The Essence of Parenting Teenagers In One Brief(ish) Blog Post

For over a year now, Daughter-Only has been campaigning to have her nose pierced. Hubby and I have never given her an absolutely-not-young-lady speech but we've counseled caution and told her to wait a while and she has (for the most part) patiently waited until the last month or so when she began the all-out pestering. She went so far as to say that the piercing was all she wanted for Christmas*.

For a variety of reasons--mostly scheduling and finance-related issues--she did not get pierced for Christmas. But I did agree that we would do it as soon as possible after the holidays.

It was not without trepidation that I agreed to take her to the highly recommended piercing place today but I convinced myself that she was mature enough to make this decision. She's reasonably responsible; she researched her decision thoroughly; she made the phone call to check what arrangements were necessary for a fifteen-year-old girl to get her nose pierced in the fine state of New York.

So off we went, driving half an hour over snow-covered roads to get to this highly recommended (and hopefully hepatitis-free) piercing place. We showed our identification and signed the necessary papers and paid the fee then sat down to wait our turn with the piercing professional.

It was only then that I noticed Daughter-Only was wearing flip-flops. Flip-flops. In twelve-degree weather.



*Oh, and her hair cut at a pricey salon in town. And, um, some clothes but they don't count because, uh, she needs* clothes anyway.

*When my children (and, alas, even my husband) wantonly throw around the word "need," I am prone to saying, "What you need is a dictionary to look up the word 'need.'" You would think after a certain number of years of this remark, they would be a little more careful with their word usage. But so far, no luck.