This morning, roundabout early morning tea time, long before the advent of our regular shambling blue-clad postman, the Alternative Postman called.
Maddie appeared by my bed with a buff envelope addressed meticulously to our household.
Now I recall it, the envelope had been artfully placed around the house during the last 24 hours, so one might just stumble upon it. I seem to remember someone had taken a letter from the Conventional Postman and combined alternative and conventional on the doormat, so it might be noticed and picked up.
But, in this household which functions on the edge of chaos, post so often just gets walked over.
So, ever resourceful, Maddie arrived at the same time as my tea, with the news that the postman had arrived.
Just in case I contrived to ignore it again, she was taking it upon herself to open it.
Some ridiculous inner control freak broke to the surface. I wasn’t having anyone else, not even beloved flesh and blood, opening my Alternative Post. “Give it to me, give it to me…” I muttered.
I don’t usually quote chunks of other writers’ work in mine, but I’ll make an exception today. It read:
Dear Kate Shrewsday,
I am writing to ask you to allow me to get my ears pierced. I have lots of reasons.
1) My first reason is: there are little girls in Year Two who have their ears pierced. As you can imagine, this gets a tiny bit frustrating after a while.
2)Next year, when I go to secondary school, I will be eleven, And that age is when all girls have their ears pierced- they must, other-wise they get to look un-fashionable.
I hope I have persuaded you to let me have my ears pierced.
Yours sincerely,
Maddie Shrewsday.
Oh, Lawks. It has begun. Peer pressure.
We look at others and we measure ourselves against them. We can’t help it. We try not to. Some of us move to the ends of the earth to avoid the pressure of our peers.
This is what, for a split second, I considered doing.
We could just up-sticks, move to a self sufficient farm in the Scottish highlands or the French Alps, keep chickens, live on eggs, it’ll be great, my daughter will grow up un-pressured.
If you only have chickens to compare yourself against, you must surely come off feeling good about yourself.
But they’re not peers, now, are they? And without our peers it can be very peaceful and extremely lonely.
There are many who have achieved a Great Escape, and been suited to that life.
One Summer in Milan, in 386, a man heard a child talking in a neighbouring garden.
The man was a clever, successful result of all the pressure the world could bring to bear on a human. I love him because he was a rhetorician. He was Professor of Rhetoric at the imperial court of Milan, a prized seat, and he had taken the position up at just 30 years of age.
This was seen as a launching-point to a dazzling political career.
Behind him was a personal life fit for a politician: for a time he lived a hedonistic lifestyle, one of the lads, using women for whatever he needed.
Then he met The One: the soul mate with whom he stayed for thirteen years, finally abandoning her to become engaged, pending an arranged marriage. By her, he had a son.
Soon, he had broken off that promised marriage and taken another concubine. He says later that he had a special prayer at that time:”Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet”.
He never saw the child who spoke from the next garden. The little one said simply:”tolle, lege” Â – “Pick it up! Read it!”.
Sometimes in our life, spoken words jump out at one. Just a handful of words become bass-relief. It is if they are meant for you at that time, in that place. They join the dots, they increase wisdom, they are a eureka moment.
Here was Augustine’s Eureka moment. The words spoke to him, to whom reading was a path to wisdom, and he gave up one of the most coveted jobs in the known world, and changed everything.
He went back home to Africa and, now devoid of family, moved into the old family house. From that time on he shut out the peer pressure, and devoted himself to listening and interpreting the language of values: for him, the language of God.
Society’s babble and the inner dialogue: how far away from each other they are.
Sometimes, though, Â a clever author will use their knowledge of the chattering classes to ease their values into our noisy, calamitous world.
It’s very sly: it’s that parable of the Sun and the Wind all over again. You know the one: the Sun and the Wind have a bet.
See that man riding through the park? says the Wind. Bet I can get his cloak off faster than you can.
You’re on, says the Sun, and the Wind spends the next five minutes posturing, howling, blowing, using every inch of force at his disposal. To no avail: the cloak is clutched tighter against the wind’s mercilesss efforts.
Then the Sun begins to shine. Very quickly, it becomes too hot for cloaks, and the outer garment is voluntarily removed in the very happiest of circumstances.
So it is with Jane Austen.
Her values are clear: she does not like her society’s way of operating. She does not like vanity, the power which riches bestow, the place of women, how women respond to their place. There are a great many things wrong with the society about which Austin writes.
But she writes about it with humour and perception, with heaving bosoms and gallant gesture. She takes the everyday life of gentlefolk and holds up the clever, the ingenious, the virtuous.
She also vanquishes the vain, the greedy, the pompous. But it is all done with such a sense of realism. The baddies don’t meet with a nasty end: they carry on, living in their own nasty little value-free vacuum.
Such is life.
So like Jane, I will not flee. I don’t think Augustine of Hippo’s way is my way. I will not be allowing pierced earrings: never have, and won’t until the girl is 14.
Perhaps it might be possible to keep intact both values, and status quo.
Kate Shrewsday 
Hi Kate,
Sat at home filling time whilst N is out teaching one of next year’s crop and whilst J is sitting this year’s test as a type, so glad to see your blog arriving early today to occupy me for a while! Clearly I have no experience to share as to the right age for the all important piercing of ears. But, if I remember rightly N still didn’t have pierced ears when I first met her. No doubt she’d been asking since Maddie’s age, if not earlier, so perhaps you should ask N’s Dad about effective delaying tactics!
