Your granddaughter is adorable -- with or without earrings. I also thought Eleni's essay on the NY Times blog was pretty funny and on the mark. In different parts of this country, like everywhere in the world, different folks have different expectations of what is 'normal' and culturally expected. And members of each group take it for granted that their own group's way of doing things is the only natural, reasonable and civilized way... For another take on the way cultural norms and expectations in Miami differ from the ways of "white bread" America, I recommend this blog post (also very funny)White Girl in Miami.
March 18, 2012 at 6:28 PM
In Minnesota where I grew up, piercing your infant daughter's ears so she could wear earrings was considered tatamount to child abuse. In fact I didn't get my ears pierced till I was in my 40's.
But daughter Eleni and her (Nicaraguan) husband Emilio and their baby daughter Amalía live in the Latin country of Miami, FL, where Latino parents insist on a baby girl's ears being pierced immediately and if the pediatrician refuses (as Eleni's female pediatrician did for several years) the parents might try doing the operation themselves. So Eleni's doctor buckled under and now schedules a "day of beauty" for little girls who are at least three months old.
Granddaughter Amalía passed six months recently, so on March 6 she had her ears pierced.
And Eleni wrote a pretty funny essay on the subject which was posted today on The New York Times' web site Opinions Page under the title "Baby's First Bling."
Check it out and if you are inspired, add your own opinion of the practice to the comments already there.
And I'll give you more than the NYT web site does. Here's a photo of Amalía in the doctor's office, happily unaware that she is about to get her ears pierced and a flu shot as well.
[Image]
And here she is preening with her new earrings as her Papi smiles proudly.
"Baby's Earrings: To Pierce or Not to Pierce"
1 Comment -
Your granddaughter is adorable -- with or without earrings. I also thought Eleni's essay on the NY Times blog was pretty funny and on the mark. In different parts of this country, like everywhere in the world, different folks have different expectations of what is 'normal' and culturally expected. And members of each group take it for granted that their own group's way of doing things is the only natural, reasonable and civilized way... For another take on the way cultural norms and expectations in Miami differ from the ways of "white bread" America, I recommend this blog post (also very funny)White Girl in Miami.
March 18, 2012 at 6:28 PM