This guest post is by a Twitter Mom of 2 tweens @journey2learn. She recently got a new tattoo and since I personally do not understand why someone would want to mark their body I asked her what the motivation is behind getting “another” tattoo. She graciously accepted my offer to contribute a post for all of us to learn, read on it is an enlightening story …
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I was in college in 1993 when the movie, Son In Law staring Pauly Shore, was released. I loved it. Maybe because I could relate to Rebecca Warner (the girl in the center of the story). She was a farm girl, who had never been to the big city. She leaves her small community to go to college in California and quickly becomes homesick and wants to go back to her safe community.
The Resident Assistant, Crawl (Pauly Shore), tells her that she hasn’t even tried to adapt…To get to my point, he shows her around and she makes changes to fit in. As part of that, she ends up getting a small butterfly tattoo on her ankle. That was the first time I thought maybe I would get a tattoo someday.
But I was a very conservative girl from a very conservative family attending a very conservative college. There was no way I was going to get one.
Fast forward ten years…I was married and a mom of two….and, one day on a whim (even though it had been a thought for ten years), I went and got small tattoo (an orange lily) on my ankle. I don’t know why. It was the first ‘rebellious’ thing I had ever done in my life. From there, the addiction began. It is true what they say, that usually one leads to another…I now have five.
Was it rebellious? Yes, because even at 32, I was still the girl that did things to please my mom. But I was (finally) my own woman.
My latest tattoo (you can read about at my blog www.journey2learn.com) is for my family. A reminder to place first the people and things that are most important to me.
Tattoos may be scary to those who do not understand but they are beautiful expressions of who we are at a given a moment in time. I am often ask (especially by mom), if I have regrets, or told I will when I am “old and wrinkled” and looking back…
I don’t regret, nor think I ever will. To me, it is a beautiful form of art and a spiritual experience to have it done.
As a mother, how do I feel? I hope my children wait if they decide they want a tattoo. It is for a lifetime….and I hope they are wise in their choices and settled in their life before making the decision to get one. I definitely will not ‘sign’ so they could have one as a teen. But I will support them and their choice of personal expression, if later in life, they decide it is for them.
Here is a link to a post on her blog about tattoos My Tattoo.
I have read that today if you are under 30, it is more rare NOT to have a tattoo than to have a tattoo. Also by publishing this post I am not promoting getting tattoo’s just trying to understand. I do not have any tattoos, but have thought about getting some little design on my ankle.
If you have a tattoo, share your story and the motivation. Do you think it is body mutilation? Will they be sorry later?
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Thank you for your comment. It is well said.
I am a 33 y/o mother of a teenager and work in a therapeutic industry. I have many very large tattoos, and I love them all. I got my first at age 18. It was done out of rebellion and a desire to fit in and for the experience. It is not the most beautiful tattoo. It is somewhat trendy. But I love it for who I was when I got it, the story it tells, and the character it creates. I have since gotten several more very large tattoos. Each is a work of art. Each has a story, each has meaning. Each defines a little bit of who I am, of where I’ve been, of what is important to me. Some people have bumper stickers on cars, some people have cute little flags in front of their houses that change with the seasons or holidays, some people have their nails done in fun colors each month, some people paint, and some people get tattoos. They are a creative artistic expression of ones self, and a hobby for many. Just as if you are an artist painting, you don’t stop painting after one picture, many people don’t stop getting tattoos after one. Not because it’s an addiction. Such a negative connotation there. But because it is an expression.