For the past couple years, our daughters have asked to get their ears pierced. To them, two tiny holes represented independence, courage, beauty, and maturity. Pierced ears meant growing up.
Like most rites of passage, we couldn’t really assign an age to when they would be ready. Pierced ears were much more about maturity than how many years they’d lived. We told them they were mature enough for pierced ears when they were mature enough for No Drama.
No Drama when they sat in the ear-piercing seat and the technician aimed the gun. No Drama over keeping the holes disinfected. No Drama about which earrings they wore.
Early in the summer the girls decided they were mature enough for No Drama. They were ready for pierced ears.
We went into Claire’s to learn more about the process and found a DramaFest going on. A young girl was screaming and crying in the chair while her mother gritted her teeth and said, “I’ve already paid for this! You had better go through with it.”
The poor girl sobbed, “But I’m so afraid of that gun!”
And the mom said, “This. Was. All . Your. Idea.”
The more the mom gritted her teeth, the more the daughter covered her ear lobes and cried.
Our girls recognized the fear in this girl’s eyes and slunk out the door. They weren’t ready and they knew it.
But then Elisabeth joined swim team and faced her big fear of swim meets. She learned to pray through her fear and—literally—take the plunge.
So, after a season of races, she was a different girl She was confident she was ready for Claire’s and that ear-piercing gun. She was a girl ready to abandon drama for a pair of sparkling earrings in her ears.
Catie wasn’t as sure about the earrings, but she was sure she didn’t want her little sister piercing her ears before her.
One evening after dinner, the whole family headed to Claire’s. The girls decided that Catie, really a master at freaking herself out, would go first.
But when Catie saw the gun, the drama started.
She cowered and said she was too afraid.
I started with the, “But we’ve already paid for this!”
Catie squirmed and cringed and said, “I can’t do it!”
Then Elisabeth said, “I can do it.”
Elisabeth climbed into the hot seat and the technician aimed the gun at her ears. Two clicks of the gun and three seconds later, the whole ordeal was over.
This look says everything about those three rite-of-passage seconds: earrings in MY EARS! I did it! It’s over! I was so brave! NO DRAMA!
Catie read all that maturity in her little sister’s eyes and jumped into the ear-piercing seat.
And then, she also did it. With a little prayer, and a lot of courage, she conquered her fear long enough to get those sparkly earrings.
Three weeks later, the girls are taking good care of their earrings.
The moral of this coming-of-age story is the same as every other one: when you’re old enough to conquer your fear, you’ll old enough.
The growing up didn’t come from the pierced ears, but from learning how to pray through the anxiety. The maturity didn’t come from the sparkling earrings, but from sitting down in the chair and waiting for that gun.
Most of all, for this feminine rite of passage, the real growth came when these two girly-girls were able to do it without drama.
