I hate tattoos but I do recognize that they are much more common than they used to be. And people who never would have gotten a tattoo 30 years ago get them now. I know MANY middle-class and upper-middle class accountants, writers, nurses, etc. who have tattoos. I do think it is wise to have it in a spot where it’s easily covered up.
I hate them, though. I think it’s insane to do something permanent to your body at a very young age. And I am grateful that my daughter doesn’t seem interested (yet, at least). But I don’t have an automatic opinion of people with tattoos. It’s just not like that anymore.
How in the world do you know what doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. bodies look like under their clothes? I’ve never seen my doctor’s bare arms, let alone her bare back or legs. That’s a really silly statement to make. I don’t want a tattoo, but, according to a recent Harris poll, one in five adults in the US do. Surely all of those people aren’t “low class.”
While I don’t make judgments (or really try not to) on outward appearances, the reality is many people do. FCCDAD is being honest about his own perceptions which are probably not that uncommon even if it is not accurate. And that is the caveat I would use with a young person getting a tattoo.
I agree that visible tattoos and piercings are stereotypically low class, but know many professionals that have tattoos that are not seen in their every day work.
For my child, I’d send them info on tattoo removal and let them decide. It is most definitely not trivial to have a tattoo removed.
I’d probably ask my child to wait until they are 21 and I don’t have to pay for them any more. It’s actually kind of frivolous in my mind, until you are on your own, then you can do what you want.
My mom did that on another subject, riding a motorcycle. She said it was fine for my brother to get a motorcycle, but not as long as he was living in her house rent-free. He ended up never getting a motorcycle (but he did get his pilot’s license, and then his wife told him he wasn’t allowed to fly LOL).
I read somewhere that if you want to do certain jobs - even summer jobs like lifegaurding - you may not have it , if you have tattoos that are visible. I do not know if this is true or not but I do recall reading this somewhere.
The correlation of tattoos with “low class” or blue collar is an old, outdated concept. Good tattoos are very expensive, cost hundreds of dollars per hour, and have moved firmly into the higher-level income and professional classes in the past 20 or so years.
Low class vs high class now has more to do with the content of the tattoo, the placement, and the quality. Many young people choose to get memorial tattoos for friends or family members who have died, tattoos to commemorate a major life event, or a personal milestone. The biggest thing lately is mother’s tattoos - such as a tattooed bouquet of flowers or flock of doves, with each representing a child.
I am a college-educated professional, and carefully choose placement of my tattoos so that they do not show at all while I am in my business wear. Since I prefer to wear shells to long sleeves, that includes making sure nothing shows on my arms. My co-workers have no clue that I have tats, unless I tell them.
If I were looking to hire someone, and an applicant had any tattoos that would be visible to clients or customers, I would simply not hire that applicant. Because that is not an image I am willing to have representing my business. And I am sure I am not alone in that regard.
Observing that tattoos take skill to create and are expensive does nothing to rehabilitate them; you can say the same thing about meth, after all.
Well, I’m a 60-year-old professional who’s planning to get a memorial tattoo for my son on the underside of my forearm so I can look at it whenever I feel the need to. If other people see it, too, I don’t really care.
I just read the posts about “buying off” a roommate. All I can say is wow. My 1st semester roommate (as an aside was a random fill-in after my original roommate got special permission to move into special interest housing as a freshman) was horrible. We had zero things in common and if sexiling had been a thing in the 80s. I would have been a poster child. The only redeeming thing was it wasn’t all night, their preferred time was in the evening after dinner (maybe it was a study break for them). There were multiple occasions that I came home because I forgot something and caught them in the the act.
It never occurred to me to get my parents to buy him off or even to get them involved. I simply sucked it up and figured out a way to move at the end of the semester.
My daughter also ended up with a nasty situation (the classic 2 friends move in together only to discover that rooming together was a horrible mistake). There were a couple of times my daughter called home in tears. My response wasn’t to cut a check but rather to talk her back to a better space and then help her think of ways to problem solve.
Her response was to basically move out. Her BF was in a suite-like room (a double that was 2 separate rooms) and she moved in with him. At the end of the semester when she moved out. We picked up 2 small tubs of stuff from her room and everything else was in his room. For the record, I was fine with the situation (and would have been a total hypocrite had I complained since I cohabitated with my GF for 2 years of my college career).
