Tattage

[stgulik]

Showed my 14 year-old daughter this page of Harry Potter-themed tattoos. Now she wants one.



This is the one she liked best - at least, she liked the sentiment, if not the sheer acreage the girl in the picture devoted to it.

"It's too big," she said. "I might want to get a job some day."

"It's along her side," I countered, playing devil's advocate for some unknown reason. "What job would you take where a side tattoo would be a problem?"

"Stripper," she answered promptly. I walked right into that one.

Luckily there's that "not until you're a legal adult" rule. We made that rule years ago regarding tattoos, piercings, marriage and the military, and it has saved us many an argument. I have no doubt she'll get one someday, but I hope she chooses a more timeless piece of work than this.

Comments

[mimimanderly.livejournal.com]

I don't understand how someone can get something PERMANENTLY engraved onto their skin when they are young, thinking that they will always like it or be that person. I have changed my "look" SO many times in the intervening decades since youth. I have friends I only see once in a blue moon whose first question to me is "so, what color is your hair now?". If I can't settle on a hair color indefinitely, or a lipstick shade, why would I commit to something as permanent as a tattoo? Granted, I know people who are exactly the same as they were in high school and have exactly the same "look". I look upon these people with pity. They are missing out on the fun of re-inventing oneself.

Also, as others have pointed out, eventually the skin will sag, and the tattoo will just look sad.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

I don't understand how someone can get something PERMANENTLY engraved onto their skin when they are young, thinking that they will always like it or be that person.

Which is why I stated above, people should wait until they are at least 30 y.o. before contemplating getting a tattoo, and never, EVER have someone's name put on! :-P

If I can't settle on a hair color indefinitely, or a lipstick shade, why would I commit to something as permanent as a tattoo?

Which is why I thought long and hard about it before taking the plunge. I bought tattoo mags for months, looking at the different types of work and designs, educating myself on the pros and cons.

When I finally went to the tattoo shop I spent a VERY long time inspecting all of the designs they had available before choosing one I knew I could live with for a lifetime.

Okay, I know someone's going to ask, so what I got was a rose with a lightening bolt thru it, surrounded by a crescent moon and stars. My birthsign is Cancer -- Moonchild -- and my birth flower is Rose, so that's why I went with the design. It's about 2.5-3 inches long, approx. 2 inches wide.

Other than the "fuzziness" that the outline's developed that I described above, the colors are still dark and vibrant, and I've never regretted getting it. :-)

[stgulik.livejournal.com]

Majorjune, thanks for your story and all your sound advice. If everybody was as deliberate in choosing to tattoo as you were, we wouldn't have seen half the horrid examples in that HP tattoo post. :D

There has been a lot of good advice on this thread that I will be sharing with my kid.