Just about recovered from the drama.
I don't make a habit of inspecting my 14 year old's face. I'm too tired in the morning to face the "do you need to put make-up on to go to school" argument any more. There was a period when she was going round with a sticking plaster on her nose, which I took to hide a spot and didn't want to embarass her.
But eventually I was awake enough to see that it was not a spot but a nose piercing and hit the roof. There was the usual screaming and shouting on my part and the usual teenager's claims that it was her nose. It seemed she had done it two weeks ago so why hadn't I noticed, even when I sat opposite her when we went out to dinner. Hard to explain. Probably that was why I was so angry.
During the rage, the argument went off the rails in the direction of trust, and why hadn't she asked me. How could I believe her about anything she was doing now? Perhaps she was doing drugs and only sounding reasonable in discussions with me. Perhaps she wouldn't tell me if she was pregnant and go off and have a back street abortion? Perhaps she had too much money for her own good.
Once this can of worms was open, the row had a life of its own. Groundings, no pocket money, no internet (biggest punishment). Refusal to discuss anything at all on my part.
Bee was seriously worried. How could she be damned for one mistake? Didn't I know what sort of a person she was?
The trouble with teenagers is they want to make their own decisions and have their own bodies, but they want to come home at night. She doesn't realise trust is so easy to lose.
Another reason it hurt me was that she felt she couldn't discuss it. She knew I hate them. My objection is that most older people think piercings indicate people who are not serious. It goes along with tattoos. S already has more ear piercings than I like and both B and I think it looks bad.
But if I'd known she really wanted one, we could have discussed it at least. Am I really so powerful that she feels she can't argue with me? We are currently hooked on the Gilmore girls, an American soap on Dutch TV, where the interfering grandma/mother relationship is compensated by the "we are best friends" mother/daughter relationship. Since the mum is a working single mum and the daughter eventually goes to Yale (or is it Harvard?) it's rather upmarket for a soap. Clearly as a mum I am not in the same league.
In the end it blew over. I forget about the grounding (i'm useless at discipline in my own home) and the internet (needed for homework anyway). I think she has promised to leave out the ring (or whatever it is) when it has healed. Though she will put something in when she goes out without me, I'm sure.
Some updates on this story (from the other side) here
and here
