to think piercing of childrens ears should be banned

[lucyellensmum]

why why why would anyone want to do this to a three year old????? I went to a childrens party at the weekend, there was a lovely little girl there with the most awful blingy "diamond" earings pulling her ears down - ear piercing hurts, it is tantamount to child abuse IMO.

i meant to clean the bathroom and kitchen today, as we have house inspection tomorrow. not done. bad dryad...

A total digression here, but seeing as it keeps appearing on posts. A bit of useless information for the day (albeit a little ironic.) The word Chavvy is actually a Gypsy term (or word, whichever you prefer) we use to refer to a child. I never did understand how it ended up being used the way it does now?!?

Perhaps the word chav originated from that expression because people used to call young people it...and the word chave is normally used to describe a teenage or early 20's person

Possibly?! It does actually mean a young child though..

funky, i have a theory regarding the word chav. I have always thought of it as a gypsy/traveller word for child. I have relations in chatham (isnt that the home of the chav?) and in the eighties they would refer to each other as chav, as in "alright chav" as a friendly greeting. Maybe that is how it came about. Hmmm - LEM ponders the posibility of her cousins founding a whole sub culture

I'm intrigued as to what culture toy23's mum enforced on him that made his childhood so miserable. Toy23 where are you?

hes over there------->

lets not go there again!

I agree with lucyellensmum and after reading a lot of posts on the forum,i decided not to post as i can see this forum is for snobs and i include my DP in that.

i am not a snob, i just dont think Mnet is a place for racist comments.

And that is all i have to say about that (in forrest gump southern accent)

can somebody please explain to me what is racist about saying that you should respect the culture of the country you're in?

i really dont understand.

absolutely nothing, but what has ear peircing got to do with respecting british culture? And anyway, as my DP often says, what exactly IS british culture? maybe thats for a different thread, but i hardly expect my DPs bulgarian friends to start having high tea at 4 with cucumber sandwiches and fancy cakes!

i didnt say britain had a culture...

anyway,the culture issue came up when expat posted :

'It's apparently okay to slag off other peoples' cultures and traditions if you are English. After all, no one else can possibly understand who best to raise a child . . .

[rolls eyes] '

which could be seen as being racist against the English,but of course,thats ok.

sorry diva, that q wasnt directed at you, just thinking out loud re british culture. I do however think that there is a difference between having a sneaky (jokey) swipe at us brits and racism against ethnic minorities or peoples who have been historically persecuted because of their race, colour or religeon.

But please please please please please can we not do this (now im getting dragged in and i dont want to be) i was just making a comment re ear piercing, i was probably being a bit snobby, i apologise.

i totally agree with you about the ear peircing thing

Divastrop... do us all a favour and point out to your DP this is MUMSNET

lucyellensmum - yes it definitely is a gypsy word - gypsy origins here. ( ooh use the word 'traveller'cautiously - it's like calling a Canadian an American! )

Wouldn't know about the Chatham connection....

Who says it looks pretty?

looks pretty gross

I always thought that Chav was actually an acronym for (C)ouncil (H)ouse (A)nd (V)iolent. Please note that I'm not trying to actively offend anyone by saying this - it's genuinely was I was lead to believe regarding this phrase.

If it helps, I spent my formative years in council accommdation, some of my best friends are Asian/Black/of Romany descent yadda yadda

Before chav became popular to say, we used to call them townies. No idea why.

muffincake-thats what my sister and i used to call them in the early 90's,then in the mid-90's the word chav sort of filtered in.i dont know why we called other people townies when we also live in a town

not heard of the word townie either. Well apart from the describe middle class infiltrators of the countryside - quite different i would assume ;)

I niavely thought that chav was a description of a fashion group in teenage children (burberry and lots of gold i suppose), my DD1 went through an EMO stage, which apparently is a bit like a cross between a goth(all black and gloomy), a plastic (pretty pretty girl with lots of make up) and a chav!!

i shouldnt do this, but this site is great - clearly someone has far too much time on his hands, and possible some issues chavscum.com

I thought this thread was about ear piercing in children??????