<p>“True… but why do your wishes have to trump theirs? I have always considered that the obedience of my children was always to fulfill a purpose, and I just can’t see the purpose in this,”</p>
<p>The purpose is to prevent then from permanently disfiguring themselves, cosmic fish. Just like I wouldn’t support them getting ear gauges or ginormous breast implants. You really don’t get the aesthetic sensibility of those who think it looks like graffiti defacing the human body. Now, a small rose on the ankle is “less graffiti” than full sleeves, but it’s all kind of graffiti to me. </p>
<p>PG, It’s not that I don’t get the “aesthetic sensibility”, it’s just that I don’t understand why if you and your kid have different “aesthetic sensibilities” that yours wins even when it is their body.</p>
<p>Emilybee,
There are reasons parents are unwilling or unable to continue to pay for school. Happens a lot. Many resourceful kids find a way to get through school even if it means transferring to a local cheaper place. </p>
<p>Because it’s PERMANENT. Good God. Which is why it is in a different league from purple hair or bell bottom pants or a beard or other aesthetic choices where our sensibilities might differ. </p>
<p>With all due respect, isn’t that pretty obvious that its permanence sets it apart from other style / taste choices? </p>
<p>I used to get all worked up. I hate tattoos. Really seriously like the gag I got being forced to eat cold peas when everyone else has left the table.
Then I realized that I was wasting my time getting worked up.
The people in my life with them didn’t care if I liked their full sleeve/leg/ torso “art”.
The ones without didn’t care that I approved.<br>
Nobody cared what I thought, so it became a non-issue.</p>
<p>“There are reasons parents are unwilling or unable to continue to pay for school. Happens a lot. Many resourceful kids find a way to get through school even if it means transferring to a local cheaper place.”</p>
<p>That may be, but on this thread we are talking about a parent cutting off a kid financially if they get a tattoo. It’s so absurd I cannot even believe I am even having this discussion. I feel like I am in BizzaroWorkd. So, I give up. </p>
<p>No actually many of us are expanding to talk about other reasons a parent might cut payments. Many other reasons have been addressed and that’s what I was responding to. You also brought up other situations of empty threats. There is nothing “bizarro” about the discussion </p>
It does… but I still don’t see why that should be your choice and not theirs! And while it is indeed permanent, the content and location determine what the impact of that permanence will be - it may have little or no impact on their life even if they later decide they shouldn’t gotten it!</p>
<p>No actually many of us are expanding to talk about other reasons a parent might cut payments. Many other reasons have been addressed and that’s what I was responding to. You also brought up other situations of empty threats. There is nothing “bizarro” about the discussion. </p>
<p>IMO, it is. So I will bow out now. Ive already wasted enough time on this I will never get back. </p>
<p>When they are self-supporting, they can do what they please. That will be the rest of their lives.
*</p>
<p>That’s pretty succinct! but I have a different philosophy.
Just as I did not want my children to wait to write until they could spell and have good penmanship, I also did not want to discourage them from making decisions that have consequences until they were completely on their own.
I feel the way you get experience is by doing, and the way you learn to experience consequences is by living, and not by having someone make the choice for you.</p>
<p>emilybee, my kids know that the line is drawn and that I would declare them adults at that time. Don’t take those bets that I’d fold and continue to pay. They know they would be gambling with their college funds. They KNOW because I’ve been very clear on this for years. It’s not a threat, just a fact. I never said I’d throw them away or refuse them, just that they’d become independent adults with tattoos, including financially independent.</p>
<p>They know this is my issue but they respect me so honor my wishes. It’s also not all that much money at risk (both have scholarships) but neither would not want to lose my respect for her. Not because tattoo are trashy (which I think they are) but because I asked them specifically not to get one. I don’t want to say that a little rose is cute and a big skull is totally wrong, but a rose with a little skull is a maybe. To me, just draw the line where I see it - no tattoos.</p>
<p>I never said I’d cut them off if they bought a beer or a lottery ticket (done that), got a ticket (done that), wasted $500 by dropping a brand new cell phone (done that) but was giving examples of things (excess drinking, gambling, stripping) that might be the line for other parents to say that they were done. If one of my kids bought $10 of lottery tickets a week I’d question it. If she lost $500 on a Vegas weekend (perfectly legal), I’d have a cow. My kids know my limits.</p>
<p>My daughter is in Nepal because she wanted to go. I wasn’t asked, I didn’t pay, but I could have stopped her because she was only 17 when she left and I could have taken her passport. I felt she was mature enough to make the decision to go to Nepal but there are other places I wouldn’t want her to go and we’d certainly talk about them. I think it is okay to say to children, whether they be 4, or 14, or 22 “No, you can’t have that” or “you must wait.” Turning 18 does not make everything that is legal smart. I’m still trying to prevent the stupid things. They can wait. </p>
