When I was about seven or eight I can remember going to the mall, seeing this store called Bojangles, and wanting to have my ears pierced.  Mama and Daddy were with me of course and my mother had never had her ears pierced either.  We asked Daddy what he thought.  Next I found myself sitting in a chair while two teenage girls armed with blue markers and piercing guns proceeded to “shoot” me at the same time.  I can just remember a sort of simultaneous “BLAM!”  My nervous mother made me go first!  And so we both came out with instructions on how to clean around our earrings until we could take them out.  About a year later I got stuck in a turtleneck sweater and seriously freaked out.  When I tried to pull it back down it ripped my right ear but not all the way through.  So I went back and had it repierced a little above the torn one.  You can still see the line but I am just thankful it stopped short of splitting my lobe open through the bottom of my ear.  I realize ear piercing is a cultural thing world wide, with many varying opinions.  I wanted to let my girl choose if and when she wanted hers pierced.  She asked me if she could get them done for her seventh birthday and we asked her daddy what he thought.  The next thing you know we were at an ear piercing salon aptly named La Lobe.  Things were done much more professional there.  They used a needle because it is more precise.  Once again feeling I had come full circle, I went first.  I decided to share the experience with my daughter, just as my mother did with me.  Only I sought to correct my crummy uneven holes.  The piercer placed them higher (so as I age my ears won’t droop with the weight of heavy earrings) and she also made them equal on both sides.  I felt like a kid again, remembering what my daughter would go through, and my faux diamonds were fantastically positioned.  Just as when I was a child, our little one got pink tourmaline studs.  Not only is that her favorite color; it is both her birthstone and mine.  While acceptable now in almost every culture on earth, ear piercing is in fact a form of body modification.  Its history dates at least as far back as the oldest discovered human mummy.  There are references to ear piercings in the Bible.  Tribes from Africa, Turkey, Polynesia, and Northern and Southern Native Americans have been piercing their ears for ritualistic purposes for eons.  Lest one assume it isn’t European or just for women, in the late 1500’s the English Renaissance spurred an ear piercing fashion trend among “refined” gentlemen.  According to a record written by the clergyman William Harrison, upper class men would wear gold, stone, or pearl earrings then.  I dated an Apache boy in college straight off the reservation.  He had long, jet black hair cascading down to his bottom, with both multiple piercings and tattoos long before they were in vogue.  My mother almost had apoplexy but he fascinated me.  He had even done the “Sun Dance” which is a ceremony practiced by indigenous peoples of the United States and Canada.  After European colonization of the Americas, laws were passed intended to suppress native cultures and encourage assimilation.  Many ceremonies were banned, native languages were not allowed to be spoken, and sacred ceremonies prohibited.  Sun Dance ceremonies more often than not involve young men being fastened to a pole by the skin of their chests or backs for many days regardless of weather.  I eventually married a man whom I adore; he truly is my soul mate.  He has no tattoos or piercings and I like him that way.  At one of our engagement parties my future mother-in-law had fans made with funny quips about marriage.  My favorite was from the American comedian Rita Rudner, who said, “Men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage — they’ve experienced pain and bought jewelry.”  Both my husband and I truly hope our little girl will limit herself to this one piercing.  So, as my little one and I go through our piercing journey together I am reminded of my heritage, of history and of rituals and of bonding.  My little baby officially became a little girl in my eyes after getting pierced.