The A&E Report: Baby's Got Bling

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We here at LAist have been through enough therapy to know that some of the most arrogant and entitled behavior you'll ever see is projected from parent onto child. Just because you gave birth to something doesn't give you the right to project everything you think, feel and want out of life onto your offspring. Case in point: those jerks who've barely snipped the umbilical cord before piercing their kid's ears. If your first stop on the way back from the hospital is the House of Freaks, maybe you don't quite have your priorities in line -- or your child's best interests at heart.

Piercing your kid's ears isn't some minor image decision like spiking their hair or duding them up in a biker jacket, both of which we here at LAist find positively adorable. If your biker baby grows up to be a bookworm or your tie-dyed tot grows up to be a banker, the worst they have are a few embarrassing pictures haunting them from the family photo albums. But if your daughter didn't want her ears pierced, she's pretty much screwed. You've already made that decision for her. And in so doing, you've stomped all over her ability to discover her own personality as she grows older. Maybe your daughter doesn't want to be a whore, did you ever think of that?

For the parents who insist on piercing their infant's ears, it all tends to lead back to one thoughtful, well-reasoned, air-tight argument: "But it's cute!" Well, sure it's cute. Cute like prison, which is where you belong for mutilating your child. And just to be clear, no, it's not cute. Is it too much to ask that babies be allowed to look like babies for a little while, instead of shrunken, bald grownups? Haven't we learned anything from all that JonBenet messiness?

There's another argument parents give for piercing their baby's ears. Some moms hit the Piercing Pagoda because they're tired of every nosy numbskull at the mall bending over their stroller and exclaiming, "What a cute little boy you have!" Well, congratulations, now they know your kid's gender, but they think you're trash. If your kid is a hairless, androgynous blob, maybe you should stick a little pink dress on her, or just stop worrying so much what other people think.

We know these things are subjective, so we'd never suggest a hard age minimum for piercing a kid's ears, but how about holding off at least until your kid can speak? That way, when you're needlessly poking them with a needle, at least you'll have to listen to them shout, "Ouch!" and "Why, Mommy, why?" And they'll be able to remember the moment much more clearly later on in life when they're recounting it to their therapist.