On The Third Day, I Pierced My Daughter’s Ear
Shame on me!
Dear Reader, maybe it is different in your country but in my country, Nigeria, on the third day, after a vaginal birth and the woman can go home, she hands over her newborn daughter to the nurses and they pierce her ears.
According to societal belief, a girl’s ears are pierced because she is more beautiful that way. And so I, a feminist — supposedly, gave the nurses approval to inflict unnecessary pains on my daughters, just three days into existence on earth.
Did I ask: why in the world do we need our babies to be beautiful? Did I ask, beautiful for who? Yes and Yes and yet, I still gave my approval.
And I could begin now to give you many reasons. One was from a friend who upon hearing my misgivings about giving my approval, rolled her eyes, and went, “Okwy, this is not a big deal. The pain is over quickly. It isn’t like your child is getting mutilated”.
I knew better though. Even if the pain is over quickly, why is it necessary? It isn’t a vaccine.
Another friend said ear piercing helps differentiate the male baby from the female baby. Really?
Someone said the hospital isn’t forcing me but really? The ear piercing was already billed when the hospital bill was given to me on the second day of my stay. That was added pressure.
From a capitalist point of view, it pays the hospital more to not educate parents on how unnecessary piercing the ears of their daughter is. If there were no financial advantages, Nigerian hospitals may begin to present ear piercings as an option as it should be. Or at least, they would educate parents better because the pressure to present a more beautiful baby girl is societal.
The only people I know in my country who refuse to have the ears of their children pierced belong to a particular church group. Growing up, if a girl’s ears are not pierced, they get the question, “Are you a member of a so-so church denomination?” Often the answer was yes.
Five years ago, when I had my first child, I listened to other moms instruct me on more than a few things. I believed they knew better until I started getting outrightly scary to-dos. One aunt called me from the village to tell me to use scalding hot water to press on my daughter’s vagina to make it rounder and more beautiful, I said okay and bye. She was never going to bathe my daughter, that one.
I have a reputation as a contrarian — not of someone who tries to implement new, tested, and available information. No. A contrarian. So, with my family looking on and the nurses demanding my baby for her bath a day after her birth, I handed her over. It wouldn’t be worth the fight. I didn’t want anyone rolling their eyes at me or whisper-calling saying, “She has started again”. They should know better. The researchers online saying otherwise were maybe wrong.
The more I said yes, the easier it became.
But I hoped no one would ask me to hand over my daughter for an ear piercing. I wished that it would be optional not something to be demanded of me. I dreamed that I would have the courage to say no because I knew that my daughter’s ear did not need to be pierced and if it was needed, she would be the one to say so.
Telling you anything but the truth, will not alleviate my shame. When my first daughter needed me to stand up for her against the unnecessary pain of having her ears pierced, I didn’t.
Funny how life works because now, my daughter refuses to wear earrings.
“Mummy, get them off me!” She would cry, whenever she plays dress-ups with a relative and they put earrings on her.
You would think that with my second daughter almost five years later, I would do better.
No. On the third day, I again handed her to the nurses who took her in to meet what I imagine is a gallows. Why else would they refuse to let me watch and shut the door in my face and I had to listen to her scream helplessly through the door?
I told myself I was doing the right thing because remember all the times I went outside with my first daughter while she was not wearing earrings and almost everyone asked me about my son. That sure hurt my ego.
“My daughter is beautiful enough to be recognized as a girl!” I would want to scream.
I mean, the worst thing to happen to a mother is for her baby to be misgendered, right? right?
Again I told myself that I had my ears pierced as a child and I do not remember it at all. My newborn would forget. Just like her sister forgot the pain…
I think something is chipped away from the soul when we know to stand up for what we believe when it counts. Something wavers within us when we wait for someone else to do the right thing so it is easier for us — what happens if they choose not to?
My first daughter will not wear earrings. The nurses damaged one of my second daughter’s ears a bit. My shame is eternal. This was all avoidable.
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