Our 26-year-old son hasn’t trimmed his beard in three years and wears a brown Walmart sweatshirt every day. Our 23-year-old daughter had her café au lait hair dyed orangey copper. Our 20-year-old daughter wears long, wildly-painted fingernails and a fake nose ring.
If I had my way, they’d be clean cut and all natural, but I encourage these semi-permanent fashion choices. Why? Because today’s kids are under pressure to take risks to fit in, often in the form of permanent tattoos and body piercings.
My parents had it so easy. They never worried that I might come home with a tattoo on my thigh or a bolt through my cheek, because back then, only punk rockers and ne’er-do-wells did that kind of thing.
Well … unless you count Navy sailors.
But today, it doesn’t matter how well we raise our kids. It doesn’t mean a hill of beans what socio-economic category your family falls into. It’s irrelevant whether your kids are on the Dean’s List or in detention, whether your kids want to be doctors or ditch diggers, whether they aspire to live in the White House or the Big House.
Today, behavior that was once reserved for the fringes of society has become mainstream. It’s no longer a question of whether our kids will get tattoos or body piercings, but when.
In 1984, my college dorm mate shoved a needle through my left earlobe and into a raw potato, then inserted a tiny gold stud. That night while dancing to Duran Duran at the frats, I sported my new asymmetrical ears with confidence. The third earring seemed to scream, “Look! I’m not the geek you thought I was!”
That was about as daring as we got back in the eighties. But being cool now requires elaborate tattoos and piercings on every body part imaginable: tongues, cheeks, eyebrows, lips, nostrils, and nipples, to name a few.
While we were stationed in Germany, I was at my daughter’s indoor soccer tournament when the moms on either side of me struck up a conversation.
“When I turned 40, I got my lower back tattoo and . . .”
“Oh my God, me too!” the other mom interrupted, lifting her shirt to show an Asian symbol. “I’m not exactly sure what it means.”
The moms went on to complain that their jeans irritated their belly button rings, and I began to worry.
With everyone (and their mother, literally) mutilating their bodies these days, to what extremes will our kids go to set themselves apart? And, what will happen when they age?
Does a lower back tattoo that says “Juicy” end up looking more like “Jeewillickers” after stretch marks, age spots and spider veins? Will Grandma look sexy when it peeks out of her elastic waistband during morning calisthenics at The Happy Acres Retirement Village? Maybe Grandpa will stop eating his rice pudding long enough to wheel his chair over and slap her on the tush. Grandma might wink at him, because only she knows that under all that half-chewed rice his dentures are hiding a tongue piercing he got when he was 18.
Wow, that’s hot.
Should we give in and buy our kids gift cards from “Needles R Us?” Should we accompany them for their first bolt-fitting and take them out for ice cream afterwards? Should we pick out tattoo designs for ourselves to fit our parental lifestyles? (I might start with a nice frying pan on my hip, or maybe a laundry basket on my ankle.)
No, we shouldn’t embrace body mutilation anymore than we should keep badgers as pets, but we should keep trying to talk sense to our kids.
Soon after that indoor soccer game, my husband and I made a family rule: If you want to get a permanent tattoo or body piercing, you must be a financially independent adult. In the meantime, you are welcome to let your semi-permanent freak flag fly as long as we are paying for your phone, car, college tuition, health insurance, room or board.
And if you really want to take risks, leave your body unaltered and become a true non-conformist.
Amen! I recently escorted a fourth year med student to meet the chief resident on a busy vascular surgery service at my hospital. She was excited to start a 4 week elective with a revered and busy team. On our way there, her crescent shaped septum ring flipped out from her sinus cavity (where she was trying to hide it) and rested directly above her upper lip. I had to break it to her that hospital policy mandated “no visible ‘extraordinary piercings in any part of the body other than the ear’” In addition, she had one full “sleeve” of teal & magenta koi fish winding prominently around her forearm like a barbershop pole. How had I missed that?? So we quickly banged a u turn and speed walked back to my office. There, I pulled a Lycra sleeve out of my version of a “sock drawer” in my office & handed it to her. Hospital policy also mandated she slide the Lycra looking tube over her forearm to cover the tattoo. When she balked I pulled out the employee manual, showed her the dog eared policy then asked if she wanted to choose a diff elective at a diff hospital. She did not. On our way back to the OR, she started noticing the number of hospital employees wearing the sleeves to cover their own tattoos. She was excited. Then it occurred to her that this might not be an isolated incident. She realized it might be frowned upon during residency interview season which starts fir her in 2, short months. “Good Luck on interviews” I said as I introduced her to the chief. I could see the look of horror on her face as I walked away. She was scratching at the Lycra as if it were acid burning her skin…..and this is just the beginning. Nobody thinks about the permanence of either tattoos or piercings until it’s too late. I really wanted to hug her because she looked overwhelmed & crestfallen. Rightfully so
My father got a tattoo of a cobra on his right bicep. It was something he did while stationed in the Philippines. I remember thinking how rare tattoos are. Only bikers and sailors had them. Back then you did not want to mess with a dude with a tattoo. Now my 18 year old niece got one at the local strip mall. The tattoo has evolved into something completely different. What was skulls, anchors, and snakes is now unicorns, kittens, and cartoon characters.
You want to be cool and a bad ass? No tattoos.