Do you agree with baby girls having ears pierced?

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My friend took her 9-month-old baby to have her ears pierced yesterday, and secretly I don't agree with it (but I didn't tell that to my friend).

I know it is just my opinion but I don't feel it is right. Baby girls can be beautiful without needing their ears pierced.
Also many parents dislike seeing their baby cry when having a vaccination, but babies cry just as much when having their little ears pierced. Personally I would not get my baby's ears pierced until she's old enough to say yes or no.

Why should a girl go through pain like that just because she's a girl? I know it doesn't hurt that much, but to a baby who doesn't understand what's happening, it isn't very pleasant.

Who is for or against baby girls having their ears pierced?

I don't think its a very good idea, what if the baby ends up having an allergy to the metal? Or what if they end up not liking having pierced ears when they get older.

I think that's a terrible thing to do. People should definitely wait until their children are older and let the kid decide if they want their ears pierced. I definitely don't want any piercings, and I don't think my opinion would change if I was a woman.

When you get right down to it, it's mutilation. That decision should be yours to make, not your mother's or anyone else.

I also very much doubt I'd want to wear earrings never mind mutilate my own ears if I was female.

In some countries they routinely pierce baby girls' ears in the HOSPITAL.

I think it's ridiculous. Aside from the obvious issues of causing unneeded pain (they won't remember, but...), babies are too young to care about jewellery.

I'm from Brazil, one of those countries where they pierce newborn girls in the hospital. I'm strongly annoyed by it, not just because the pain it may inflict or allergies, but for what it means in a bigger picture: it's a mark of gender, and a mark of how a woman is defined by her appearance.

My mother pierced my ear, and my whole life she complaint that I didn't like using earrings, even if I had allergies and it annoyed me so much, but how dare you be a woman and don't want to ornate yourself to look ~pretty~?

I remember more than once my mom stopping to buy earrings because she had forgotten them and she wouldn't want to be outside without them. It's so weird and sad.

Also, if you choose to not pierce your daughter, you will get a LOT of criticism, even from strangers.

How does that work? First, apart from those doctors at the start, how is anyone going to know? Are they going to be inspecting your daughter's ears?

I can't even imagine what the basis would be for the criticism. What on Earth would they even say?

when you don't do something that everyone else does, some people are liable to perceive in that non-conformity a conscious rejection of their behavior. the implication is that you believe everyone else is doing something wrong. criticism of non-conformity is a defense of their own unquestioning adherence to custom.

Last edited by wornlight on 02 May 2017, 9:15 am, edited 2 times in total.

It seems a lot more harmless than male Infant circumcision

Last edited by EzraS on 02 May 2017, 9:48 am, edited 2 times in total.

Both are a bad idea,but yeah,the circumscion of any child is just wrong.
People should be old enough to decide for themselves if they want piercings or circumscion.

Thanks. But what are they going to say though? I'm a nonconformist so struggle to empathise with that, but even moreso, why would you even care at all when you're in the vast majority and that person is no threat to you?

I think it's a bit tacky but relatively harmless, pierced ears do eventually heal shut right?

However, genital mutilation of any kind I cannot support given the ethics of doing something like that against someone's will and it's lifelong implications. Religious or cultural barbarism shouldn't usurp the rights of the individual.

The answer is not as simple as it seems but the piercing of an ear isn't such a great pain, is it?

Having the ears pierced while still a baby is said to be a lot less painful than when you're an adult because the cartilages are still soft. Therefore it's a lot less cruel doing this to you when you're a baby, except for the fact that babies can't have a say on whether they want their ears pierced, but once the pain isn't all that severe it's not usually a great concern. Or it shouldn't.

On the other hand if one doesn't have its ears pierced at an early age and decides to do that as an adult, he/she could come up saying the mum was to blame because it could have been so much easier back in the day and so on.

The reason why people tend to do that in hospitals is that nurses perform allergic reaction tests and make use of sterilised tools - supposedly, because in such a place they really should. Anything goes wrong and there are professionals around to help.

Someone brought up the word "circumcision". Also said to be a lot less painful when the subject is still a baby and these days, circumcision isn't like in ancient times when it had to be performed in public by cutting a piece of flesh off the poor child with a sharp bit of stone. Anyway circumcision is a lot more controversial a discussion and relates nothing to piercing of ears. It's a completely different animal. That's "I cut my index finger while cooking" versus "I fell off the bike and had no helmet on" in the severity scale.

Now if one asks what I think. I am glad I don't have my ears pierced. I am glad I don't have tattoos, piercings and I don't even use a watch strapped to my pulse. I don't like stuff hanging on me. For those who are into these things, especially some females who love big space-station-sized ear rings, having the ears pierced when younger was very fortunate for them. Doesn't appear to me as cruelty.

If I had a baby girl, I would leave the task up to the wife (also if I had a wife). I'd tell her to "do as if it were you in her place, do you think that's good? Do it. Or don't". On the other hand if the wife asked me because she's not very sure, I would say "if you aren't positive then we don't do it, let the girl decide when she's a grown up, there are people out there doing unimaginable things to alter their bodies that put a simple piercing of ears to shame. She'll feel a bit more pain when she's a grown up but doesn't strike me as such a big deal".

It's not like something like official criticism, but just people talking s**t like "oh your children don't even look like a girl because she doesn't have earrings", or how the baby should be more feminine. Obviously it isn't everyone, but at least in the countryside is a lot like this. And it came even from strangers because as we are more open to contact, random people often stops you on the street to talk about your baby, and I know a few situations where this sort of thing happened and the person end up criticizing (mostly passive-aggressive stuff like oh she doesn't look like a girl) the mom for not piercing her daughter

It's basically a variant from putting girls in very girly pink style and this sort of stuff. Marking gender from very early age, and I think it's very sad.

I don't think this is comparable to mutilation, but it's part of a wider problematic culture of gender inequality and excessive value on looks.

it's more harmless than male circumcision, which is more harmless than female circumcision.

the way i see it is all of these to varying degrees of torture/complications are forms of culturally normative mutilations, and to routinely subject infants to that speaks towards our strange human social mentality.
i would not be surprised if many autistic people could not rationalize these practices.

my mom let my sisters and i all choose to be pierced or not once we had each reached 7 years old. i did because what are silly lobes good for if not to have shiny pieces of metal in them, but i remember when my little sister was 6 she complained that all her friends had already gotten theirs pierced and i got to have mine pierced and she was left out. the day she turned 7 she had hers pierced. i also think my decision was influenced by external pressure to a lesser extent, because while its socially acceptable for a girl to have pierced ears, it isn't as much for a boy. it's the same with dresses. dresses are comfortable and i enjoy wearing them but i have the benefit of being able to wear one and not be criticized by others.

i remember in 7th grade a male classmate had divulged to me that he had not been circumcised as an infant. he was embarrassed about the look of his member, and he chose to get circumcised that year. i don't understand that choice without looking through a social lens.

there is also an issue of more direct coercion, like with mothers taking their young daughters to be circumcised despite the well known health risks.

but it all falls back on social conditioning, i think. to pierce an infant girl's ears is a preemptive act of conformity and a perspective that it is what's best for her as a social animal even though she can't understand it yet.

I think it's a crappy thing to do.

Don't put holes in a body that isn't yours.