A fount of knowledge and a wise outlook: yes, I’ll ask Nick’s Dad. what a splendid idea:-)
I pressed publish by mistake! Keep doing that! It was just about ready and proof read, thank goodness…..must be more disciplined with these slack fingers:-D
Have a lovely day, the three of you.
What a nice start to my ever ending washing!! I had mine done when l was 20 by 21 and a half gave up,and have never worn them since…..
I’ll tell Maddie….but I don’t think it will help my cause…..:-D
Tell Maddie it hurts and you have to clean them everyday…….
That just might work…
Ah, your Maddie and her letter reminded me of our own younger daughter, Katy, who would leave me letters like this. My Kate now has a baby girl of her, whom I adore. It is interesting how smart I have now become. tee hee
Our older daughter wanted her ears pierced and we, her Dad and I, did the same as you are doing, set an age (I think it was 13) and she did beg and we stood firm until she turned 13. She got her ears pierced, wouldn’t admit it hurt, and said she would take care of the holes and then one day her ear was swollen – so swollen I called the emergency room, where a good nurse calmed me down and said they often got such calls, bring her in, they would get the post out and it would heal and Jennifer would be okay – and she was, though late for school that day.
Being sophisticated was never going to be easy, was it? Glad she survived the whole thing to tell the tale:-D I wonder if she still wears earrings today? I love them myself, and don’t feel properly dressed without…
She does still wear earrings today and is a fine young woman. Both girls managed another hole in their ears when they were in college, by then young adults and off on their own. Hang on, having daughters is a wonderful and hectic ride.
Dear Maddie
You don’t know me. I live far way from you, it would take fourteen hours on an small airplane to reach where I live. My ears are pierced; they were pierced when I was fourteen and went to a festival with my dad. My mom was very, very angry when she saw my earrings. It was terribly sore, I have no words for quite how sore.
For three weeks I had to put some burning liquid on my earlobes, because the piercings went septic and gloopy yellow stuff oozed out.
I went through all the fashions with earrings over the years, today my ear lobes are longer than a slice of bread.
Ear piercing is a very good idea.
Kind regards
Cindy Taylor
Johannesburg
South Africa
LOL Cindy! Maddie hasn’t seen this yet but I’m fairly sure she’ll want to reply…..
Dear Cindy,
Thank you very much for your letter. I really enjoyed reading it. When I am 14 I am hoping to get my ears pierced, but you do have a point. You must be cautious. I have heard horror stories about ear piercing, some even grimmer than yours. But in the meantime, I think clip-on earrings are going to be my best bet.
Yours sincerely
Maddie:-)
Both/and …
I love your Maddie’s cleverness and persistance…what a “woman.” and look how she strengthens YOU – oh my gawd we learn so much from our babes, don’t we? I didn’t get my own ears pierced until I was 38 or so, and it was still peer pressure: my kids. My older daughter AND son ( both rock musicians at the time of teenager hood ) had pierced ears and they “shamed” me into it. So I did it with my daughter’s hand holding support to honor my bravery for undergoing my PhD exams. As soon as I could replace the holding-holes-open- posts I got little #1’s as my first earrings…eeeeeeeegad who was I then??? Love your writing, kate, and I’m glad to be a new subscriber.
Deborah, your comments are just lovely. Well done on holding out until 38! I made it to 15 but then I didn’t know what what boys were until then anyway. I do remember my old school having a black-market ear piercing operation going on out in the cloakrooms, but the whole exciting episode passed by me until Mother Superior had the whole thing in the bag anyway.
My mother said I could get mine done when I reached 14, but then, being a nurse wouldn’t allow anyone else to do it and she did them for me. She scrubbed up the kitchen as if it was a theatre.
I don’t remember much pain, but one earring broke as it was being put in and I had to go to school with only one ear done and then have the next done the following evening.
Methods of ear piercings are masses better these days: go to someone reputable if you let her do it and follow the advice carefully.
Thanks Pseu, so you had to go one-earringed for a day…the modern methods are great although having a gun aimed at your ear means you have to hold your nerve:-) Thanks for stopping by..really related to that haiku of yours about ideas in the night…
Hi Kate.
There IS light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel often seems very long.
Good Luck, and we’re with you.
M & D
Cheers Dad. So many have done this before, surely I can too…..I know you’re always there. Thanks:-)
If you remember I wanted earrings at the age of about 3! Had to wait till I was 14. I was desperate. Never wear earrings now…wonder what mad thinks of that?!
It’s worth pointing out to her…she thinks you’re wonderful….
Oooooo – ouch! I remember the pain, the gunk, the not being able to sleep on my left side. The gummy mess healed – eventually – after weeks of methylated spirit-cleansing – boy did that sting – but it always gave me problems, especially if I dared to slip in a silver earring. I gave up in the end, and it has saved me heaps: in pain, and in money 🙂
Love the letter idea, a budding author or diplomat?
Boh, if you listen to Maddie…. I’ll add your comment to Cindy’s, Liz. Who knows, it may tip the balance:-)
Ear we go….
( a friends daughter had one piercing per ear, but after a party came down with a second piercing in one ear…. done with an ice-cube as anaesthetic and needle and a cork. If you think self mutilation is a risk a properly performed piercing would be preferable)
LOL….I seem to remember the ice cube trick….think that in four years I’ll be going to some white coated clinician who knows precisely what they are doing.
Apart from the one-a-day approach, a nurse sounds ideal.