Mother-In-Law Pierces Baby's Ears Behind Mom's Back

When having a daughter, many moms question whether or not they want to pierce their baby's ears. For some moms, it's a no-brainer to get them done early on so they heal quickly. Other times, some moms want to wait until their daughter is old enough to decide on her own whether or not she wants her ears pierced.

Overall, it's usually the parents' choice if they want to pierce their child's ears and no one else's.

Unless, of course, you are this Reddit user who recently wrote into the community seeking advice after her mother-in-law (MIL) decided to pierce their daughter's ears behind the parents' backs.

The mother who posted the story on Reddit said that she and her husband's family have a lot of cultural differences.

Unsplash | San Fermin Pamplona - Navarra

"I try to stay out of them as best as I can, until they involve my kids (I have a son who is 4 and a daughter who is 3-months-old).

I’m good with them spoiling the kids and all that fun stuff, but I’ve put my foot down on the certain aspects of say 'Women are to serve the men,'" she said.

She does follow many of the cultural customs, except for the ones she and her husband believe are "dated."

Unsplash | Jimmy Dean

"A lot of these cultural aspects, I refer to my husband. If they’re important to him, we do them. And he’s never wanted to do anything that would be harmful to myself or our kids. Most of his culture is amazing, and our children are being raised in it. I’m not against it at all.

There are just certain aspects of it that both my husband and I don’t agree with, since they are dated," she continued.

One thing they disagreed on was getting her daughter's ears pierced.

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"It’s a big deal in my husband’s culture that the baby girls get their ears pierced pretty much at birth. I wasn’t comfortable with it. I know they won’t remember it and wasn’t so much the pain aspect, but more so I wanted her to be able to decide," she said.

She echoed this belief to her MIL, who began pestering her since she gave birth to her daughter.

Unsplash | Ádám Szabó

"My husband agreed with me. Now, mother-in-law has watched our kids a handful of times since she was born and daughter never came back with earrings, so I assumed we were safe and that maybe she was respecting our parenting," she added.

The mother was later shocked when she had run a few errands and left her kids with her MIL.

"Mother-in-law kept them out a bit later and when she returned…. my daughter had pierced ears. She said she had my sister-in-law (husband’s sister) do them. She’s done them for all the babies in the family and it was tradition," she said.

The Reddit user and her husband were both upset that the MIL violated their wishes.

Unsplash | Gabrielle Henderson

"I’ve since decided I don’t want mother-in-law alone with the kids. I’m not banning her from them, period, but she’s not going to be able to babysit anymore. My husband is on the fence, but says he’ll back me up either way," she said.

She also said she's removing the earrings.

Unsplash | Jonnelle Yankovich

"As soon a its safe to, I’m removing the earrings. My husband’s family is saying I’m being so disrespectful and I’ve said that I just don’t trust her, since she’s continuously disrespected my parenting," she wrote.

The mother asked the Reddit community if she's wrong for her decision to not trust her MIL alone with her children any longer.

Many said that this mom is in the right for this, simply because her MIL disobeyed her decision in regards to her own child.

"The mother-in-law went behind your back when you explicitly said you don't want your kid's ears pierced which is not ok. If she can't be trusted to follow your simple instructions she shouldn't be allowed to watch your children," one Redditor wrote.

Others said that it's bigger than just the ear piercing.

"Honestly the ear-piercing thing is neither here nor there for me in this one....

You and [your] husband together need to have a conversation on this with her, tell her feel disrespected and that you'll be making other babysitting arrangements in the meantime until you guys can see eye to eye with us on this," one user commented.

Some said that the mother's own traditions and decisions are more important.

Unsplash | Priscilla Du Preez

"What about YOUR traditions... where you let your kid decide on those things? Because they are just as important," one said.

Another Reddit user said that "boundaries" are important.

"Boundaries matter. You made your decision clear and she went against it anyway. Since you can no longer trust her to respect the boundaries you set and the decisions you make, you would be perfectly justified in restricting her access," they wrote on the thread.

Some said that the mom should remove the earrings immediately.

Unsplash | Kelly Sikkema

"Though I don’t think you need to wait to remove the earrings. In my experience, the longer you leave them in the less chance there is they’ll heal over completely. But yeah, your MIL is testing the waters of crossing your parenting boundaries. Put your foot down and put it down hard," the person wrote.

One Reddit user pointed out that having the SIL do it was also crazy.

"I’m horrified by the SIL doing the piercing. I got pierced by choice too but when I was 16. I went to a salon and they used a gun.

Years later I did beauty therapy and was trained to use a piercing gun.

Since then I’ve had lots of piercings all done at tattoo shops with needles and I hate salons who still offer piercings with those barbaric guns. They are unsanitary and the blunt jewellery is literally being forced through your ear by a spring loaded mechanism.

I’m not surprised so many people end up with f**ked up ears thanks to piercing guns," they wrote.

Overall, it seems not one person on the Reddit thread sided with the MIL.

Unsplash | Sergiu Vălenaș

Everyone said that the MIL was in the absolute wrong for crossing boundaries like this. Many said that the mother and father need to put their foot down and set clear, concise, and straight forward rules with the MIL now.

What do you think? Are they right?

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