Why Children shouldn't get their Ears Pierced

In many cultures, girls get their ears pierced at an extremely young age, most often as an infant. While this practice may seem harmless, I think there’s something more to this tradition. 

Let’s start with the obvious: babies can’t consent. They can’t tell us if they want holes punched—or more dramatically, mutilated—through their earlobes for the sake of aesthetics. With bodily autonomy being so important to us as a society, perhaps we should keep this in consideration even to children under their parents' care. Under this logic, making permanent alterations to a baby’s body for purely cosmetic reasons is wrong. Any sane adult would prevent another from tattooing their baby, and society should act the same for ear piercings. 

Some might defend that babies won’t remember the pain of getting pierced, or that it’s a culturally significant tradition that should be kept. But just because a child won’t recall the experience doesn’t make it sound, especially since ear piercings are most often permanent alterations. And while I respect traditional practices and understand how it may be important to a culture, I think it’s important to not that tradition should be open to scrutiny and revision, and that some practices belong in antiquity, not in modern times. 

Past the ethical debate of consent, the long-term aesthetic results of infant piercings should also be discussed. As a tiny baby grows into a full-fledged adult, their piercings inevitably end up lopsided or misplaced. What may look perfectly centered on a 6-month-old’s earlobe might be noticeably off-center on an adult. With piercing holes becoming permanent after a few years, it’s extremely difficult, time-taking and painful to revise asymmetrical piercings.

As someone who got their ears pierced as a consenting 15-year-old, my two cents on this issue is that infant piercings are not worse the aesthetic and health risks, as well as the ethical implications involved. While I’ve heard some describe infant piercings as an act of love, of preventing the child from incurring the same pain in the future, I think this logic is absolutely poppycock. When I got my ears pierced, I got a dollop of numbing cream on my ears, and barely felt a thing when the needle punctured my earlobe. With no lingering mental issues from the pain of being pierced, I am convinced that piercings of any kind should be left to the future autonomous decisions of the child. 

So let’s wait. Let children decide for themselves, especially when they’re old enough to understand and consent to the procedure, and what impacts it may have in the long-run. Not only is it more ethical, it’ll likely result in more symmetrical piercings that they’ll be happy with. And to the final defendants of childhood ear piercings I have one thing to say: Clip. On. Earrings. They achieve the same aesthetic effects with none of the damages. Try looking into them instead of buying a piercing gun.