Having a baby's ears pierced?

[MumOfOne92]

AIBU to think it's absolutely ridiculous to get a baby's ears pierced?

Each to their own but...

I think any piercings should be banned until the individual is able to give informed consent. I was in Claire's a while ago and a baby was screaming the place down while it had holes punched in its ears. I had to leave the shop. I can't believe it's legal to do this to your child.

@GhanaGirl based on MY cultural upbring in the country I was born and bought up in (the UK) in MY opinion piercing a babies ears IS chavvy.

It may not be based on YOUR cultural upbringing. But that doesn't mean my opinion based on MY own cultural upbringing is less valid....

Totally against it. Why would you inflict pain on a baby who cannot make the choice of whether he/she wants their ears piecerces just because the mum thinks it looks nice. Ridiculous

@RhubarbaraWindsor

Agreed.

All medical procedures carry a risk. More so if done by non-medical professionals. Parents simply should not have the right to endanger their child for their own vanity.

Bad reactions to ear piercing are of course rare. If there was any medical benefit then it would be enough to make it worth the risk...but there is NO benefit whatsoever. Therefore it should be banned.

Fucking cruel

It's all for the parents benefit at that point. Just looks silly to me, like massive headbands on bald heads.

@Strokethefurrywall very well said and you articulated exactly what i was thinking about PPs attitudes towards different cultures on here.

And did i really just read someone compare piercing a baby's ears with executions in britain...

peng aly
Not really - you read someone saying that because something has happened for generations in a certain culture does not mean it has to be respected or continued and an example given of a practise that used to happen but doesn't now.

@Smileyaxolotl1 thats an extreme example and hardly nessesary. People are grasping at straws just to make their judgemental opinions heard! Ridiculous.

I think most people are just bemused/disgusted to discover that others think its okay to permanently scar a baby out of some misguided belief the baby's body is yours to modify as you choose.

Its like when I went out canvassing and discovered the number of people out there who don't think the Tories are right wing enough as they haven't brought back hanging yet. I was just left baffled and horrified in equal parts.

PengAly

You want an appropriate example, how about this?- parents used to be able to use physical chastisement in relation to their children by using implements and/ or leaving a mark. They were able to consent to this on their children’s behalf as they were their parents. It is no longer allowed and is deemed an infringement of the child’s rights (reasonable chastisement without an implement and leaving no mark is generally allowed, but we are talking about putting a hole in a child’s ear here so it would fall into the prohibited category).

I agree it's judgemental to say it's chavvy, common etc but if it's judgemental to say it's wrong to hurt babies for vanity then I am proud to be judgemental and equally if you think hurting babies for vanity is fine then you are pyschologically disturbed.

I think it's barbaric to have a baby's ears pierced.

About ten years ago, I spent an hour and a half doing chest compressions on a 6 week old, sticking intra-osseous needles into their femurs and trying to get them breathing again after they had had a cardiac arrest from staphylococcal septicaemia from an infected piercing.

I wish anybody considering this could hear the piercing screams of the mum stood behind me when we stopped attempts at resuscitating, it still haunts me to this day, almost more than anything I've seen since in my career, and I've seen things that should scar most people for life.

@Smileyaxolotl1 yes because of course you can group hangings an baby's ears piercing together...
as barbaric practises are only ok for them if they are from non British cultures
What a racist comment to make.

Luckily the offensive posts are being removed!

fix my ear piercings nearly killed me too. Luckily I was a strapping 16 yo before having them done. If the same had happened when I was a baby I would have died.

pengaly so it's more offensive to say that some cultures have indefensibly barbaric practices than to say that inflicting pain on babies is acceptable?
Both you and Mn have a very strange set Of priorities.

Ghana I said my family is mixed heritage. I'm Irish English and Spanish. My husband is Punjabi Hindu/Punjabi Sikh mix. My kids are biracial obviously. Even farther back we have Polish in my family but that's very far removed so I don't consider it relevant.

What exactly is offensive about what I've said? I'm offended by what you said. You've accused me of making racist comments yet haven't anywhere produced any evidence of it and as someone who's children are people of colour I find that incredibly insulting for you to insinuate I am racist.

what has and has not been historically acceptable in various cultures, we have a responsibility to update our cultural and legal norms to reflect modern thinking.

Well said. This is exactly the point I was getting at.

How about people don't injure their children for cosmetics or cultural reasons and just let them do it when they are old enough to decide for themselves.
Unless their parents are antivaxxers, I'm sure the kids will live (at least) til they're 18 and make their own decisions.

Bodily autonomy > culture or vanity
Not injuring a child > injuring a child.

@Smileyaxolotl1 that is not what you said and of course not. What is offensive is YOUR generalisation and accusations of the way non-british (obviously you mean non-white) cultures think and act.

What is offensive is YOUR generalisation and accusations of the way non-british (obviously you mean non-white) cultures think and act.

To be fair, it's also done routinely in many white Eastern-European communities.

Spanish people do it too it's not exclusively non white people. Don't know why some are suggesting it is.

We live in Spain and practically every little girl has it done here - the younger the better so they don't remember the pain and don't fiddle with them. I'm not keen and wouldn't have it done for our daughter (she's 5 now), but I don't judge others. There are far worse things people do to their children that cause long-lasting pain and trauma. Ear piercing isn't really one of them.