BellaOnline Forums Family Daughters When did/will you get your daughter's ears pierced

I am not a big fan of having an infant's ears pierced. We all know that while it is rare anymore, there is always the risk of infection. Why risk that with an infant?

My daughters had their ear's pierced when they asked - one at 13 and one at 11. I have no problem with multiple piercings of the ears - I have it done myself. Neither of my daughters have wanted to do this, but I assume that eventually they will.

Someone mentioned that when they were young, teens were piercing each others ears with a needle in the bathrooms at school. I remember that. It hasn't gone away. I think that it is critical that as parents we listen to our kids before we simply say, "No." We will probably still reply in the negative, but at least our kids will know we listened and we will have the opportunity to explain why.

Kids aren't just piercing each other's ears anymore. They pierce eyebrows with safety pins and bellybuttons with ice picks. The latter scares the [censored] out of this mom. I certainly don't want my daughter to pay that sort of price to feel as if she "fits in".

KendraShai

I was in 4th grade. I made good grades and got like $5 from a family friend. I wanted to get my ears done. Then I would get one done when I broke up with a guy. One of my friends would get one and then I would have one done too. So as a teen, I had a few earrings. My MIL and I talked about getting my daughter's ears done. I just decided not too. We are planning on doing a big girls' day out when she is older and take her. I dress her in hot pink and people think she is a boy. I don't think earrings would matter too much. Also my mom never had hers done, so Caroline may decide not to either.

Hi There,

I had my daughers ears pierced when she was five months old, at the mall. She cried for about three minutes and that was that. They never got infeceted and she never played or pulled at them. I left the same earrings in for a few years and then started changing them when she was about three years old.

When she was 8 she wanted her ears doubled pierced so we did that but they go infected. Had the second holes repierced and they were fine. She's now 11 and has five piercings in each ear....three on the bottom lobes and two in the cartilage in each ear. Now she's looking for more.

My friends and family think I'm crazy but I think my daughter is. She is the one that has to go through it and she knows she has to maintain excellent grades in school and participate in an extra curicular activity, which she does both. She also knows how painful it is but as long as she takes care of them I don't mind.

And I want to add that she is not a goth girl, she's very feminine but quite modest.

Personally, I have had bad experiences with pierced ears. I had it done three times in my adolescence, once when I was 5, again when I was 8 and once again when I was 12. Each time the ears got infected or I lost them or something. I'm going to let my daughter decide. When she feels that she is ready and be responsible enough to keep up with her jewelry and clean her ears daily on her own then she can do it. Until then, I'm not going to say anything about it and I completely disagree with piercing babies. I think it looks tacky...

One of my daughters had problems with her ears getting infected. She has to wear the hypoallergenic earrings.

I had my duaghter's ears done last year when she was 3 and about two months after, she started to have growths on the backs of both ears. I forget what her doctor called them but it is described as the inside of the ear where the stud goes was trying to purge the earring and the growth was the flesh turning inside out.

Although she looked pretty for the short time she had them we had to remove them and then she had to have the growths cauderized so they would heal.

I know of some people that have been so allergic to foreign objects - like earrings - that they have had to use earrings made with ivory studs. Anyone else?

It is possible she might grow out of it or we could use the ivory but I'm not sure if I want her to have to go through that again!

She's beautiful without them!

My daughter who is 13 had her ears pierced last year at the age of 12. She could have had them pierced at anytime earlier than that but she choose to wait as she was afraid of having them done. This is rather funny too as she doent even blink, move, or cry when she has received a shot or blood work at the doctors. Coming from an Italian family on my mothers side usually the babies ears are pierced right away but the Irish side of my father said I don't think so!! My mother was finally able to talk my father into letting me get my ears pierced at the age of 7 and I then had to listen to my Irish grandmother say "if god had wanted you to have those holes in your ears you would have been born that way" everytime she saw me! LOL

I just want to comment that for ear piercing, the mall places that use piercing guns should be avoided as the people doing the piercing aren't given any formal training in infection control and that the guns used for the procecure aren't sterilized properly.

Hepatitis C can live for six months on an exposed surface and is resistant to even some surgical cleansers. Most piercing places wipe things down with rubbing alcohol if you're lucky and they do not have autoclaves, which is the only way to ensure any tools are truly sterile.

As far as the posting above about the bad reaction and growths on the ears, they are most often caused by the earrings being studs that are too tight to the ear tissue. Also many ear piercing studs have a high nickel content, which is what most folks are allegic to when you hear of a metal sensitivity. Earrings of surgical-grade steel are tolerated by many people.

I wasn't allowed to get mine done until I was 14. That was my birthday present. I believe I am the same age as Rae and all the rage of my high school was multiple piercings. I wanted just one more hole in my left ear and I fought my dad about it for about a month so one day when he was drunk I told him again i was going to have it done he said no, i went to the bathroom got some rubbing alcohol and the earrings I had in the original piercing. I got an ice cube, numbed my left ear up really good and did it in front of him. Thank God I didn't have any infections but i was grounded for a month LOL THen when I was 17, i did the same thing but not in front of dad. When I was 20 or 21 I worked in one of those mall places as an assistant manager and I let 2 girls practice on me. I agree with Rae that most mall places aren't as sterile as they should be but the store I worked at we had replaceable gun parts that HAD to be changed with each customer. I have a total of 7 ear piercings (4 left 3 right) and my nose pierced.

As far as my daughter, she will be 3 in January. She is such a tomboy and wrestles with her 5 year old brother that we have decided to wait until she asks when she is older. I could never bring myself to pierce a babies ears. The other girls I worked with would do it. I couldnt stand listening to them scream even if it was only for a minute or 2.

Even with the changable parts, Jeanette, there can still be blood-borned pathogens on the rest of the piercing equipment. I had a few piercings done that way in the middle and late 80s, as that was how you had it done then. However, with the knowledge of disease and piercing that exists now, they just shouldn't be used ever.

Once I moved to SF in the early 90s, body mods had caught on in this town and there were two formal piercing studios at the time. I've now got 16 earrings in my left ear and 5 in my right.