High Noon: Piercings & Birthdays

On his Facebook page, Mike Kennedy writes of a reason for celebration and a personal dilemma: “Today my beautiful daughter Nora is a teenager. Which means she now has permission to get her ears pierced (grumble, grumble). It’s also her Grandma Carol’s birthday (my mom). (My mom) is not a teenager, and she already has her ears pierced (I think, never checked, actually). Happy Birthday to two special, lovely ladies!”

• DFO: Junior wasn’t allowed to get his ears pierced while living under my roof. So what does he do within days after he left for college his freshman year? You got it. He pierced both ears. At one time, he also had a bar that went through the upper part of one ear. An eye ring, too. I told him that he looked like crap. But, otherwise, I was amused by it. He kept some of the piercings until he started medical school. He was told not to wear them around older patients because piercings tended to scare them.
  

Question: Which milestone hit your hardest — a child becoming a teen-ager? Or a child wanting to get his/her ears pierced?