ok ds wants his lip pierced ..arhhhhhhhh

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-08-2005
ok ds wants his lip pierced ..arhhhhhhhh
19
Thu, 01-19-2006 - 11:51am
Now what!!!??? ok, he is a challenging child, must admit he has been pretty good w/school and not getting into too much trouble and for his age, he prefers to stay home and play games w/friends on the comp or go to his friend's house and play games on comp. anyway, the last two weeks he's been mentioning that he wants his lip pierced.and his friend(the one he skipped with) wants his eyebrow pierced. we ofcourse told him NO. he has such nice skin and nice lips...i told him i didi not want him to put a hole in his face. he is arguing w/us saying he listens to us all the time and now he wants to do this cuz it's something he really wants. alot of the kids in his school are having this done and i think he want to "fit in" and the girls are telling him to do it. my son really never had a girlfriend but was always the girls good friend. anyway he may be doing this to impress. we told him no. i think he is laying a guilt trip on me and is saying that he really wants me there when he has it done. i told him he can't w/o my consent. says he'll find a way and have an 18 yr old go w/him. my husband told him that if he did this, he would never see his computer again and my son's response was "you'll never see me again." .... omg. he says he's doing it tomorrow. so now what?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-11-1999
Fri, 01-20-2006 - 11:48am

I know what you are going through. A few years back my ds wanted his eyebrow pierced and I am not a big fan of body piercing and we do have a rule about when you are 18 you can get a tattoo when you can sign and pay for it. DH and I talked about it and since he was good in school, no real big problems with him and he might as well do it while he is young before he gets a real job in the real world. We let him get it pierced and within two months he took it out and you can't even tell that he was pierced. He had two earrings in his left ear too, but those are now gone as well. He is 18 now and seems to really be his own person and not just following the fads anymore.

Good luck with your decision.

L & H,
Angie (mom to ds 18, dd 16, b/g twins 4)


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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-08-2005
Fri, 01-20-2006 - 5:42pm
Well, at this point, we are standing our ground..my ds is 16, sorry if i did not mention that, he just got his driver's license yesterday and yes, he has my car tonight but only to drive him self to a friend's house to sleep over and i am picking up my car later. he will be 17 in May. i don't want him to do it. I am mostly afraid of infection and have expressed this to him. when i ask him why he really wants this done, he just says it's something he really wants to do and is going to do it. my son has always been a handful in school w/wanting to be the center of attention/the class clown. we had to use behaviour modification and up until about 9th grade, that was the case. now, i don't hear that from his teachers anymore, i hear that he is a pleasure to have in class he's now 11th grade. i know i should pick and choose my battles...i would probably break but my husband is against this as well and doesn't want to hear why we might allow him to do it. honestly, he is going to start looking for work and people(right or wrong) will form an opinion just by his appearance. well, we will give it a few days and hopefully he will not talk about it anymore..thanx for all of your suggestions/input. peace for now.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-13-2004
Sat, 01-21-2006 - 3:27am

As others have pointed out, a common benchmark for raising teens seems to be.. Don't say "no" when you can easily say "yes". e.g. Choose your battles..

Well...sometimes you've got to cut the parent a little slack too.

Similar to one of our favorite posters who has recently shared a quirky phobia..
I have an intense aversion to flesh modification by the use of various metallic and dangling accoutrements. The use of ear lobes doesn't usually make my skin crawl probably because it's been mainstreamed so long. On a good day, I can actually *look* at ear cartilage decoration.

Ocassionally, we are allowed to say "no" simply because of something that has absolutely nothing to do with them. Concede them to be the center of the universe the rest of the time. If someone I lived with did this it would be *extremely* upsetting to me for my own reasons, not some parental power trip.
Can teens be allowed to recognize parents are human? Or is this form of disfigurement just that important.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-08-2005
Sat, 01-21-2006 - 10:26am
Not sure how to take your post...i'm not getting what your are saying...i'm not on a parental power trip, i'm not tripping at all, i just don't want it done. for first and formost, medical reasons and i don't want it on his face. period. the delecate dimond on the side of the nose i might tolerate , he already has his ear pierced so i guess i can tolerate the top cartledge on his ear but i don't want his eyebrow, lip or bull ring on his face. i paid $4000.00 for braces and i don't want to deal w/receeding gum line because of the rubbing or take the chance of sever infection on his lip/chin. and yea, parents need a break...my ds is getting his monies worth out of us. he really wants for nothing..he has two cameros, one to restore 1988 and a 1999 that is almost ready for use. owns two guitars, guitar lessions, has my car as we speak...has been to the middle east, bahamas, floridia 3xs, canada numerous times, ny islands, etc...we try and give them what we can within reason and want to have them experience life as we can.
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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 01-21-2006 - 10:47am

I personally find lip piercing to be gross, but can you find a compromise?

