What age should your daughter get her ears pierced?

It's a cultural question for sure that has many different right and wrong answers depending on how you were raised. Jay Black's family is going through a pre-holiday "crisis" with his 9-year-old getting her ears pierced, and his 5-year-old very upset that she has to wait.

I remember when my sister-in-law, who is from Venezuela, pierced my niece's ears — if I remember correctly, before she could walk! Turns out that is a cultural norm in Latin communities. For us, my daughter was 6 or 7, which seems to be relatively common.

Jessica shared on our Speaking podcast that she was 9 and it was not a memorable experience, although she's sure she cried. It got me thinking: During the past eight months, how many people have pierced their own ears or their kids' ears, or if the tradition of piercing was sliding into history as something that most people used to do? The whole conversation started about "firsts," but we got onto the subject of ear piercing and boom, time was up.

Although in today's podcast, Jay shared that even though he's still widely afraid of catching COVID and won't leave the house, at least he's teaching himself to play piano and he's actually pretty good. The end of the conversation turns to "what would happen if..." speaking about historical events and how different our reality might be if certain things happened in a different order or with different outcomes such as if the South won the Civil War. I'm a little late to that discussion as there is already a book on it written by a guy named "Turtledove." Of course Jay has read it. We got on that subject after Jay shared that he learned his great uncle (I think it was great uncle) died during the Spanish Flu of 1918.

Although it raised the question: Did he die from the flu or simply with the flu as we learned from Doctor Colleen Huber that Doc Fauci had concluded years ago after examining cadavers from the pandemic had actually passed from bacterial infections. Given all the politics surrounding medicine these days, we may never know. But you will definitely enjoy the discussion.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own. Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin’ Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015.