Saturday, April 26, 2014

The One Where I Take My 4-Year Old to the Tattoo Shop

My 4-year old daughter has asked to have her ears pierced several times in the last year.  I have never had a definite age for when I would support her getting them done but just knew that it wouldn’t be until she could ask me herself and when I knew she was serious about it.  Well, we found ourselves with a few glorious hours of mom and daughter time today so I thought, why not?  Let’s head to the tattoo shop.

My ears (along with a gazillion other ears) were pierced at the local mall with a piercing gun.  I was just a baby at the time so I don’t remember how it felt but I did get my nose pierced with a gun a couple of times in my teens and man, did it hurt!  I wasn't too keen on having Edie go through that so I started asking around.

A mom-friend of mine suggested going to a professional piercer and listed a bunch of reasons why she thought it was a better option than a piercing gun:
  •   Professional piercers use sterilized hypodermic needles whereas piercing     guns cannot be fully disassembled and so only partially sterilized.
  •   Needles are used to core out a sliver of skin to make room for an             earring whereas a piercing gun uses blunt-force to ram the earring into    the ear lobe.
  •   Having a professional piercer use a needle to pierce the ear is relatively     painless whereas the piercing gun used by the part-timer at the mall         HURTS!

This particular mom-friend also happens to be a nurse, so I trusted her judgement and went the professional piercer route.* Karen, another friend of mine (check her blog out here!), is a professional piercer and did a perfectly awesome job piercing my nose last fall.  I knew I could trust her with Edie’s sweet little ears, so we paid her a visit at Eighth Empire Tattoos & Piercing in Burlington.  


Edie was nervous because she knew it would hurt a bit but my little girl climbed up on that big shop chair and seriously didn’t flinch.  Karen asked her to take a deep breath in and VOILA!  One ear was done and then the other.  Just like that.  Piece of cake.  No tears, no whimpers, just a couple of new glittery pink earrings on my now big girl.


I was proud of her.  Edie was also proud of herself for being so brave and now keeps checking out her cute new accessories in the mirror.  If you’re thinking about having your little one’s ears pierced, I would strongly recommend going to a professional for all the reasons I just mentioned above.  Plus, from what I hear, I paid the same amount you would pay at the mall, so why not?  Support your local piercer today.   



*Let me just mention that I’m not judging you for having your kid’s ears pierced with a piercing gun, if that’s what you chose to do.  I’m just saying that, after some research, this is what I decided on.  The piercing gun did a fine job on your kid and I’m sure his or her ears are not going to turn green and fall off.  This was simply the choice I made. Thank you for reading.

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