<p>My daughter just came home from school tonight. I told her about this thread and asked her what would happen if she got a tattoo. Without missing a beat, she said, “I’d be financially independent.” And what would happen if you tried to sneak a tattoo? “I’d be too guilty and blurt it out, ‘Mom, I got a tattoo.’” See, no surprises.</p>
<p>I’m not a fan of tattoos either, but I guess it just seems silly to be so horribly opposed to even a tattoo that would have minimal impact on the kid’s life even if they did regret it. I mean, getting a sleeve could be a problem. But even if my astrophysicist friend with the small infinity symbol on her ankle isn’t enamored of it ten years from now, I’m having trouble seeing what devastating consequences she is risking that would be worth withdrawing support over or even getting into a terrible fight.</p>
<p>When she is wearing pants, you can’t see the tattoo. It isn’t terribly noticeable even when she is in shorts. She’s not going to lose job offers over it, because if there are any concerns about professionalism she can easily cover it. Even if a potential partner theoretically saw tattoos as a turn-off, he’d have to be pretty obsessive to end or decline to pursue a relationship over a small mark on an ankle. And frankly, if she ever told me that she had become seriously distressed over its marring effect on her body, I’d think of her reaction as a form of body dysmorphia before I’d accept it as a rational response to her subtle body art. </p>
<p>Again, I don’t particularly like even her tattoo, but I don’t get making a big stink over an adult doing something like that to her body. </p>
I’ll be honest, this is still really confusing to me. You seem to want to control their lives, their decisions so that they fit into your mold, whether they agree with that mold or not. You enforce this through financial means all the way through college - am I correct that this would continue as long as that ability to control remains? That is, if they needed (and you were willing and able to provide) financial assistance during graduate school, would these conditions remain? How do you define adulthood - the means by which you are no longer able to control their actions?</p>
So your rules allow her to travel. Great. The risk of travel to Nepal is pretty low, but I would wager it is still higher per capita than the risk of getting a tattoo, including damage to career and earning potential. But again, I don’t think safety is your main concern.</p>
<p>
And what does this prove, other than that she knows your law? I can tell you about lots of laws (and my probability of being caught), that says nothing of my opinion on those laws, nor am I likely to give that honest opinion to the one who wrote them!</p>
<p>Could we stop acting as though disapproval of this one thing means that I want to “control their lives, their decisions so they fit in my mold”? It’s one decision. And anyway, didn’t I also say upthread that while I wouldn’t fund it (and would anticipate they’d owe me for it if they used money I gave them), in reality I’d probably just be bummed, then razz them for a while and ultimately let it go? This isn’t the hill I’d die on or that I’d sever a relationship over. </p>
<p>Earlier this evening I was sitting with H and S and asked H - what would you do if you found that S got a tattoo. H responded by saying the first few lines of the Kaddish (Jewish prayer for the dead). We laughed. It was a joke. S knows very well that we’d disapprove, but he also knows we would get over it. </p>
<p>“So your rules allow her to travel. Great. The risk of travel to Nepal is pretty low, but I would wager it is still higher per capita than the risk of getting a tattoo, including damage to career and earning potential. But again, I don’t think safety is your main concern.”</p>
<p>Not the OP you’re directing it to, but no, safety has nothing to do with any of this in the least. Any objection I have is not due to fear of infection or whatever. </p>
<p>Pizza, your reaction-unhappy but dealing with a kid getting a tattoo is the reaction I think most reasonable people who hate tattoos would have. I hadn’t remembered exactly what you’d said earlier so thank you for repeating that. I don’t think most people would actually, literally, stop all supporting funds over a small tattoo.</p>
<p>twoanddone, on the other hand, says she WILL cut off all support,or, as she puts it, her kids would be “financially independent”. Since that would mean the kids would have to fend for themselves for everything from college expenses to where to live when school is closed, medical care, transportation and everything else they now get some assistance with, I DO see that as “throwing them away”. I can see why the kids are willing to tow the line! “Financially independent” isn’t the same as “able to support myself” and they know it. What a nice thing to know about your parent, that they’d rather see you on the street than have a small tattoo.</p>
<p>I find it interesting that letting your child travel to the other side of the world is less of a problem than getting a tattoo. But at least the kids know where the lines are, arbitrary as they can be.</p>