(Strip Number 4686, Original Publication Date, 29 September 1986)
Panel 1: As Elly works on yet another article, Elizabeth makes the scene and says that she wants to get her ears pierced. Elly says she isn't old enough.
Panel 2: Elizabeth tells Elly that a lot of her classmates are the same age as she is and getting their ears pierced which makes her plenty old enough.
Panel 3: Elly tells Elizabeth that she still wants her to wait to get pierced; Lizzie makes the pleading gesture and asks what she's supposed to wait for.
Panel 4: Since Elly assumed that she'd have to fight this fight and stand around bawling like a freaking imbecile about how Lizzie is throwing her childhood in the trash when she was thirteen, she goes all goggle-eyed and shrieks "WAIT UNTIL I'M OLD ENOUGH!!"
Summary: Just between you and me and the grand piano, I prefer John's "We have STANDARDS" speeches to Elly's panicky belief that she needs to maintain control over her children's wardrobe to protect their childhood. It's better to have a lucid authoritarian obsessed with maintaining purity than a screwball who wants to make sure that April's butt was stuffed in an unflattering outfit to keep her younger longer.