Her mother called ahead to make sure there would be at least two people there when we arrived. We stopped by a convenience store and I ran in quickly to purchase her first lollipop in hopes one experience would overshadow the other and once back in the vehicle we drove to the mall with her strapped in her car seat and us belted in the front with nerves filling the space between the three of us.
We walked into the store and made our selection of small gold studs, my wife signed a few papers and I distracted my daughter with potential earrings of her future, shiny ones and dangly ones and ones considered costume and others considered formal and finally we sat in the designated chair for occasions like this. I sat down first and placed her in my lap. We tore into the sticky distraction we brought with us and let her tiny paw hold it while we reminded her we were here to get her ears pierced.
We paid in advance and located the exit because we wanted nothing to hold us back from leaving immediately once it was over. A lady stood on each side of her smelling the cherry scented breath of the fourteen month old they were about to make cry and I looked past them at the gentleman glaring at us from the corner of the store. He stood with two girls, his daughters I assumed, and they took turns passing bracelets and headbands and necklaces back and forth. They laughed. He didn't. He stared at us in disapproval then told the girls it was time to go.
I didn't know if what we were doing was right, but I didn't feel it was necessarily wrong. Girls get their ears pierced every day. Allison had hers done really young and, with her fear of needles, it's probably best that she had it done during a time she wouldn't remember it. I questioned myself enroute to the store and again when the judging glances of a stranger were left in his wake, the judgment of a fellow father who found my parenting skills subpar when compared against his own.
The young ladies rubbed the small earlobes of the little girl in my lap, the little girl that just mastered the art of walking yet still had work to do when it came to maintaining enough balance to run, the little girl with a large smile and an even bigger laugh, and those young ladies put a hole in each of her ears simultaneously. They checked the backs to make sure the earrings were in and once given the okay we headed for the door, the parking lot, our vehicle, then home.
She cried. She buried her head in my shoulder, but only for a second. We threw her lollipop away somewhere between exiting the store and arriving at our parking spot and the tears from that act far outweighed the pain of the actual piercing. We should have allowed her to finish because in hindsight that's the thing she remembered the most, her first sucker being ripped from her grip in a hasty effort to disguise the act of decorating her ears for now and every day going forward.
This topic seems to be a bit controversial among some parents. Some disapprove while others encourage it, saying the advantage of doing it at a young age teaches them how to take care of them since they won't really know life without them. Some compare it to mild forms of child abuse in that one is inflicting unnecessary pain upon their child and some say it could be looked at in the same light of having your son circumcized, approved of or condemned for. Some say she should be given the choice, therefore, it should be delayed until she can make that choice herself. Some say they wish they had pierced their daughter's ears, or even their own, at a younger age.
Given the same choice to make under the same circumstances, we would do it again; we maybe would have chosen to do it earlier. We haven't had any issues with her ears or earrings, and at three years old, she hasn't complained once. Some may agree or disagree, but I don't think it's wrong either way... and such is parenthood, I'm learning.