What was meant to protest the piercing of young children is now turning into a huge headache for one Ohio mom who just wanted to take a stand.
Enedina Vance has always been a strong advocate against subjecting young children to piercing or circumcision. However, she felt like few parents took her message seriously, so she decided to make a bold statement online.
Vance took a photo of her 6-month-old daughter on her phone. She then placed a diamond stud on the baby's left cheek to make it seem like she had a piercing and posted it on Facebook. She captioned the photo by telling what she had done to her child.
"I make all of her decisions until she's 18, I made her, I own her!!" the 35-year-old mother wrote on the post.
Vance meant for the post to draw people's attention to the issue, and it did just that. The edited photo drew about 13,000 reactions and was shared more than 14,000 times.
"The reaction that parents have when they see this beautiful perfect baby being ... mutilated, that initial shock, that reaction of anger, I want them to hold on to that," Vance said.
Bad Parenting?
While some Facebook users expressed their support for Vance's message, other people were appalled at what they saw as bad parenting. Many thought that the Ohio mother had really pierced her daughter's cheek to prove her point.
Vance said she couldn't believe that there are some who missed the point that it was supposed to be satirical. She even included the hashtag #sarcasm with her post.
However, some people were so outraged by it that they threatened Vance with having child protective services take her children away or having her beaten to death.
Other social media users simply did not agree with Vance's message. Some even claimed that there is nothing wrong with letting their children get piercings.
One person commented that she got her ears pierced when she was a baby but still grew up fine. She also said that she was having a baby girl and that she will have her ears pierced too.
Despite getting hate emails for her social media post, Vance pointed out that she also received words of encouragement from people who shared her stance on piercing and circumcising children. There were some parents who said they weren't given much of a choice on whether to have their sons circumcised.
Vance said much of the responsibility of having children circumcised lies with the medical community since doctors are the ones who encourage parents. She stressed that the procedure should neither be an option nor a question.
In Ohio, children below the age of 18 can get tattoos or piercings if a parent or a guardian is present during the procedure. Other states, however, allow minors to get piercings if they have their parents' consent.
