To think it's disgraceful to pierce little boys' ears?

[butterybiscuitbass]

I bumped into a really nice neighbour recently and to my surprise she'd had her sweet, placid, slightly chubby 5 year old son's ear pierced. I thought 'shame', then 'why?' then 'how cruel, I bet that really hurt'. Usually boys with pierced ears look like a proper handful and it's all too easy to adopt a prejudice about ear piercing and behavioural problems going hand in hand, thus marking that child out to be a wrong 'un. I actually think some parents want this image for their child for whatever reason. I could go on. This is surely a controversial one so come on sock it to me, are there any mums out there who have maimed their son in this way, and for what reason?

[ravenAK]

My ds is 9 & really wants his ear pierced.

I'm essentially of the 'OK, fine, your ears' school of thought, whereas dh is quite anti-piercing on anyone younger than teens.

However, ds won't be getting it done on my watch until I come across a proper piercer who is willing to do someone his age; I am absolutely putting my foot down when it comes to some untrained shop assistant wafting a manky gun about in Claire's or similar.

Since neither the piercer I go to myself locally, or the tattoo artist who's recently finished tattooing me & also does piercing, will do piercings on U13s, he's going to have to wait a few years yet!

By which time, he may, of course, have lost interest. That's fine too.

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

Not sure if I'd put a 16 yo age limit on ear-piercing.
Maybe Secondary age as a minimum.

IIRC it's a minimum of 14 for cartilage (not sure if I'd fancy that at 14)

But my DC could go out legally and have sex at 16 or smoke at 16.
They are old enough at 12 ish to take care of their ears and know what's involved.

[usualsuspect]

Another goady thread.

[Bowlersarm]

My teen DS wanted his ear pierced. I put him off, successfully, because I'm not a fan.

He now wants a tattoo, when I'm even less of a fan of, so desperately trying to get him to have an ear ring instead as a compromise.

Never thought I would be turning a full circle, and pleading for him to have ear piercings!

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

Today I helped my 11 yo daughter change her earrings for the first time.
It was a bit of a "ooh" moment because the original earrings are quite hard to remove and she has no length to her nails to grip so I did it this time.
Once the new ones were in she was fine.
She's looked after and cleaned them herself.



Today in Claires we saw a woman with a tiny little girl (I'd say 6months) in the chair. The little girl on her lap.
The piercer looking very dubious.

My daughter had to leave the shop. She was very upset at the thought of this little child going through ear piercing.
My DD knew what to expect and what was expected of her.
"She can't even sit in the chair, Mum. How is she going to cope with earrings"?

What can you say?

[ChocsAwayInMyGob]

70IsaLimit- there should be a law against piercing babies ears. 6 months! It's an unnecessary non medical intrusive procedure.

[VelvetSpoon]

Pleased to say I don't associate with the sort of judgmental tosspots who would make assumptions about children simply because they have pierced ears.

I had mine pierced when I was 7 (the norm in my family is under 6 months, but for various reasons mine weren't done til later).

My DS had his ear pierced at a similar age. He asked for it, wanted it done. I didn't have a major problem with it. He is the gentlest boy you would ever meet, virtually vegetarian because he loves animals and hates cruelty to them/ the idea of eating one. Not a yob, or a troublemaker or whatever. He stopped wearing his earring at 10. The hole has closed up now and unless you look very closely you can't even see it, so he's not scarred for life. If he wants it redone in future, I won't have a problem with it.

I really don't see it's a big deal.

[ChocsAwayInMyGob]

Piercing the ears of a baby is all about the parents' wishes and nothing to do with the baby's wishes! It should be made illegal.