<p>My younger D now wants a tattoo.
Last year for her birthday, I took her to get her nose pierced- she has taken very good care of it & it encourages her to use the neti pot ( with saline) that I think helps to keep her allergies down.
She will be 18 at the end of the month & although she wanted to get one before her birthday- she will have to wait.</p>
<p>( I had liked how they looked since a friend got her nose pierced when I was 16, it made her look slightly dangerous and exotic & since I was a very young looking /freckle face redhead, very exotic was appealing ) </p>
<p>I am neutral- she is getting a small conservative tattoo of her adrinka ( Denkeym which is turtleish looking) symbol that she received in Ghana. I know that tattoos with personal symbolism are less likely to be regretted & in our area, tattoos are practically commonplace.</p>
<p>The tattoo shop is very good and has high standards- even though Washington doesn’t have many laws regarding body piercing for instance, they require parental permission for piercing and you must be 16 to have something pierced besides your earlobe. ( as opposed to a few other shops who pierced several daughters of friends, navels, without their parent’s knowledge).</p>
<p>I used to do massage, and many people had tattoos that you would never suspect- some were quite beautiful, although they were in places where the wearer, would not be able to enjoy them unless they were quite a contortionist!</p>
<p>I was wondering how common they are in other parts of the country- I know they are associated with gangs in some areas, but in Seattle, they seem to be pretty common in the music/arts community- or at least I am much more familiar with that community than street gangs.</p>
<p>I was thinking of getting one myself- and yes- partly because I know it will irritate my mother- what can I say? ;)</p>
<p>Ink that is permanent until lasered and then disperses and fades is soon to hit the market. It would make regrets and removal much easier. You can google. I believe one of the plastic surgeons involved in its development was Harvard trained. Maybe you can hold her off until it is available… I recall it was supposed to be available by now so maybe they hit upon a snag. My youngest is 16 and I am hoping its around when she is 18, as she is already making plans.</p>
<p>A tattoo a fashion accessory - like clothing or hairstyle. And what 30 year old woman will want to still be wearing the same fashions she thought looked cool back when she was 16? Unfortunately, with tattoos she will be stuck doing exactly that.</p>
<p>actually I kinda still have the same haircut ( don’t worry it is not like my sister in law who has gotten a layered cut, with a perm and then hot rollers since she was 20… - who wants the extra work? )</p>
<p>once you find out what works with your hair and face shape etc. a few modifications here and there for variety, but if it works , it works! :)</p>
<p>I’ve had the exact same haircut for at least 15 years. If I want to get fancy I blow dry my bangs for about 30 seconds.</p>
<p>I have no problem with tattoos, but would try to put it somewhere that doesn’t change too much with age. Which parts of people get the least wrinkly?</p>
<p>My youngest is 16 and I am hoping its around when she is 18, as she is already making plans.</p>
<p>Sounds like you have one like mine.</p>
<p>She has always known what she wants and she goes after it- more than anyone else that I am related to, that is for sure. ( she also thinks about it and researches it alot)
I posted in another thread, that even when she was in utero , the doctors turned her TWICE and she turned herself back both times.</p>
<p>She also pierced her own upper ear cartilage when she was 8 ( both ears, she used a post earring)- her high pain threshold could be a plus. ( yes I did freak- but I was also amazed at her determination)</p>
<p>Like I said, I am neutral, and I think it is more important that she feel that she has control over what is done to her body, particulary since she will be an adult at 18, than trying to stop her do something that I don’t have an opinion over.</p>
<p>I was curious however, to how they are perceived in other areas.</p>
<p>( also she is getting one on her scapula, it will be covered in most instances. )</p>
<p>There’s a website somewhere with pictures of what tattoos will look like on old-people skin.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, a lot of high school kids do have them where we live (NY suburb); including many freshmen. I know a mother who got an identical one with her 14 year old daughter…what a fun bonding activity!!!</p>
<p>the shoulder isn’t going to sag- and actually she is really good about using sunscreen , she says she wants to die in a much more interesting way than skin cancer.</p>
<p>Areas that have smaller/less muscle, will be more suseptible to aging, but for example not everyone shows their age- look at Madonna, isn’t she 50?</p>
<p>I am pro-tattoo. My daughter asked to get two when she was 16. Turns out in Texas you have to be 18 even if the parent is standing right there. While I was investigating the issue, I got interested and wound up getting one above my ankle. We went to Hawaii for a family vacation and D was able to get her tattoos. She got an angel on her shoulder (back) and a small Oriental symbol on her ankle. I didn’t have a problem with either of them. I then got a very colorful tattoo of a mountain scene on my inside forearm. It’s over 2 inches long. It is gorgeous. The artist designed it just for me. I did this at about age 47. At the time, the company I worked for was used to the fact that I was a little non-traditional, shall we say. I left that job after 10 years and was interviewing for lawyer-jobs with both tattoos covered! I have read many articles on how common tattoos have become in the professional work force, so it really is no big deal. I would not be interested in having a snake wrapping around my entire arm, but I love my tattoos. My sister and brother in law got tattoos a couple of years ago. We are not an “artsy” family (D is, I guess, being a singer), but we just don’t have a problem with this form of expression.<br>
EmeraldKitty- Go for it!!</p>
<p>Funny story…I told my kids that I had always wanted a tattoo, but didn’t get one because I didn’t want orderlies in a nursing home pointing at it and laughing when I am old and wrinkled. I really don’t know why I thought that, but I sort of feared the repercussions when I was old. They said they would promise to never put me in a nursing home if I got one …what a deal!!
