Tongue Piercing
One of the lessons we have learned from parenting our six is to “choose your battles.” Some parents fight their kids about everything. It polarizes the relationship and makes things far too tense and competitive in the house. We have decided to try and avoid always being the “opposition party” by asking ourselves if the issue is a moral issue, something hat has eternal consequences or at least life threatening in some way. If so, then by all means we will resist our children’s actions with all the strength we possess. But most matters, we discover, do not fit into this category. It is usually a matter of style or a child’s desire to color outside the lines a bit. Jessica has wanted a tongue pierce for many years. We told her she was too young, and to her great credit, although she wanted to do it she restrained her liberty out of respect to us, but this year she is 17 and so our argument faded and we yielded. It took five minutes. Her tongue swelled up to about 1 1.2 inches thick, but through all that pain she was happy. It was a harmless symbol of her independence and freedom to express herself. Even though hardly anyone can even see it.
