Their bodies, their choices.

Why do people pierce little baby girls' ears? I just don't understand why anybody would do this. Yet, I know so many people who do. I'm the only person I know with a 7-year-old daughter without pierced ears. Although that will be changing within the next couple weeks since she's been asking about getting her ears pierced. We just want her to wait until after her ballet recital next Saturday since all the costume changes and hair styling and stuff could irritate new piercings if we did it before then. The point remains, though, we're having Erin's ears pierced because she's asked for it, not because Thak and I decided as her parents that she needed this done. It's her body. This is a cosmetic thing, not something life saving or beneficial (like having the appendix out if it is infected, or getting a cavity filled, or something like that). What legitimacy could we possibly have to make that decision for another human being, even if that human being is our daughter?

Some people say that piercing the ears of a baby girl against her will is as bad as circumcising a baby boy. I'm not sure I'd go that far with it, although there are some common threads between the two things. It's different because ear piercing doesn't take away any form of function, whereas circumcision does. Ear piercing is also reversible, while circumcision is not. I would say, if someone held a gun to my head and made me either pierce my daughter's ears or circumcise my son, I would pierce my daughter's ears because I consider it the lesser of the two evils. However, the common threads between the two things are strong. For one, they are both cosmetic procedures. There is no medical benefit to either of them. When done in infancy, they are both done against the will of the person who lives with the ramifications of the decision. Most importantly, neither procedure is necessary. For these reasons, I do view them as being somewhat similar to each other.

My take on both of these unnecessary procedures is the same. "His/Her body, his/her choice." Where do so many parents get off thinking they own their children? Yes, we are charged with raising these children as best we can, but we do not own them. Taking bodily integrity away from a child just smacks of "I own you". That's not cool.