to think that piercing your baby's ears is wrong wrong wrong?!

[CrackopentheBaileys]

I have a dd 15months, and my il's wont shut up about getting her ears pierced, it's driving me mad!

I think it's just awful, not the look as such but putting them through that needless pain!

Il's continually joke that they will 'take her for a walk to the shops' and wink at eachother..... I know they wont do it but it unnerves me a little tbh. (FWIW, my philosiphy is that when she is old enough to really want it done, and ask for it to be done, I will let her have them)

It's double standards to the extreme, getting all upset when they have their injections, nearly bloody crying and making a big fuss. Then popping them into town to have metal rods rammed through their ears!

I just don't get it!

omg I actually agree with solidgold (for once)

"but it is a totally different matter IMHO"

Why is cutting off part of a little boy's genitals ok?

The vast majority of men manage to live healthy lives with their genitals intact, so surely there's not a health arguement for genital surgery on babies. (if a man is persuaded by the evidence on health he can choose to get it done when he's an adult).

Results of 2006 PubMed study into problems linked to circumcision:

We studied 370 male children over a 3 month period. The age of the patients ranged from 8 days to 13 months, with 357 (96.5%) being infants. Three hundred and twenty two were circumcised, giving a circumcision rate of 87%. There was no correlation between the circumcision status and the social status of the parents (Pearsons correlation .023, p = .682). Of the 322 children who were circumcised, 270 (83.9%) were done within the first month of life. Two hundred and sixty (80.7%) and 62 (19.3%) of the circumcisions were done in hospitals and at home respectively. None of the children was circumcised for a medical reason. The operation was performed by nurses in 180 (55.9%), doctors in 113 (35.1%) and by the traditional circumcisionist in 29 (9%) of the children. Complications occurred in 65 children [20.2%]. Of those who sustained these complications, 35 (53.8%) had redundant foreskin, 16 (24.6%) sustained excessive loss of foreskin, 11 (16.9%) had skin bridges, 2 (3.1%) sustained amputation of the glans penis while 1 (1.5%) had a buried penis (table 1). One of the two children who sustained amputation of their glans penis also had severe hemorrhage and had to be transfused with blood. The complications tended to be more likely with nurses than with doctors or traditional circumcisionists, but this did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.051).

both my dd's were pierced on their first birthdays and i would happily let dd1 (11)have hers done again if she asked.

How did it benefit your babies to have their ears pierced tegan?

(you assume there must be some benefit to balance out the pain of the procedure plus the risk of infection afterwards)

It was my personal preference to have them done.

neither dd cried when they were done or had and never had infections

But why?

Everytime you stick something through a baby's skin you are exposing that baby to a risk of infection. Why would you want to do that? What's in it for them?

like i said personal preference. as my dc's grow up they will be free to experiment as they wish. I have piercings and tattoos and if that is what they want to do then they will have that freedom.

i would never worry about infection as this could happn from having a cut finger at least piercing is cleaner and sterile

Don't agree with causing children pain and permanently scarring them before they are old enough to make an informed choice about it.

There is a two year I know who attends nursery wearing earrings similar to this lovely. I kid you not.

my girls wear studs to school and they have a lovely collections of earings for the weekends or going out

but I think what's being asked is not "why do you like your babies to have their ears pierced" - you've answered that - but "what are the benefits to your 1yo of having her ears pierced". What is there in it FOR HER to offset the pain and the infection risk?

O god I shouldn't read these types of threads as I'm going home soon and keep thinking everyone will be staring at me and dd and thinking "evil vile child abuser" and I'll be wanting to shout back "She's a Spanish baby and I want her to fit in and not be laughed at by other smarty pants little 3 year old girls!" Anyway, they'll have to really squint to see them before they get all judgy and damn me to hell, because they're so small.

Adoannie it's funny, what you said about perceptions of Spanish babies / estate kids, well my mum assures me my aunties/her friends will say "Aww look she's a little Spanish baby" when they see dd, but that they're the same people who would tut if they see a baby from our estate with pierced ears. Funny, isn't it? DD's only "dark" because of Irish little old me, her Argentinean dad is fair with blue eyes.

