Your child is not an accessory: Why piercing your child’s ears is wrong.

I see young children (anywhere between birth and 5/6 years old) with huge big blingy gold studs in their ears on a far too increasing basis. And it is extremely worrying. 

There’s multiple things that are wrong with piercing a very young infant, and I’m sure logic will prevail, even against the most vehement pro-baby piercing individuals that exist.

So, why shouldn’t we pierce children’s ears?

  1. How the heck would you like it if a stranger pinned you down and assaulted you with a sharp object totally against your will.  Assault is defined as:  ”Make a physical attack on”. Piercing without consent is most definitely a physical attack. It causes pain, and when against someone’s will, is indeed a ‘physical attack’. Did your 3 day old child say ‘Dear parents or guardians, please pierce my ears for me’? Did it? No. Of course not. Then it’s assault. It’s inflicting pain on another human being without their express permission or consent.
  2. A good reputable piercing establishment will never pierce an infant, often, a child under the age of 12 will not even be considered for a piercing. Why is this I hear you ask? A child will most likely not look after their new piercings correctly! Children are fast, excitable bundles of messy movement, always running around, bashing into things. Will they remember to get their parents to help make them a sea salt soak every evening to look after their ears? Probably not. Now I hear you ask ‘well, why shouldn’t the parents do it?’. It’s the child’s piercings, it’s the owner of the modification’s responsibility to care for them, not a parent. If a child cannot be trusted to care for a piercing, it shouldn’t have permission to get one, regardless of age. Can’t care for it? Don’t get it. Same goes for pets in my opinion, but that’s a different story.
  3. Do I even need to begin on why guns are so gosh-darn awful? Fancy being pierced with something that’s liable to be contaminated with another humans blood? That cannot be fully autoclaved, therefore can never be sterilised? Having a blunt object fired through your ear that tears a hole through flesh, rather than creating a sterile, crescent shape, perfect for jewellery insertion by a professional? Still not convinced they’re awful, read this, written by the Association of Professional Piercers: http://www.safepiercing.org/piercing/faq/#guns, and even by using a search engine and typing in ‘piercing gun’, so much more relevant literature will become available.

In short, why on earth would you subject a child to possibly gaining a life threatening infection from a gun, harming them (because they cannot give their permission, therefore, by the law, it’s classed as harm and assault), something that they will likely not care for, and will cause them pain?

Unless your child has expressed their wanting for their lobes to be pierced, don’t even think about it. And when your child does ask, for the love of all that is holy, take them to a professional.

One final question: How many of you had your ears gunned as a child, resulting in scar tissue, uneven placement and countless other complications? Would you subject a child to that without their consent?