Tatoo....or Two ?

I do not have a tattoo. I am not tempted to get one, even in a place so hidden it would never see past my underwear. My children do not share my reluctance to dabble in such decoration. My daughter has a smiley face at the base of her spine. My son has a few more interesting designs.

When my son was little, I slathered his skin with sunscreen and made him wear a hat to avoid skin damage. He was ( and still is) allergic to fabric softener, and we used fragrance and dye free soap and detergents to keep his arms and legs free from rashes that itched and irritated. He is not, however, allergic to the tattoo artist's paint, nor does he seem to mind the pain the needles cause or the burning aftermath that shines with Bacitracin.

He started out small...the masks of tragedy and comedy, and the Impala symbol for his classic cars on his forearms. Then came his last name in gothic letters across his shoulder blades, and then some flames leaping from his ankle and partway up his calf. He has an almost completed "sleeve" that starts on his right shoulder and carries on down toward his elbow. I have to say that the artist does wonderful, intricate work on the detailed mural of buildings, a woman's face, and an old car that blend together beautifully. I suppose I just never thought that the tender baby skin I powdered and oiled and protected was being primed as a canvas.

His self-expression thing is probably my own fault. I let him get his ear pierced when he was in the third grade. The other mothers were horrified, a number of his friends started asking for earrings, and one kid's father told my son that "only fags wear earrings." That incident was one of my stellar mother moments. Suffice to say that after I spoke to the man, he kept a lot of space between us forever after.

I never had a problem with clothes or hair. My generation was the one that cleared all those paths, and my kids benefited from my, "as long as you're clean," attitude. My son had a multitude of hair styles. He grew it down to his rear end and had a Mohawk. Then there were colors. Red, blue, and green, in a style that required a variation spiky Mohawk with short dyed hair around the sides and back. He insisted on wearing the largest jeans he could find, size 48 waist, hacked off at the bottom and held up with a woven belt that went around him twice. He topped that off with a triple extra large t-shirt that hung well past his knees. For a couple of years, he appeared as a rather squat, well padded adolescent. On the evening of his junior prom, he came downstairs in his perfectly fitted tuxedo, a slim and trim, size 25 waist, 16 year old. We had forgotten what he really looked like.

My daughter was more conservative, but I do remember the "Punky Brewster" two different color shoes phase, and she did have "very big hair" at the same time she dated a guy with a Porsche that had a sun roof. When she got into the car and the roof was open, her hair stuck right up through it.

There are a lot worse things than having sections of your body look like a page from the Sunday comics. I admire other people's tatts and the talent of the artists who do such amazing work. I'm all for everyone doing their own thing. And since I’ve long passed financing my kids self-expression of choice, I say go for it.