Mom - Tattoo You?

It used to be that mothers and daughters bonded over traditional things.  You know; events such as going to buy that first bra (in most cases, for the daughter).  Picking out the perfect prom dress.  Teaching the child to bake the family recipe for chocolate chip cookies.  Simple, heartwarming moments that any daughter would treasure for years to come, right?

My darling daughters want to depart from tradition.  They want me to accompany them to one of our local tattoo parlors – and those are just popping up like dandelions in spring – and get tattooed with them.

“Come on, Mom – it’ll be a mother-daughter bonding experience!”  Those exact words came out of each of their mouths.  My oldest said, “You could get a tiny one – like a little music note on your ankle!”

Uh…no.

I’ve never understood the attraction.  At the risk of sounding like an old fuddy-duddy – and I’m only 54, for the love of it all – why the hell do my children want to mark their bodies up?  Each of them, my sons included, have multiple tattoos and they are making plans for more.   These are the same children that had to be held down for vaccinations.

So great was my youngest daughter’s desire for a tattoo that she began begging us to let her get one when she was seventeen.  Our answer was a firm “no”.  If she wanted to mark up her body she’d wait until she was eighteen.  Until then it belonged to us.

Two weeks before her eighteenth birthday, she left on a Saturday afternoon to spend the night with a friend.  That evening, we received a call from her older sister ratting baby sister out.  (Older sis was probably softening us up for a potential loan by playing tattle-tale.)  Our youngest had shown up at her house with not one but three tattoos – done by her then “boyfriend” who, by the way, was a rank amateur.  One adorned her wrist and two were on her lower back, right above her fanny.

After we got over the shock, her father and I were furious.  I called her cell phone, only to get her voice mail.  I left a cryptic message.  “Come home NOW – and you know why.”  She showed up an hour later, sheepish and apprehensive.  We demanded to see the artwork.  A badly done star adorned her wrist.  Then we saw what she had chosen for her lower back.

Seahorses.  Horrendous, mutant seahorses, one on each side. Unless she can pay for their removal, the beach motif will be there forever.  We restricted her until the day she turned 18, which she accepted with grace.  It’s not like she had a choice.  Since then, she has gone on to have a darling  image of a little ghost skeleton – the only way I can describe it – with a little bow on its skull tattooed on her forearm.   She gets compliments on it everywhere she goes, including the orthodontist’s office.  Her current boyfriend has a matching tattoo, less the bow.

Even my husband, who is probably the most needle-phobic man on the face of the planet , has talked about dipping his toe in the india ink.  He wants to have me tattooed on his upper arm.  Not my name, mind you.  My face.  I have one basic objection to that:  sooner or later, his skin is going to start sagging (and I can hear him now saying, “oh, hell no it’s not!”).  My own face is already sagging and on some days I look like a cross between a basset hound and Alfred Hitchcock.  Do you get my point?  I don’t want my face sagging on his arm and in the mirror. 

Finally…there’s this.

My 25 year old daughter recently asked where I was keeping my late mother’s ashes.  On being told they were in the breakfront, displayed tastefully with the china, my daughter informed me that she wanted a miniscule bit of Grandmommy’s cremains to mix with tattoo ink.  The tattoo would be music notes from a piece of my mother’s sheet music.  “That way I can always have Grandmommy with me.  What do you think, Momma?”  

This is what I think, darling.  Somewhere in the great beyond, my mother is either laughing hysterically or trumpeting, “That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of!  Ewww!  What is wrong with these children?”

Mom, I don't know.  This I do know, however - I'm remaining fair-skinned and tattoo free, and if my kids want to bond with me it'll have to be over a cup of Starbucks.