But there's a funny thing about those scars - they aren't just wounded flesh. To me, they're permanent reminders of a time when we were all young and foolish and so so so desperate to be cool at any cost. And that makes me sad.
"I can give you two perspectives - one from the little boy who desperately wanted his ears pierced, and one from the gay man who now judges that little boy... hard.
When I was about 16, part of my family went to DC on vacation and my siblings and I ended up at the mall in Arlington. I had wanted nothing more than to be pierced since... Well... Forever. Upper cartilage piercings were just so cool! (I grew up on an island and often found myself emulating surfer culture for which I had a love-hate hardon as a young tightly-wound gay.) I went ahead and got the piercings and my dad flipped out. I took them out immediately in a huff and if my resentment of my often-irrational father could have been stronger, it would have been.
So now I'm older and I can see what I was trying to achieve with that little bit of self-expression and it makes me roll my eyes. And honestly, I'm glad that I ended up fixated on cartilage rather than belly button or eyebrow. I've seen some nasty scars from those through the years. But there's a funny thing about those scars - they aren't just wounded flesh. To me, they're permanent reminders of a time when we were all young and foolish and so so so desperate to be cool at any cost. And that makes me sad.
Who knows. Maybe your daughter will love it and is doing this for all the right reasons (whatever they may be, they are wholly outside of my experience). And maybe she'll never regret it. But if she does regret it, if she does have some kind of body image issue, if she's not doing this for the right reasons, she might end up with a permanent scar as a reminder of that regret. Unless I drive by the Pentagon or walk by a Claire's, I'm pretty much safe from remembering that little fiasco."
-greekphilosophy via metafilter
No regrets. Just another experience to add to my arsenal, instruments that poke and prod to create something we call growing up.
Pip pip cheerio!
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