At What Age Should Kids Be Allowed to Get Pierced Ears?

Madonna recently took her son Rocco Richie to get his ear pierced for his 16th birthday. The 57-year-old iconic pop star was spotted with her eldest son at Elite Jewelry and Piercing in New York City on Aug. 12, the day after Rocco’s birthday, where he reportedly chose a $135 stud for one ear, according to the Daily Mail.

Ear piercing is a popular rite of passage, particularly for girls — according to a BabyCenter survey, nearly 40 percent of parents have daughters with pierced ears — but there are also plenty of boys who have one or both ears pierced.

But is there such a thing as an appropriate age for ear piercing? It’s not so clear-cut, according to Matthew H. Rouse, clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute in New York City. “When it comes to allowing kids to get their ears pierced, there aren’t any hard and fast rules,” he tells Yahoo Beauty.

Several factors go into whether and when parents allow kids to have their ears pierced. Parents of little girls are more likely to allow ear piercing at a young age when it’s part of a family’s culture, such as in Latin America and Spain. “Cultural norms play a huge role, with many parents piercing daughters’ ears in infancy, following what has been done for generations in their families,” points out Rouse. “Otherwise, it’s an individual family decision.”

Others do it because they believe that the jewelry looks cute or cool or, in the case of female babies, simply to make it more apparent that their child is a girl. In fact, nearly 50 percent of those surveyed in the BabyCenter poll said they pierced their daughter’s ears when she was under 2 years old.

However, the survey also revealed that, for those who don’t currently have a child with pierced ears, 25 percent said they were waiting until their daughter was more mature — between 10 and 12 years old.

In families where piercing at a young age is the cultural norm, some pediatricians recommend waiting until the child is older than 6 months, for health reasons. “Any time you puncture the skin, you open up the opportunity for infection, and because infants still have developing immune systems, I encourage parents to wait until their child is at least 6 months old to get her ears pierced,” Wendy Sue Swanson, M.D., a pediatrician at Seattle Children’s Hospital, told Parents.

If cultural expectations aren’t a factor, Rouse recommends holding off until your kid is mature enough to handle the responsibility that comes with pierced ears, including keeping their ears and new studs clean. “It does seem to me that, if a family decides to allow a child to get pierced ears, the child should be able to care for the new piercings properly,” says Rouse. “Those things can get infected so easily!”

Infections from ear piercings are common, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. Although they can happen at any age, they’re typically caused by earrings (or equipment) that isn’t sterile, as well as frequently touching the earlobes with unclean hands — something little kids may be more prone to do.

There’s also often a double standard when it comes to piercing boys’ ears. In a WhatToExpect.com forum on the subject, one mom wrote that boys having pierced ears is less “socially acceptable” than girls and two other moms called boys with pierced ears “trashy.” Rouse notes that some people may have an issue with boys having a pierced ear (or two) because it goes against their idea of gender norms. “If a family is deciding whether to allow a boy to get a pierced ear(s), I’m in favor of allowing self-identity exploration,” he says. “However, the parents should also help the boy understand that there are others who may not be as accepting about this form of self-expression as his family is.”

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