My daughter has a tattoo and I am devestated. I haven't seen it yet, she knows how I feel about tattoos and has been trying to mentally prepare me fro her getting one for some time. How does one mentally prepare for their gorgeous 18 year old daughter to permanently mark the beautiful body she has?
I know tattoos are common amongst "young" people, I see it everyday in the emergency department, young guys and girls with multiple tattoos. I also see many mature people with tattoos they got when they were young (you may recall the Circulon TV advertisement) and it is not attractive.
At Logan when I was a student I was introduced to the TTT - Tattoo to Tooth ratio. The more tattoos, the less teeth and the number of tattoos was inversely proportional to the persons IQ. Meaning....there is nothing smart about getting a tattoo.
Now anyone who has one will argue with me I'm sure, and I know we shouldn't judge who a person is by what a person looks like, what their job is, their educational level or what they wear, but the truth is we do.
Apart from the inherent health risks (hepatitis, HIV, staph infections, cellulitis) tattoos are just ugly, I have never seen a nice one yet. I can certainly appreciate that there are some incredibly talented tattoo artists out their and some of the designs are amazing but the minute I see it on someones skin it looses it's artistic appeal.
I tried everything to talk my daughter out of this, and nothing has worked, she keeps trying to make me understand and it's like she somehow wants my approval, which she will never get.
She is stubborn, pig headed, independent and willful, she is also intelligent, kind compassionate, loyal and sensitive....she is just like me. I learnt a lot of things the hard way, my parents tried to make things easier by guiding me with advice, and trying to help me avoid making the same mistakes they did, of course Id didn't listen and did things my way and so will Estee.
It is so very difficult to sit by and watch your offspring find their own way in the world.
If it makes you feel better, which I doubt, Libby is going through precisely the same right now as Alex has just decided to get a tattoo also.
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