary surgery.

you might as well get them pierced, because the clip-ons aren't as available or fashionable and are more likely to fall off.

You presume a need to wear earrings. I think I know what you meant, but the phrasing was odd. It's almost like you're reinforcing exactly what I was saying about there being a societal pressure. Sorry if I put words in your mouth, but that's how I read it.

Speaking only for myself, I just liked earrings. I thought they were cool, and I guess there's sort of a natural urge to adorn yourself somehow.

That sounds like nurture/environmental pressures rather than "natural." I'm not trying to criticize you, but rather trying to think critically.

I'm not circumsizing my hypothetical boys, but I'm also not going to bother reconstituting my foreskin (as seen on Penn & Teller's Bullshit!). But how does (without getting to graphic/disgusting) circumsizing a girl increase the man's pleasure? Whatever. I'm one of those guys who can't get my nut unless she's had three or four already.

I dig what box is saying, in terms of his main question: How old is old enough to understand the societal pressures etc. that go into your decision to pierce your epidermis? Or is it just not worth thinking about (see dame's earlier post)? Are you scarring your kid for life by telling them "when you've moved out and are supporting yourself"? I mean, I don't even like makeup because I think it's terribly superficial and has little to do with attractiveness (better to develop your self-knowledge and personality), animal testing etc. aside. In fact, my problem with makeup is not that it makes one feel pretty, but that one might presume oneself unnattractive without it (and the corresponding capitalist expenditure the magazines are designed to sell you on).

Not something to get terribly worked up about, but something I feel it's interesting to think about. It may be because most of the girls I've courted, makeup and jewelry or not, have had some sort of appearance complex; and it upsets me to think this is the default in our society. It may stem back to evolutionary factors, but that doesn't mean we have to let it persist.

And by now, I'm totally off the topic of telling richat his daughter is cute as a button (not meant to be a gender-sterotyped value judgement ;D). Enjoy the song.

How did this turn into a sociological debate?

Richat's kid asked to get her ears pierced on her 5th birthday. He's a cool dad, and he took her to a piercing/tattoo parlor to get it done. If you look at the pictures, you can tell how thrilled she is.

Yay, Sophie. Happy birthday! Hopefully it'll be many many years, dear Sophie, before you figure out that adults poop on everything.

earring-wearing is deeply ingrained in Western (?) culture.

Not for men, but plenty of us wear them, too, and for all the reasons mentioned, and because playing with your appearance is fun.

Who's pooping? I'm interested in this discussion. I can take it to another thread if you want, but I haven't heard richat complain. Like I said, I want to refrain from being judgemental on this, so I'd enjoy the same courtesy in return. I may have kids some day, and I'd appreciate people's feedback on the matter. No one's asked me to drop it, so I haven't. But it's hardly pooping. =P

fwiw, I didn't mind the read. As long as everyone agrees that Sophie is adorable, and obviously loved by her wonderful dad, I'm cool with the sociological discussion of body mods.

But how does (without getting to graphic/disgusting) circumsizing a girl increase the man's pleasure?

I think the idea is it increases the man's pleasure to know that she'll not likely be tempted to have sex with any other man, since sex to her now feels like nothing interesting (at best) or very painful (at worst).

That sounds like nurture/environmental pressures rather than "natural.

It might be, but like all nature/nurture things it's pretty hard to tell. What I can say for certain is that there's no human culture that doesn't practice some form of self-adornment. It doesn't always include breaking the skin, but sometimes it includes even much more invasive things.