The Girl With The Trashy Tattoo

“The Girl With The Trashy Tattoos”
I am the mother of a daughter with tattoos, none of them are dragons, or perhaps I would be more popular in certain literary circles. In reality I was very unpopular for several years in my own circle which included some literary and some ‘illiterary’ folks. The problem for them was not so much that my sixteen year old had a tattoo, but that I had approved of it and had actually taken her to get the tattoo. As soon as my ‘friends’ laid eyes on the lovely, purple and yellow swallowtail resting gently on a delicate green vine artfully stained on my daughter’s shoulder, tongues started clucking. Without exception, my army of co-mother’s stood ready to console what surely must be my disappointment and anger at my daughter’s betrayal. Hoping to prevent further embarrassing comments, I gracefully pointed out that I had taken my daughter and had even helped her pick out her ‘art.’ I was stupid and it was only the beginning.
At first I tried to explain, my reasoning. A few friends came around; the majority just shook their heads with sympathy. I could see in their eyes that they thought I had gone over to the dark side, I’m sure there were a few prayers said in private and I did suspect that one prayer chain had been alerted. News had spread fast in our small town. It seemed the main problem was other daughter’s using us as a rationale for permission to get tattoos of their own. All over town families were preparing for the great tattoo epidemic. So it came as a surprise when I encountered one mother who did not know my plight or at least that the plight belonged to me.
While sitting at a high school football game watching my two oldest daughters cheer on their team, I was probably frowning. I was thinking about how cold their little legs must be in the short skirts standard to cheerleaders everywhere even on the frosty shores of Lake Michigan in late fall. In looking back I am sure it was the frown on my face that invited the strange words out of the mom sitting next to me. She asked if I was looking at the girl with the trashy tattoo. I quickly scanned the bleachers for the offending tattoo. It never crossed my mind that she was talking about my daughter, after all her tattoo was covered by her cute little cheerleading sweater. When she saw my quizzical look, she pointed to the track below where the row of cheerleaders was doing their thing. I glanced sideways at her; she then proceeded to tell me that while you couldn’t see the girl’s tattoo you could probably tell which one was her just by the look of her and that she noticed I had been watching her. She interpreted my stunned silence as permission to carry on. It seemed that her daughter had pointed my daughter out in an effort to convince her, (if only the poor girl had come to me first, I would have suggested a different tactic meant for blundering Neanderthal mommies, no offense to Neanderthals), that even good, popular, smart , cheerleading type of girls get tattoos at sixteen . Still shocked into silence, she continued with her tirade about what kind of mother would allow such a thing. Finally, I found my voice, extended my hand which she took and shook, (good Neanderthal, even my dog knows how to shake), and said it was nice to meet her, my name, and I’m the mother of the girl with the trashy tattoo. I pointed out my other daughter and said that I was enjoying watching them both cheer, just to clear up any misunderstanding as to why I was watching her also before she could ‘notice’ I was watching another girl and then launch into another gossipy stupid fest. She knew my other daughter and said oh my goodness I can’t believe they are sisters, she is such a sweetie. Just when I thought she might be trying to make nice, an alarmed looked immobilized her face. She turned to me and asked if my oldest daughter had been tattooed also. When I replied no, she looked relieved and offered her words of comfort, well at least you have one daughter still unmarked. I moved to another seat, and relegated her story to a good example of ignorance, and called my own prayer chain.
The story of the sixteen year old with a parent approved tattoo is this: I have three daughters, all different, all smart, all beautiful and most importantly all loved by me, their mother. When they were growing up my oldest daughter was petite and pretty by magazine standards, my youngest daughter was tall, thin, and kind of exotic, my middle daughter was tall and a size thirteen most of her high school career. Middle daughter was also a definite left brain type of person unlike her sisters who were more righty. They got endlessly compared as people will do with siblings especially three of the same. As a result my middle daughter grew up with some serious self esteem issues. Recognizing this, when she came to us with a request to have a tattoo for her sixteenth birthday present, we thought about it. We asked her to put her thoughts in writing and do some research for us regarding the tattoo. She wrote a compelling and complete essay on why she wanted a tattoo. She had researched all the practical risks, thoughts about regrets and so on. But she had also included a section on successful people who had tattoos, it included many well known people and a few lesser known… the last name was her dad’s. She called him beautiful. So on her sixteenth birthday we took her for her first tattoo. Did it fix all her problems, no. Did she love it, yes! We did see a change in her self confidence; she tried out for cheerleading the fall after her sixteenth birthday and made it. Most importantly she learned a little more about herself and we learned a lot more about our daughter.
Epilogue: Our daughters are now grown women. The daughter with the trashy tattoo, is now a mother to one adorable little son; she is beautiful, well adjusted, tall, thin, with amazing blue eyes and a total of six tattoos. To my knowledge there never was a tattoo epidemic among sixteen year olds in our small town. I might not have been the stupid one after all.
Moral of the story: Not all conventional rules apply when raising girls.