Briana DeJesus Defends Letting Daughter Nova, 14, Get a Nose Piercing

Briana DeJesus is defending letting her daughter get a nose piercing for her 14th birthday.

On Wednesday, Sept. 3, the Teen Mom: The Next Chapter star, 31, shared several videos to her Snapchat showing her and her daughter Nova, 14, getting matching nose piercings. The next morning, DeJesus responded to a comment asking her why she let the teenager get the piercing.

“My girl is such a good girl and shes nothing like me or like any of these teens that I hear about. I want her to be able to express herself and feels confident!” DeJesus said. “Shes a straight a student taking highschool courses and shes such [a] sweet baby!”

“Its just a piercing and its not permanent. Shes been wanting this for a long time and I was hesitant at first but I thought about it and felt like I wasnt really hearing her and decided it would be ok!” she added. “Nova is such a blessing and she deserves whatever she wants as long as she keeps up her grades and stays out of trouble. A piercing isnt going to change her.”

In another clip posted to TikTok, the mom of two, who shares Nova with Devoin Austin, addressed some of her followers’ concerns about her daughter getting a piercing at 14 years old, saying it’s “really not that big of a deal.”

“A lot of you guys are saying that Nova’s too young to get like a nose piercing, but it’s like, it’s literally just a piercing, you know, it’s not like it’s a tattoo, it’s not like she’s changing something on her body,” DeJesus said. “She literally just, is just getting a piercing. It’s really not that big of a deal, guys.”

In addition to her daughter Nova, the proud mom also shares daughter Stella, 7, with Luis Hernandez. DeJesus has been open on the hit series about the highs and lows of her co-parenting journey.

As she reflected on her daughters’ relationships with their dads on a recent episode of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, DeJesus revealed that she may want to get her tubes tied. She shared that the decision was not one she was taking lightly, as it “would be permanent” without a chance of “going back from that.”

“I have been thinking about what I want for myself and my children, [and] I have been thinking about tying my tubes,” she said during the episode. “I don’t want to have any more children, and here in Florida, the laws are so crazy you can’t even get a damn abortion.”

“For the last two years, this is something that I’ve thought about, and I just want to be 100% sure because tying my tubes would be permanent,” she continued. “There’s no going back from that.”

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Speaking with PEOPLE ahead of the latest season of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, DeJesus admitted that this season was “by far, the hardest” for her. With Austin moving out of state and tension with mom Roxanne, DeJesus navigates “really parenting alone.”

However, instead of focusing on the difficulties of complex relationships and parenting, DeJesus is keeping her eyes on her girls and their future as a family.

“As the girls get older, they start to voice their own opinions and feelings about things. I always make sure they feel heard and seen,” she said. The proud mom is happy to see her “brilliant” girls thriving, adding, “They shine so bright!”

“Nova loves to draw, sing, and play volleyball,” she explained, before jokingly adding, “Stella loves to get into my makeup bag and spends hours sniffing the perfect perfume to buy.”