It seems to me that rather than throwing cash at a problem, a better strategy is to be sympathetic toward your kid and help them to figure out ways to solve the problem. If I were asked by my kid,I would reach to to school administrators but only if my kid explicitly asked me to do or if she had done so and not gotten any response.
Tattoos are one of those things that mark the division between generations. In other words, thinking tattoos are low-class pretty much automatically qualifies you as an old fart.
Right now, of course, the old farts are still in charge and still make hiring decisions, so young people would be well advised to remember that. In about twenty years the old farts will have retired and the people in charge will be those who either have tattoos of their own or whose peers tend to have tattoos, and there won’t be the same stigma.
I don’t like tattoos aesthetically; I’ve never seen one that I thought looked attractive. I just don’t like the blue-black tone that seems to permeate even tattoos done in other colors, and I am not a person who is ever tempted to put messages or symbols on myself (no bumper stickers on car, never wear t-shirts with slogans, etc.). But that’s just a personal preference, not a judgment on others.
Please learn to read, people. I didn’t say tattoos = meth, I said trying to justify tattoos by noting their expense and skill required was a logical fallacy, because neither the expense nor the skill involved suggests anything at all about whether the product is worthwhile. Meth is an example to show how meaningless it is to talk about the cost or skill involved instead of the actual result.
I have heard some people say that getting tattoos is addictive. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never tried one, nor will I. If they have become more popular recently with people with money to burn, I consider that a silly fad. I, for one, have much better things to do with both my body and my money.
I consider tattoos a marker of people who have more money than sense. So I advise my child to stay away from them. And if she has enough money to waste on tattoos, then she doesn’t need money from me.
@FCCDad - my new doctor has a visible tattoo on his forearm, and he’s a pretty geeky, upper class guy; I think the days of it being a class distinction of any kind are well in the past.
Military personnel also frequently have tattoos, I don’t think of them as a low class group, either.
My daughter did not chicken out, however, and she now has one (in a spot no one will be able to see it unless she chooses to show it to them). The artist did a nice job; I still wish she had changed her mind, but I’m not losing sleep over it!
Actually, this tattoo debate reminds me of when my father was horrified that I got my ears pierced when I was 18 because “only low class girls have pierced ears.” I think @dustypig is completely right about there being a generational divide.
(By the way, my dad bought me a lovely pair of sapphire earrings for my pierced ears when I got my Ph.D. )
@EllieMom, I remember when my mom about threw a fit because I got a second hole pierced in one ear. That was so “out there” that she couldn’t deal with it. I agree with dustypig that it is a generational thing. What I do not like are the gauges. The very large holes kind of make me physically sick. The ears are bad. Luckily for me I have not seen anyone with a gauge in their lower lip/gum. Pierced tongues fall into that category for me too.
I have never understood the horrified reaction at pierced ears. There are multiple countries where it is perfectly acceptable practice to pierce ears. There are also many people who do not like or cannot handle the pinched earlobes from clip ons. I understand that piercing everywhere (like lips, belly etc) can have personal preference but piercing ears (earlobe) to be precise is very common across the world.
@EllieMom - my father wouldn’t let us get our ears pierced because “only tinkers do that” (he grew up in the west of Ireland…tinkers = gypsies.
I think we all ended up getting our ears pierced as adults.
@FCCDad, the only thing I can say about your opinion is that your daughter is going to have to avoid a significant number of people in her age group if she takes your advice - people who might have a lot to offer. I don’t think it’s wise to write people off because of their appearances - it’s short sighted, prejudicial and assumes things that may or may not be accurate. As someone who has a Igor-like limping walk, I have been judged many times by my appearance, almost always incorrectly, I am a little sensitive about this. I’m not feeble, helpless, in pain (most of the time, anyway) and I can do almost everything that doesn’t involve running or reaching my left foot. I’m almost positive it has stood in the way of my career at various times - people often feel uncomfortable around people they consider disabled.
When I was in high school and got my third set of piercings on my ears, my grandmother asked “what will you think of having those when you’re old?” and I said, “all the other old women will have them too!”.
I was right. Mine are super-tame, just three sets of matching earrings, not even in the cartilage
I don’t have tattoos, mainly because I haven’t run across a symbol that is so important to me that I must wear it on my skin for the rest of my life, but I am not opposed to them and know many, many successful adults with them. Some let them show, some don’t.
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