Eyeballsinthesky as far as I know, in some parts of Ireland ear piercing is quite a normal thing. It is heard of as a tradition where I'm from, but is actually quite old-fashioned.

CrackopentheBaileys I would not be happy about what your PIL are saying either, even if it is done in a jokey way, and as someone has already advised, in your position I would be having a serious chat with them and your dp about this. No need to get heavy, just making it very clear there is no way they should get her ears pierced behind your back. I would be livid. My input re piercing my babies' ears is a whole different debate to your ILs possibly going behind your back.

"i would never worry about infection as this could happn from having a cut finger at least piercing is cleaner and sterile"

A cut finger is an accident.

Ear piercing is causing a deliberate injury.

And of course - you hope it's sterile. We're always discovering new viruses and risks to health. Hepatitis C infections have been linked to body piercing and tattooes (sp?). And let's not forget Creutzfeldt Jakob (mad cow disease) which is transmitted by prions which are not killed by sterilising.....

And then there's also a period of time after the piercing when the wound is still open and when it's vulnerable to infection from being fingered by the child.

As for the argument about tradition: yes there are all sorts of traditions that involve body modification. I'm still not clear how saying 'it's tradition' justifies causing deliberate and unnecessary injury to a child.

Do those who have had their girls ears pierced as young babies/toddlers agree with smacking or smack their children?

Because I really have a hard time seeing how we can be so against physical discipline, yet happily put a permanent hole in child's ear that must hurt far worse & far longer than a smack on the bottom!

Also hard to see how you can get in trouble with the police for one of those actions & not the other!

I agree sandcastles.
I can't believe that in todays day and age, full of pc madness and compensation claims, it's ok to put holes in a baby's ears but not play conkers in the playground. Or for the health visitor to pick up your baby (I kid you not). Crazy crazy world

Agree with solidgold about the whole "cultural" argument. Many cruel things are done in the name of culture, ear piercing babies being one, circumsising babies another.

Is female genital mutilation "culturally acceptable" because it's a tradition? Certain cultural traditions have now been outlawed because they're cruel such as feet binding.

It's about time the same thing happened with unneccessary pain being inflicted on babies.

I think it's a vile thing to do, myself. And I pity the parents who obviously don't feel their baby is gorgeous enough without jewellery.

I also saw a baby's ears being mutilated pierced in Claire's Accessories. Not only was the poor little girl in floods of tears and screaming, the shop assistant looked faintly horrified too. My stomach turned over. I agree with others- there should be a minimum legal age for this.

The world has gone pc mad. each to there own.

i think some of the comparisons shown on here are slightly rediculous.

I don't understand the 'cultural' label really. It might be a socially acceptable norm in countries such as Spain and may once have stemmed from cultural reasons (afraid I don't know), but it's not done for cultural reasons imo. Of course, there are places where it is cultural but in places like Spain it strikes me that it's socially sanctioned... erm... not abuse, but something.

If the majority of women wear make up it doesn't make it cultural, merely a social norm.

Anyway, my point is, in a long winded way that I dislike the cultural defence of piercing babies' ears. I cannot understand how it is acceptable and 'oh we do it here for cultural reasons' is an excuse.

tegan, you said "like i said personal preference. as my dc's grow up they will be free to experiment as they wish. I have piercings and tattoos and if that is what they want to do then they will have that freedom." Yes it's clearly personal preference. Yours. And you've taken away their freedom to choose to have piercings. They've got them, like it or not. It's not reversible. You can't shout choice and freedom in one sentence and admit to making a choice and taking away freedom to choose in another.

And, the lack of infection or injury is luck. I could say 'I walked in front of a bus today and I'm fine' but it doesn't minimise the risk of the action or recommend it to the masses.

lol at "pc gone mad"

invariably the last refuge of the moron who can't come up with a better justification for having done something moronic

Greensleeves, it's the nanny state don't you know?

And I pay my taxes.

string 'em up I say

hanging's too good for 'em

Ohhh I see the 'pc gone mad' card has been played. So that's it then. No more discussion

Ah, a Daily Mail fan, nuff said

Oh I adore hanging's too good for 'em. Like it's a treat. I wish I could afford a good hanging but the government's raping me blind in taxes just so the rest of MN can live on benefits.

'their'

'ridiculous'