I got a small tattoo on my foot and I think it’s kind of cool.
Neither of my daughters have gotten a tattoo (yet) and they are 18 and 20 . Younger one has talked about getting heavily tattooed since she was 12 or so, but has not made any definite plans yet. I think she is afraid to commit to a design at this point.
I have never had a problem with tattoos, piercings, dyed hair, mohawks, etc…I do know that many people in my suburb do. My daughter had blue hair in 9th grade and I got a lot of flack for allowing it. There are a lot of people on the east coast that still find this type of expression offensive or low class. Seems like the west coast is more laid back about this stuff, but that may just be my experience.
I have decided that I can’t spend my life worrying about what everybody else thinks and that makes me a happier person.</p>
<p>My oldest has 3. I am not pro tattoo but it isn’t my body and it was not my money. I do draw the line at odd piercings. I don’t have a problem with stud nose piercings but I do hate most of the rest. Especially disturbing is the one where males make those huge holes in their ears that will never close.
Mine got her first days after turning 18 without telling us. She had it on her lower back in a well thought out design. It is pretty if you like tattoos and well done. A few years later she got a couple of Salvador Dali elephants done on the sides of the original tattoo. In spite of not liking tattoos the artist did an amazing job and they are beautifully done. She then had some writing done above that. I don’t care for that one at all. It has meaning to her but it is not nearly as well done. She knows her will work in a conservative field so has had them done where they aren’t seen in business attire.
My youngest is planning on getting one when she is older.
My advice after seeing many a tattoo is that the quality can vary. Make sure you chose your artist well.
I think in Ca it is not unusual to see tatoos. A friend who hires for a large govt agency in Ca said it is very common. My D is now on the east coast and we noticed when visiting tattoos and piercing did not seem as commonplace.</p>
<p>Ahem, EK, Madonna may be 50, but she is uber-rich and can afford to look whatever she wants to look like. You are an adult, you are paying for it, and you are smart to think about consequences of its location and not to get a huge one on your forehead, so go for it.</p>
<p>I’m not a tattoo fan, and the only ones I approve of are the tiny Olympic rings tattoos which olympians get to commemorate their qualification. So if someone in my family qualified to go… Yeah, right! :D</p>
<p>Just one guy’s totally subjective opinion - tattoos on females are ugly. I don’t care what kind it is, I think they’re ugly. They tend to just look like an ugly dark blotch. The ones some ladies place on their shoulders make them look like a female version of a drunken sailor. But, to each her own.</p>
<p>Edit: Looks like I crossed with ‘barrons’ - great minds and all that.</p>
<p>ucsd, it’s this one gal’s opinon too… nobody would ever frame tattoo art and hang it on their wall… yet many permanently ink it into their bodies… I just don’t get it. </p>
<p>BTW, I hear tattoo removal business is booming!</p>
<p>Tatoos?? No thanks! Always think of Angelina Jolie trying, unsuccessfully, to get that big tatoo off her arm, and also thinking about what grandma will look like with saggy, baggy tatoos in many years. Even little butterfly tatoos will start to fly south after a while. Does anyone else notice that at water parks, the people who should least be wearing bikinis and least be sporting tatoos ar the ones letting it all hang out?</p>
<p>Must admit… someone told me an off-color joke once that really turned me off to tatoos. It was about an old guy in a nursing home who was cared for by an old battleaxe nurse and a young, nubile nurse. They were comparing what it was like to have to care for this poor fellow, and one day the old battleaxe rustled up the nerve to ask the other “have you ever noticed his tatoo?? Why would someone tatoo the word “swan” down there?” To which the young nurse replied. “no… its about his birthplace. It says Saskachewan”. Ewwwwwwwww. Tatoo?? Noooooo thanks.</p>
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