Meet Rebecca, the a white foster mother two – one black baby and one white-looking baby, who is of Jewish and Latina descent. Last year, she wrote for Babble that friends, coworkers and strangers pushed her to pierce her black daughter’s ears, but said nothing about her “obviously” white daughter.
She writes,
In talking with friends, I expressed that I do want to get my 7-month-old black foster daughter’s ears pierced now (with her mom’s consent), but not my lighter-skinned 3-month-old daughter. Why is that? I started to ask around amongst my white friends who echoed my involuntary, visceral response to the topic. Earrings on a black baby are adorable, but on a white baby they look was described as “cheap” or “trashy.” These descriptions are always whispered in shame.
Her unofficial poll found that Latinos tend to pierce their girls’ ears shortly after birth, followed by blacks who tended to have piercing done at ages 4 to 6 months. Next in line were low-income whites, who Rebecca found pierced their daughters’ areas as toddlers and high-income whites who waited the longest, at 6 or 7 years. I’ve never thought about this difference before, but I suppose if I really think about it, I’ve noticed more black and brown babies with little gold or cubic zirconium studs in their ears than white.
With no medical association really taking a stance on when it’s best for children to get their ears pierced, it’s absolutely a matter of choice. And while many parents opt to wait til their girls can take care of the piercing themselves, I’ve also heard the argument that getting it done early means she’ll have no recollection of the pain she had to deal with. For some, giving girls earrings means they look too grown, too fast, but for others it’s just a sweet adornment on a cute little girl.
My parents were split on the last point; my mother desperately wanted little studs in my ears while my father wanted to wait until I was about 10. Mom made the call and my father was furious. It wasn’t just being age-appropriate he was worried about. He also worried I would get earrings stuck on things. I can safely say I never got my lobes caught on anything but I wonder what it would be like to have earrings as a rite of passage along with my white classmates.
What do you think? Are pierced ears in the first months of life a black and Latino thing or is it really just a matter of personal choice?
