Body Art

greengirl0909

I will admit, I'm pretty traditional in terms of appearances.  I have only ear piercings, no tatoos, and no stretching of any body parts. 

I just saw an 8th grader in the hallway here at school that has the guages (sp?) in his ears and already has like a hole the size of a red hot in each of his ears. Now I don't know how long it takes to make that happen, but I know it doesn't happen overnight  So he or his parents have been working on this project for some time.  Furthermore, it's permanent. 

At the 8th grade I would argue this kid prolly doesn't know what he wants to do when he grows up, but it seems they've been working on it longer than that.  To me, parents shouldn't make permanent, non-traditional choices like that so early for a child.  It would be one thing it this type of body are was more main stream or the accepted "norm" around here, but he is easily the only student in our school and only a few have this done at the high school level.  I disagree with this parenting choice.

526SadieSadie

I dislike the ear lobe stretching and I can imagine it looks really out of place on a child that young.  If he was 15 or 16 I'd be more ok with it, but I still don't like the look.

You can reverse it but it requires surgery to clip the earlobe and reform it.  My mom ripped her lobe in two accidentally (a scarf got caught on a hoop earring) and she had it repaired in a similar way, there's no scar at all.

gdizzle

I definitely agree that 8th grade is far too young for gauges.  My brother had them in HS (they got to be about the size of a dime) and then he joined the Army.  He had to take them out and they have, for the most part, closed up over the past few years.  Teeny tiny holes remain, but it's barely noticable.  I'm not sure if this is the case for everyone, but the holes in his ears just look like regular ear piercings now.

Lanatir

  There's nothing wrong with being traditional in terms of appearance.  I agree that 8th grade is too young to let kids gauge their ears...  While it's true that it's not permanent because of the option of surgery, etc, I currently think anything that can't be changed in a few hours for fairly cheap (ex, hair dye or a hair cut or change in nail polish or make up style) I am going to try not to allow to happen in my house, and at 8th grade, it would probably be on my dime, too... Maybe I'm already too strict. 

 

DH and I have already decided not to get our LO's ears pierced if she's a girl unless she starts asking for it and then she will also be old enough to remember the pain and we're hoping that then she will stick with just the earlobes then...  (Earrings and nose rings don't bother me toooooo much, but I start getting uncomfortable hearing people talk about their nipple piercings (or even more private places pierced...) in public.)

lulling

My parents did not like piercings or tattoos.  They probably thought that those would have been bad parenting choices.  I had a ton of piercings and three tattoos.  That kid could be sitting at home with no TV, phone, video games, computer and only a peanut butter sandwich for dinner until he agrees to take those things out.  Who knows.

Personally, I just want to try to keep my kid from getting a tattoo too young (as I hate one of mine now.)  Anything else...I am not sweating the small stuff.  My mother was very opinionated about appearance and all it did was make me want to rebel.  My husbands parents never mentioned "what he was supposed to look like."  He never had a single piercing or tattoo.  He never even tried to do funky things with clothing or "personal style."  I know it does not work for every child but sometimes if you don't make something an issue, it won't be an issue. 

GoldenGibson

8th grade is WAY too young for that type of thing. In our house there will be no "weird" piercings or tattoos until they move out. By weird I mean ear gauging, eyebrow, lip, tongue, etc. Ears are NBD in my opinion. I haven't decided whether or not to pierce my baby's ears if we have a girl but I kind of like it and it really isn't that painful, certainly not sustained pain.

I think weird tattoos and piercings will definitely hold your kid back when it comes to getting a job, interviews, etc. At a young age they are not capable of understanding the effects those types of things will have in other areas of their life and this would be one of those situations where the parent has to step in and make the call because the kid isn't mature enough to do that yet.

greengirl0909

lulling:

My parents did not like piercings or tattoos.  They probably thought that those would have been bad parenting choices.  I had a ton of piercings and three tattoos.  That kid could be sitting at home with no TV, phone, video games, computer and only a peanut butter sandwich for dinner until he agrees to take those things out.  Who knows.

Personally, I just want to try to keep my kid from getting a tattoo too young (as I hate one of mine now.)  Anything else...I am not sweating the small stuff.  My mother was very opinionated about appearance and all it did was make me want to rebel.  My husbands parents never mentioned "what he was supposed to look like."  He never had a single piercing or tattoo.  He never even tried to do funky things with clothing or "personal style."  I know it does not work for every child but sometimes if you don't make something an issue, it won't be an issue. 

I was a little confused by your post, but this sentence is my point absolutely.  I don't want to allow my kiddo to make decisions too young that he/she regrets later, and anythign that requires surgery to correct, seems like it's a decision best left for later year!

countrygrl5533

I'm really traditional in apperance too. It was never an issue to me. But had I ever mentioned it to my parents, it would have been a very casual "when you are 18, you can do what you wan" type of comment. Since there was a boundary but they weren't freaky about it, was never an issue to me. Hope I can do the same with my children.

As for ears, girls can get their ears pierced when they are old enough to understand, ie. over 5. Will not be piercing my baby's ears. No offense to those that do that but to me, it just looks silly. And if they are like me, I took mine out when I was 12 and never put them back. Not a fan. So don't want to make that kind of decision for my child.

lulling

guppysown@yahoo.com:

lulling:

My parents did not like piercings or tattoos.  They probably thought that those would have been bad parenting choices.  I had a ton of piercings and three tattoos.  That kid could be sitting at home with no TV, phone, video games, computer and only a peanut butter sandwich for dinner until he agrees to take those things out.  Who knows.

Personally, I just want to try to keep my kid from getting a tattoo too young (as I hate one of mine now.)  Anything else...I am not sweating the small stuff.  My mother was very opinionated about appearance and all it did was make me want to rebel.  My husbands parents never mentioned "what he was supposed to look like."  He never had a single piercing or tattoo.  He never even tried to do funky things with clothing or "personal style."  I know it does not work for every child but sometimes if you don't make something an issue, it won't be an issue.

 

I was a little confused by your post, but this sentence is my point absolutely.  I don't want to allow my kiddo to make decisions too young that he/she regrets later, and anythign that requires surgery to correct, seems like it's a decision best left for later year!

 

Oops, what I meant was that this may not actually be a parenting choice on the part of the parents.  I did things that were surely not "allowed" in my house, and kids will do that.  The people that I knew that had their ears gauged usually healed on their own (unless they were huge, like quarter sized) so I supposed I wouldn't flip a lid over it, although I would prefer that my kid not. As long as they are doing well in school, not getting in legal trouble, not getting pregnant or getting someone else pregnant or using drugs I'll let piercings go.  (And I will hope that by the time my kid is a teenager that piercings will be "out.")  

lalyssalou

My grandparents were very strict about appearances and absolutely forbade my mom to get her ears pierced at all.  So she peirced them herself with safety pins.  TWICE.  There was nothing her folks could do about it.  I also had a friend in HS who gauged his ears despite his parents' approval.  His folks weren't home much, so in his free time, he shoved random bits of things into his ear lobes- I remember him walking around school with dice in the holes because his folks would never allow him to buy the gauged earrings to stretch them.  It took most of a semester, but my point is, this was not a parenting choice.

Fergie+1

Um, point: My brother had zero's in his ears (HUGE gauged plugs) and after not wearing them for only a few months, they've gone back to normal. And he had them at that size for a few years.

Now, an 8th grader is definitely too young for that. I personally wouldn't allow my child to modify himself at that young of an age, but I'm sure H would while I'm away on deployment. ::sigh:: Maybe along the lines of 16/17ish I'd be okay with piercings, but no tattoos.