My rabbinic father-in-law and my lay leader mother agree on one thing: no body piercing. Ears, nose, and bellybutton, all are sacred property on loan from God. No girl in either my family or my husband's had her ears pierced in childhood, although one girl on each side did make the cut during her rebellious teens. I was not one of the latter: my father relinquished me under the chuppah whole and unpierced.
This united family front was disturbed by my daughter while she was still a pre-teen. Every girl in the world was getting pierced earrings, she claimed; she wanted them, too. Her father's blood pressure rose visibly whenever she raised the topic. I attempted to avert a battle, asking him, how bad it could be if our biblical foremothers were lavished with ear and nose rings by their beloveds? Her father wasn't convinced. Maybe our foremothers wore clip-ons.
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