I'm so with you here. I feel like this is a mutilation. For reference, I am American, and not from any culture that finds this acceptable. And I do have pierced ears. And I wanted them so badly when I was a kid, but my father, who never put his foot down on anything, put his foot down on that. Which is odd, it's not like one set of pierced ears were some fashion rage. I walked out the door on my 18th birthday and thumbed my nose at him. Literally. But he did have the last laugh when I developed a nickel allergy. All that being said, it's not that I'm against them, but I am against babies getting them, when they have no ability to even give an opinion. Even if a child is, say, 5. They at least can understand that there will be some pain, and do they like them at that age. My stepdaughter got hers pierced at 3, and remembers it to this day (she's 30). She said she had nightmares for years. But her mother wanted a little doll to dress up. And the hell with cultural norms.

I would not compare ear piercing to circumcision, but I totally agree: body modifications, especially blood shedding or alteration of normal anatomy, should not be performed on any child. It is ignorant, cruel and demonstrates sheer disrespect and disregard for young children, which is not the best example of culture.

The MIL is absolutely out of line, but calling pierced ears mutilation is ridiculous and insulting. I have two sets in each ear, I guess I’m double mutilated?

Although it does sound like they've talked all this through as mature and equal adults and come to decisions together about this - we can see that they have decided together to honour some traditions and to leave other traditions that they as a couple are unhappy with. AND the husband backs his wife in the things she feel strongly about. Sounds like a pretty good relationship to me.

to me it seems OP just described the situation from her western "default" opinion. anything what is her tradition she considers a default while husband's tradition is "his culture" she also wants to keep. they probably keep the best from both the traditions she just used a wrong word choice to describe it