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I can still remember the relentless campaign I mounted, lo those many years ago, as I had to suffer through middle school as -- the horror! -- the only girl who didn't have pierced ears. "I will take super good care of them!" I begged. "I'm very responsible! Everyone else can wear earrings except meeeeee!"
"And when you're 18 you're free to get them pierced," my mother always responded. She bought me a couple of pairs of clip-on earrings. You could tell they were clips, and they pinched. Not cool.
It was a tragedy. Especially when I managed to weasel out of her that the reason I'd have to wait until I was 18 was because her mother had made her wait until 18. I augmented my strategy. "But you hated having to wait so long," I would remind her. "Now you're the mom and you can totally be the hero here!"
She wouldn't budge. I accepted my fate, grudgingly.
On my 14th birthday my mother took me to the mall to do some back-to-school clothes shopping. We were chatting and walking down the shiny mall hallway, headed towards our typical department store destination, when she shoved me, hard. I stumbled sideways and as I opened up my mouth to ask what she'd done that for, I realized my mother had just hip-checked me into the ear piercing place.
The incident has gone down in family history as the coolest thing she's ever done for me. I started high school a few weeks later with pierced ears. Hallelujah!
My daughter started asking to have her ears pierced in kindergarten. Her desire would wax and wane in proportion to the number of times I reminded her that piercing happens with something very sharp (she's somewhat needlephobic). But this year... I don't know if it's peer pressure, her own burgeoning sense of fashion, the fact that in a month she'll be an elementary school graduate and on her way to middle school... but this year it's been a constant begging.
I've told her all along that she cannot get her ears pierced until I feel confident that she can take care of them. This year my daughter cut off her ponytail and donated it, became a vegetarian (and started helping me both cook and plan balanced meals), and started wearing contact lenses. Last year at this time she was still all kid, and today I look at this gangly puppy-woman of a girl who borrows my shoes and realize that she is indeed capable of remembering to swab her earlobes with disinfectant.
More than that, the number of days left to us when I can be a hero to her are probably dwindling.
This past weekend, for her 11th birthday, I gave my daughter some new clothes, a book she's been wanting, and a silk pouch containing a few tiny pairs of earrings. In a couple of days, we're headed to the mall to let some minimum-wage teenager shoot holes into my baby's head.
It's going to be awesome.
There's no shortage of moms blogging about their daughters getting their ears pierced, either. It seems to be a rite of passage no matter when it happens!
Jessica at The Rogers Family details getting her baby's ears pierced.
Iris of Living The Life is dreaming of the day she can take her baby to Tiffany's for her first earrings.
Amy at Hillis Hilarity shares her daughter Maddie's 8th birthday, which (of course) including getting her ears pierced.
Florrie of Life in the "Nut House" says that beauty may be pain, but a milkshake covers over a multitude of temporary piercing pains!
And Sandra of Two Girls For Mama details the troubles that have ensued since having her (young) daughters' ears pierced.
BlogHer Contributing Editor Mir also blogs about issues parental and otherwise at Woulda Coulda Shoulda, and about the joys of mindful retail therapy at Want Not.
