The wife allowed my 16 year old daughter to get a third ear-piercing

Bill,

You are missing the point here.

Appreciate your daughter and family and cherish what you have. Her accomplishments seem positive to me. Be thankful for that. She is not a child anymore, regardless of what you may think.

You don't have the control you wish you had. Your job is done. It sounds like you and your wife did a good job. Appreciate that and save your efforts for when and if you may need them. Ear piercings are not one of those moments.

My parents and my friends parents screamed at me and my friends because we had long hair. We would never get a job and had bad attitudes. The Rolling Stones will never last. Remember when Dean Martin laughed at them?

Things have changed, but parent's natural tendencies to control their offspring are still there.

Sozobe - as an aside your number 3 item made me remember something funny. On the old Laverne and Shirley sit com, I remember Shirley needing her tonsils removed. She fought it tooth and nail because she wanted to get married with everything intact.

Not to make light of how you feel though about your daughter being pristine - of course a dad wants his little girl to be perfect (mom's usually do too, but it is different with dads) and "pristine." It is a wonderful thing - but maybe the silly sit com situation sort of puts it in perspective abit.

That's an older phrase, the wife, much used by many in the past, many of them regular family loving guys. People use it in other languages than english, I think. I don't consider it an clear indicator of 'control' or patriarchal issues.

I can sort of get billz' view, though I don't share it. I don't think it is all about ears - there is the matter of letting people develop as their own persons, within reason, and not as parental clones. The opposite can lead to quite a rulebound adult, afraid of much that is playful, imaginative.

I agree with sozobe's three points.

Sometimes I use that phrase - when I'm pissed

It's like when you come home, and your partner says 'guess what YOUR daughter did today.' Playful.

Cycloptichorn

Good point, free duck.

Bill - I think you're being unreasonable. I'll not repeat the many good points that have already been made to this regard, but I must call you out on one thing you have said.

You said in your original post that you do not think less of people with piercings, and yet you contradict yourself by validating that such a negative opinion is normal for the best men.

So if a man turns down your daughter you'll blame her piercing? You'll believe that his judgment is good for disregarding a smart and successful person because of a third (gasp!) ear piercing? I think that you've got your priorities out of line here if you'd blame your daughter's ears and not the man's eyes.

You've endorsed a shallowness. And for all your fear of being looked down upon, it is exactly this mentality which earns you the disapproval you so tacitly loathe.

Face it, you're not worried about how this makes your daughter look. You're worried about how this makes you look.

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God damn, you're always making me look good, D'art

Cycloptichorn

Yes..

also a little like the irish derived "himself" and "herself".

I think that the mother think`s its reasonable because she does not have a lot of information about it; or maybe her mom let her do the same and so she thinks its reasonable or even tolerant. During all my infancy i learned about acupunture and chackra points, and that if you make a hole in your skin no matter where in your body, that will affect you as a whole : your phiscal body, your mental health, etc.

I think if everyone was aware of the hazardous effect of earings and piercings, probably there would be much less people wearing them.

All this talk about wanting a "pristine" daughter who is "intact", and your family thinking that you now see her as "dirty" or "impure" really sounds very sexual to me--as in "pristine" and "intact"=virginal, and now, because of her ear piercings, she is somehow defiled and "impure".

That's a rather extreme way to view a third ear piercing. This seems to have symbolic significance for you that is way beyond the reality of the situation. And because of the possible symbolic sexual significance you are attributing to things like this, your family may well be unable to to understand your thinking about it and it is the reason they have labeled you a "prude".

Try to view this situation in terms of basic reality. Ear piercings are ear piercings, and nothing more than that. They do not reflect on your daughter's reputation, her social class, or how sexually active she is. They are a form of adornment you might or might not care for, simply in terms of visual appeal, but they are nothing more than that. Several ear piercings is a style that has been around for quite some time, it is hardly radical. The style apparently appeals to your daughter. Your wife is apparently accepting of that.

There was no way your wife or daughter could have discussed the piercings with you in advance. Your mind has been closed on this issue for a long time. You admit that, if they had told you what they planned to do, you would have talked your daughter out of it. That means you were not prepared to listen to your daughter at all. What she wants, and her reasons for wanting it, are not as important to you as your being able to control her, to get your own way. You are cutting off communication between yourself and your wife and your daughter. And very likely, you are doing this on other subjects beyond ear piercing.

Your daughter is not a child any more. She is a 16 year old young woman with opinions and ideas of her own. It is entirely normal for her to express those things in the way she dresses and adorns herself, and it is entirely normal that you might not always approve of her choices. These are matters you can discuss with your wife, and you have to be willing to listen to your wife's views on these things as well. Your daughter has to be allowed a certain leeway to experiment, because that is part of growing up and it is a part of her separation from her parents. She will want to adapt styles and trends of her peer group, and that is perfectly normal. As long as she does not harm herself, or create unwanted problems for herself, there is nothing wrong with trying to fit in, because that is important at her age.

Your daughter has a long, long way to go before she becomes a physician and before she is looking for marriage, and a lot is going to go on in her life between now and then, and you are really going to be able to control very little of it. Your major job as a parent who can shape your child is already done. You can continue to try to keep her safe, you can continue to offer her guidance, but you cannot continue to try to mold her into an image that conforms with what you want her to be. Becoming an adult is a process of self-discovery and, as much as possible, you have to encourage that without imposing your own wishes and needs on her. When you start being overly critical, or overly judgmental, about her choices you will start shutting down communication with her and you will damage your relationship with her.

I suggest you sit down and have a long talk with your wife. Ask her where she thinks you are being wrong with your attitudes concerning your daughter, and really listen to what she has to say. Then try to see the situation through your wife's eyes. Your wife was once a 16 year old girl, and she may have a perspective on things that you really need to understand. I suspect that you might be at odds with her over more than just this ear piercing business. You may well be unreasonable because you listen with a closed mind. You have to be willing to acknowledge that your wife's point of view may be as valid as your own, and you have to be willing to at least try to change how you see things if that will help you to understand her, and your daughter, better. Open, honest communication in your family is more important than a third ear piercing. If you are, in fact, a "prude", face that. If you are, in fact, too controlling, face that. If your rigid attitudes are creating problems within the family, try to change that.

It's not easy being the father of a teenage girl, and you're likely to hit a lot more bumps in the road beyond this latest ear piercing. Just hope that none of them are any more serious than this one. And, if you really want to surprise your daughter, offer to buy her a new earring for that third piercing. It might cause her to view you in a whole new light.

Oh, and if her other two ears are pierced, why the hang up about piercing the third one?

Great lesson for the kid, too. "I don't think it's the right thing, but I will cave under peer pressure."

That's the spotted pink elephant in the room DD. Where is this third ear located? Shouldn't we be worried that she has a superfluous external organ? Is it a vestigial appendage or does it actually work?

It might not be vestigial...

I thought that parents were past dictating to their children which profession to follow but there seems to be a strong parental urge to do so. This man's posting of his daughter's alleged desire is too prominent: he's taking credit for her.

The guy is gone. He came here hoping to find validation. He didn't get it. Who would like to bet that he searched for a different forum to find the answer he wanted?

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I thought the same thing, failures art.

I feel soooo dirty and used! Is this what the good Catholic/uptown girls of Billy Joel's songs feel when they're seduced and inevitably discarded by the bad boys from the East End boys of the Pet Shop Boys' song?

Don't let barrythemod hear you dissing the Pet Shop Boys.

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