Getting your first tattoo is nerve-wracking. It’s impossible to know exactly how that needle will feel until it pierces your skin, and there’s always a fear in the back of your mind that the piece won’t turn out exactly how you pictured it. But even if the artwork is done perfectly, your loved ones might still have a hard time supporting your choice to get permanent ink.
One mother in particular, who describes herself as “very anti-tattoo,” decided that if her daughter is going to have body art, she won’t be allowed to show it at home. Below, you can find the full story that this mom shared on the “Am I the [Jerk]?” subreddit, as well as a conversation with blogger and mother Cheri Gregory.
This woman's daughter respected her wishes and waited until finishing her undergraduate degree to get inked
Image credits: Pavel Danilyuk (not the actual photo)
But now that she’s moved back home, her mom has decided to enforce new rules surrounding her tattoo
Image credits: Kampus Production (not the actual photo)
Image credits: throwawaymom2234
"It can feel like they’re rejecting everything she stands for, dismissing everything she ever tried to teach them"
Regardless of anyone’s personal feelings about tattoos, there’s no question that they’re incredibly common. According to Saved Tattoo, at least 35% of Americans have one or more tattoos, and about 9% of people in the US have at least 6 pieces of ink. They’re quite popular around the world as well, as EarthWeb reports that 48% of Italy’s population, 47% of residents in Sweden and 43% of people in Australia are tatted up as well. Women are slightly more likely to get some permanent body ink, with 59% of women around the globe having at least one tattoo, compared to only 41% of all men.
To learn more about what it's like to be a parent whose child comes home with tattoos, we reached out to blogger and mother Cheri Gregory. When it comes to why parents sometimes have a hard time accepting their children's tattoos, Cheri noted that "when a mother holds strong religious beliefs against tattoos but her children gets inked anyway, it can feel like they’re rejecting everything she stands for, dismissing everything she ever tried to teach them, and discarding everything she ever did for them."
"I had no clue how much emotion and meaning tattoos could carry until my daughter got full sleeves," Cheri told Bored Panda. "I’d spent my life trying to 'keep up appearances'; when Annemarie got all that ink, I felt suddenly exposed. Living in a small conservative religious community, I dreaded how quickly 'Have you seen Pastor Gregory’s daughter … ?' would spread and how harshly my husband and I would be judged for her choices."
We also asked Cheri if she believes parents should have a say in whether or not their adult children get tattoos. "I think it’s less about having 'a say' and more about having ongoing conversations about underlying values," she shared. "When Annemarie got her tattoos, we were supporting her through college. I now recognize that part of my anger over her ink was because she’d spent hundreds of dollars on something I considered 'frivolous,' while I was forgoing new shoes in order to afford her college textbooks. If we’d been having ongoing conversations about financial responsibility, her tattoos would have signaled the need to renegotiate who was paying for what. (And I would have gone out and bought myself some new shoes!)"
Image credits: cottonbro studio (not the actual photo)
"She sees her body as her canvas, and her 'ink' as another way of displaying her art"
Cheri also shared that she too asked her daughter to cover up her tattoos at first, so that she wouldn't have to see them. "But no matter how many turtlenecks she wore, I still obsessed over them — lamenting that she’d gotten them, wondering what I’d done wrong as a mom, praying that she’d have them removed," she admitted. "When I finally realized that covering things up doesn’t make them go away, I sought a counselor who could help me understand why my daughter’s tattoos bothered me so much."
"At one point, Annemarie asked me, 'Do you have any idea how hard it is that my own mother refuses to look at me if my tattoos are showing?' That question broke my heart," Cheri told Bored Panda. "I’d been raised by a legalistic mother, so I did know what it felt like to be on the receiving end of conditional, performance-based love. I decided that having a strong relationship with my daughter was more important to me than clinging to the belief that she was wrong and I was right. 'I choose to become a mother who changes' became my new mantra."
"When I finally asked Annemarie to tell me about her tattoos, I was deeply moved by the stories she told me," Cheri continued. "Her perspective is so different from the negative programming I grew up with regarding tattoos; she sees her body as her canvas, and her 'ink' as another way of displaying her art."
Image credits: Antoni Shkraba (not the actual photo)
"Practice curiosity about why they chose to get tatted and what their tattoos mean to them"
Cheri’s advice for this particular mother on Reddit is: “First, don’t dump your immediate pain on your child. Process with someone who can help you gain perspective, like a therapist. Second, don’t let your strong reactions eclipse your love for your child. Prioritize your relationship. Third, don’t assume that you automatically know your child’s perspective. Practice curiosity about why they chose to get tatted and what their tattoos mean to them.”
And even though it’s been 8+ years since Cheri first saw her daughter’s tattoos, she says that she empathizes with the OP. “I can still feel my initial reactions: shock and shame, fear and anger,” she shared. “In hindsight, I can see how stuck in black-and-white thinking I was back then. Examining the inherent biases and underlying prejudices that drove my thoughts, feelings, and reactions has been hard… and incredibly worthwhile.”
Image credits: cottonbro studio (not the actual photo)
Readers were quick to give the mother a reality check, noting that her daughter is an adult with bodily autonomy
