To Pierce Again or Not to Pierce?

Just the other day my daughter asked me if she could get her nose pierced for her 15^th birthday. I thought about it- for a second- and then said no. Of course she asked why, complained and whined for a few minutes. Then she was silent and I knew she was thinking, which is never a good thing unless it's school-related. "So can I pierce my ears again?" They're already double pierced.

I almost wondered if that was her initial goal. Was she playing some kind of elaborate shill game with me? I realized though that she isn't as devious as I was at her age. She sincerely wanted a nose ring and was just trying to wring some kind of piercing out of me. I don't find the nose ring offensive; after all, I wanted one as a teenager too. I just don't think it's a good look for a teenage girl, or a long-lasting one either. What about when you get a cold, or what if it gets infected? I just don't think it's a good idea to mess about with your face when it comes to piercing, unless you're not a vain person. In my opinion, you never know when the needle could slip.

Once a girlfriend of mine told me she was going to get her eyebrow pierced. I told her that I didn't care for that look personally, but she should do what she wanted because it was her face. After all, this same friend had once shaved her head as a statement of her independence from traditional feminine beauty, so who was I to tell her what to do? I was her friend, not her mother. I wasn't going to lie to her and tell her I liked it though. I always thought the pierced eyebrow look was pretty lame, and I was relieved when she let it close up because she didn't like it as well as she thought she would.

Sometimes the idea of something is better than the reality. I've spent a lot of time making my own mistakes and eventually learning something from them. I know that no matter how much I desperately want something, sometimes it's just not what I thought it would be. These are the kinds of things I want to teach my daughter. I want to save her from all of these mistakes she is most likely going to make. I am her mother and I have to guide her into adulthood. I realize thought that we have to make our own mistakes to learn life's lessons. Yet we're entering the tumultuous teenage years. She's not mature enough to make really important decisions, but she's going to be fighting me tooth and nail all the way.

So I'll let her get her ears pierced again. It's fairly harmless, especially in this day and age. I suppose I should tell you that my ears are pierced three times on each side, my belly button is pierced once, and I have elaborate tattoos of mermaids swimming in the ocean across most of my back. I love my artwork and my piercings. Yet they're decisions I made consciously as an adult, not on a whim as something to do for my birthday. I thought long and hard about the kind and size of tattoos I wanted, and I waited until the time and artist were right. I didn't have that kind of patience as a teenager.

I know that I'm going to have to pick my battles. I can't fight it out over every little thing or we'll both be bloodied and exhausted long before this war is over. So we'll get her ears pierced together and it will be fun. The tension will ease slightly and she won't be able to say that I never let her do anything. I will be happy with a few hours, or hopefully days, or détente. Allowing some of the smaller things in that don't matter in the long run has the same effect that small earthquakes do on a fault line. They ease the pressure so that there is never one, huge, life altering quake that destroys everything in its wake. I hope to live through this adolescence, and I pray for my daughter to not only survive, but thrive and hopefully learn a few things along the way. I'm sure that I will.