My daughters want to get tattoos and piercings and I don't know what I should tell them. Any advice?

When I was around eleven years old a lot of the other girls were getting their ears pierced. I wanted mine done. My mother and father thought pierced ears were "horrible", so they absolutely refused to let me get mine done. Both of them explained that they didn't like the look of little girls with earrings in. They also said they didn't want me to "look cheap".

In my mind I "invented" a stick-on earring for girls like me, who had parents who wouldn't let them get their ears pierced. (Years later those stick-on earrings showed up in stores. I was then old enough to realize I should have patented my "mental invention".)

In junior high, pixie haircuts and little stud earrings were the fashion. I continued to long for the earrings that the other girls had, and that went on right on through high school as well.

There is no doubt about it - not being able to have those pierced ears was crummy. Still, there was little else in life I did without. This was just one thing I couldn't have.

A few days after my eighteenth birthday I went out and bought myself a pair of "sleepers", the little hoops that are left in for several days until they cut through and create pierced ears. I don't recall whether either of my parents said anything about the sleepers or not, but my parents were reasonable enough people to realize that what I did at eighteen was my choice (provided, of course, it wasn't some dangerous thing).

I think it was six days after putting them in that the first sleeper cut through. The second one poked through the following day (with my help). I finally had the pierced ears that I'd wanted since I was eleven years old. While I don't think my father ever really like the idea, my mother eventually included pretty earrings with my birthday or Christmas gifts.

Another concern they had had was that I'd do something as a kid and regret it later. It is a myth that if one doesn't wear earrings for a long time the holes with close up. Decades after I had my ears done, I've gone for some very long stretches without earrings, and the holes are still there.

When I eventually had my own daughter (and two sons) I took it for granted that she may want her ears done once she got to be around ten. I've never believed in piercing a baby's ears because I don't think our children's ears belong to us. Their ears belong to them, and they should decide. My sons came along when an occasional middle-school boy would show up with an ear pierced, but I had no intention of ever approving piercing for my sons. They would have to be eighteen if they wanted any piercings.

When my daughter got to middle-school age I asked if she'd like them done, and she said she didn't want them done. I thought how funny it was that she was like my sister, who had always said she didn't like or want pierced ears.

My daughter was thirteen when she asked if she could get ears done. She had decided she wanted pierced ears after all. A few days later I brought her to get them done and bought her a nice pair of earrings as her first.

My sons did not turn out to be "the piercing type" (although one of them slipped off to get a tattoo on his arm shortly after he turned eighteen). To this day he wears the kind of short sleeves that cover the tattoo that's high up on his arm. I think the appeal of the tattoo died down not all that long after he got it.

In the meantime, I have had my ears done for over thirty years now, and it doesn't matter to me that I had to wait until I was eighteen to do them. Not long ago I was out with my sister, who had just passed her fiftieth birthday. I noticed something sparkling in the area of her ear lobes. She had always been one to wear clip-on earrings to work and none the rest of the time. I asked about the earrings, and she said she had gotten her ears pierced at the mall a few days after her birthday. She said she had gotten sick of earrings hurting and falling off when she was on the phone at work.

I'm not suggesting kids wait until they're fifty to get their piercings and tattoos! Still, for every kid who knows - beyond the shadow of a doubt - that she will always want those piercings or tattoos she wants today, there will be others who think they know that but will discover, once they get older, they have outgrown the desire for those things.

Kids' brains are not even finished developing until they're in the early- to mid- twenties. (The prefrontal cortex takes that long to mature.) How they think before they've reached maturity can change. Their judgment is affected by their immature thinking. (How many girls have had mad crushes on some "cute" boy in eighth grade, only to to realize, once they both grow up, what a loser of a person he actually was?)

I don't pretend not to be absolutely delighted that my daughter, at twenty three, still has only the pierced ears, that her brothers have no piercings, that one of my sons hates tattoos, and that the other one at least only has the one (that he covers). Their bodies are theirs, though, and if any of them decided to get piercings or tattoos once they turned eighteen I've always accept that it would be their choice and their business.

If I had younger kids today I'd have the same policy that I did when mine were young: Any daughters can have their ears pierced once they're middle-school age. (That's a choice that, if later regretted, isn't all that bad to live with, as far as I'm concerned.) All other piercings and tattoos would have to wait until each person's eighteenth birthday. Also, no daughters would have more than one hole in each ear. I believe that wearing pretty earrings is one thing, but "body art" is something for people who are over eighteen.

As a kid, I was disappointed and thought it "stunk" that I couldn't have my ears done, but it didn't take away from my happy childhood. Neither did it kill me to wait. Seven years is a long time for a young kid to have to wait, but we grown-ups know how quickly seven years actually flies by.

Not everyone shares my distaste for most piercings and tattoos, although my daughter does. I tried so hard when she was young to help her see how perfectly beautiful she is, with her perfectly fit dancer's shape and skin that looks like porcelain. I wanted her to consider that "body art" doesn't always make someone more beautiful, but it can sometimes deface an otherwise perfectly beautiful body. In this day and age, I was prepared to one day discover that she had a hidden butterfly or other little tattoo, but she frequently says she doesn't like them.

Even though my parents were, in fact, wrong in their belief that I would outgrow my "notion" of getting my ears pierced, I believe they were right in exercising their rights as parents to expect me to wait until I was old enough to make a sounder decision. They may have even been right with regard to whether a girl with my kind of appearance would have looked "cheap" or "ridiculous" with earrings in at eleven years old. They apparently raised a daughter who had no reservations about putting in those sleepers a few days after turning eighteen, so it wasn't that they didn't encourage me to be independent-minded or strong.

People have different opinions about piercings and tattoos, but I think parents are reasonable and sensible to ask their kids to wait. It won't kill those who get their piercings and tattoos at eighteen, and - who knows - maybe some kids will be glad their parents had the good sense to discourage them from making a mistake they would later have regretted.