When my 18dd was 14 she asked to get her lip and nose pierced. First I told her no way on the lip (cuz it grosses me out and there was no way I could sit across from her at dinner and see that - EW). Then, I asked her to wait until she was 15 for the nose and if she still wanted it, then I would allow a stud, but no dangling rings as long as she lived in my house. So, we waited the 6 months until her 15th b'day and she still wanted it so we went together and she had it done. She said it killed with pain. The pain killed her desire to get any other piercings other than on her ears. No belly button, no lip or eyebrow, just her ears. I can live with 6 piercings on both ears over a lip or eyebrow ring any day.

When my 16dd was 14 she wanted her eyebrow and belly button pierced - she also wants those little sharp darts under her lip above her chin, in the cleft. Again I said she had to wait and that the only thing I would allow was the belly button. When she was 15 she got her belly button done and it's fine. She likes it, I hardly ever notice it, and she keeps it clean. Unfortunately, this dd keeps pushing the envelope: She tried to pierce her own nipples (ouch!) and her labret (that space between her bottom lip and chin (UGH). Both times it caused an infection - and that's when I found out. She has finally agreed that she can wait until she is out of my house to have those things done and have them done by a professional. She is not so keen on the nipple anymore, thankfully.

MY point is, find a way to compromise. I agree with daddio about choosing your battles. I have never been one to just put the hammer down and say NO because I've found that it backfires with an especially strong willed child, like my 16dd. I've learned that learning to choose your battles and bend a little not only makes life easier, but it also teaches my kids about compromise and reasoning, as well as having respect for other's ideas and opinions and how thier actions affect everyone in the family.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-13-2004
Sat, 01-21-2006 - 12:51pm
I should limit my late night posts...
I wasn't referring to you being on a parental power trip. I was talking about the perception of our teens regarding our decisions. I was also talking about my personal aversion to this type of disfigurement. I was rambling about myself, not about you.
My point (badly made), was that we as parents can say no sometimes without all this processing.
You don't want him to do this for some very good reasons. That should be the end of it.
Regardless of any potential future threats to do this with a rusty nail in some back alley.. :-)
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-08-2005
Sat, 01-21-2006 - 1:14pm
That's what i don't want, the back alley method...i can deal w/a comprimise, as a matter of fact, i am more compromising than dh which makes it harder because then there are issues to work out between us...about not being on the same page, blah blah blah...now he passed his drivers test friday and had my blazer last night and wants it again all day today, he has play practice from 3 to 9 and a break in between. do i beleive him, i guess i do but i think that is too long to have my or a vehicle. maybe he just wants to be like the rest and have a vehicle instead of mommy or daddy picking him up lol., but i need my truck, i have running to do and ..what if...what if he finds a place that will do it for him, does he really have play practice that long into the evening? i told him he could drive me there, i will leave him and then pick him up later. it is going to be a long road from here on in w/him. he still doesn't know what he wants to do for collage, he has not made any effort to take the SAT'S and he spends all of his home time on the comp playing this "camelot" game w/his friends...i guess it's ok, i want him to interact w/family more. my dd told me in confidence that when we were in the bahamas two weeks ago, an island person approached them and offered my son to buy some weed and then he was going to buy the glass pipe at the straw market...my dd felt sure he was going to buy it and she stepped in and said, "no thanks, we gotta get going" and the guy left and his comment was "awsome way to ruin it" but i think he was doing it cuz his cousins were w/him(teen ones) and wanted to show off cuz the one just bought cigars. my dd also told me they were his cigaretts we found in the room , my dd is 14 , 15 next month. i am beginning to think i can't trust him to make the right decisions...truthfully, what was i doing at age 16? drinking, drugs, smokin, parties all the time, sex and my parents were clueless. i was just luckey that nothing serious happened to me. I don't want anything to happen to him and i don't know how to express the importance of making the right choices to him. thanx for listening.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Sun, 01-22-2006 - 3:30pm

It's difficult to find a place that does this (since it's a "newer" method), BUT... some places will pierce the bottom lip vertically with a barbell, so that the piercing never rubs against your teeth.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-08-2005
Sun, 01-22-2006 - 11:55pm
HASN'T MENTIONED IT IN 3 DAYS SO I'M HOPING HE HAS IT OUT OF HIS HEAD...HE'S BEEN AT PLAY PRACTICE ALL WEEKEND SO MAYBE THAT'S KEEPING HIS MIND OFF OF IT...I JUST DON'T LIKE THE LOOKS OF THEM.

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