I am a 29 year old mother to an almost 13 year old girl. I'm modified, though not heavily so by most standards. I have multiple piercings in my ears, some stretched, my tongue, nipples, and clitoral hood are pierced, and I have two tattoos. So I shouldn't have any problem that my daughter wants to get piercings and tattoos as well, right? Well...only partially.
At A Glance Author Fidget Contact [email protected] IAM Fidget When N/A Location Montreal, Quebec In the summer when my daughter was turning 2 she'd pick dandelions and stuff them in her ear canals, sometimes so deeply that I had to use tweezers to remove them. After a few weeks of this and a few very stuck dandelions, I figured out that her misplaced intention was to wear earrings. I put her off for a while with clip on ones, but when she the swallowed a small piece of one that had broken off out went that idea. So like many mothers do I took her to the mall and got her ears pierced. I had no idea at the time the potential dangers of ear piercing guns, and after all, it had been good enough for me. I dutifully took care of my daughter's piercings, cleaning them morning and night until they were healed and as soon as possible got her a set of tiny gold 'sleeper' hoops. My daughter grew and became responsible for choosing her own jewelry. She also, like me, developed an allergy to nickel, which of course made it difficult to find jewelry that was fashionable enough for he r to wear for more than 2 hours at a time, so she constantly had minor infections.
Eventually I discovered BME and did learn more about the 'evil mall piercing gun'. Still, when my daughter was 10 I took her back to the same mall and let her get a second set of lobe piercings. All her friends were doing it, they had now introduced titanium studs, and she was too young for a studio, so why not? Two sets of holes for the two digits in her age. I knew I was making her happy, but I should have known better also. Again came the cleaning process, again came the infection. I ended up buying some stainless steel 18g cbr's from BME shop to get rid of the infections. It worked, and she was happy... for a while.
But when she came to me at age 12 asking for her cartilage to be pierced I said no. Even though mine had been done with a mall gun I had had complications and didn't want her to have any problems whatsoever. I demonstrated the effect of a piercing gun by using a piece of paper � first stabbing a sharp needle through it (nice clean hole) then a blunt pencil (piercing stud). No way was she going to talk me into letting her get pierced with a mall gun again. My concern for her safety was more important than her fitting in with her crowd. Nonetheless, one day she came home from the mall with her cartilage freshly pierced.
Of course I was mad! She had done something I had said no to; moreover I couldn't believe that someone would pierce a 12 year old child without parental consent. I also somehow felt guilty; that if I hadn't started this 10 years ago she wouldn't have got it done or if I had no to the second ones when I did know the hazards she wouldn't have taken the risk. But what was done was done, and it was my job once again to help her heal it. She also had complications and a blowout, and we had to change the earring to a 16g curved stainless steel barbell before it got remotely better. Thankfully she's been able to heal it well since and has sworn off mall piercing forever.
Recently though I noticed a scratch on her belly. After much prodding she admitted to trying to pierce her own navel. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I'll admit that when I was 13 I pierced both my second and third holes in my lobes. I thought that took guts at time, and maybe it did, for the times. But she's 12, my brain kept screaming at me. I don't want my 12 year old to have a navel piercing! I want her to run around and play soccer and in the park with her friends! I want her to be able to get dirty and go swimming! I don't want her walking around in little shirts showing off a badly done navel piercing. But a part of me felt like a hypocrite. Navel piercings are almost standard in my town for anyone over the age of 14 with a stomach flat enough to sport them. And if she wants it so badly, why shouldn't she have one?
Because I said so, that's why.
I sat her down and explained to her why I never want her to self-pierce. We went over infections and risks, that there's no way to sterilize anything, and the simple fact that right now her body is growing and changing so quickly that a navel piercing would almost certainly reject. She also admitted to not wanting to put many activities on hold for such a length of time as it would take to heal. So as of now we've reached a compromise; when she's 14 we'll revisit the idea and if she still wants it done I'll take her myself to somewhere that I know will be clean and safe.
I'm glad that I've been able to put it off for a while. For a kid that changes her favorite color every couple of weeks I don't think she's ready for a commitment like caring for a body piercing. Maybe being modified myself has given me perspective on this in that I won't just blindly say 'no', but when I do it's an informed rule that I set and she realizes that.
And this is something that I think more and more modified parents are going to run across when they have kids who want to experiment with mods. And we're going to keep tripping over that dividing line between making our kids happy and not being a hypocrite, and doing what is right simply because it is the right thing. Especially when it's something that we ourselves have done. It's a tough line to draw, trust me. It's a line that I personally don't think is drawn often enough.
I've come to my own conclusion that once my daughter is over 14 AND is able to responsibly care for her own modifications then we will discuss the ways for her to get them done. In the meantime, no more piercings. Who knows, maybe by then it won't be so 'cool' anymore and she won't want anything to do with it. But at least I've kept the lines of communication open and I know that if and when she decides to get pierced again it will be done safely. And I guess that's what matters most.