To NOT want my DD to get a tattoo?

[neiljames77]

She's 18 tomorrow and I have so far told her I don't want her to have one.
After tomorrow though, I have no say at all. Some of her friends have them and they look hideous and have even ruined their career prospects by having them.

[DoYouLikeMyBaubles]

It's strange how you've grouped food and clothes together OP. Buying clothes every week is a luxury! So she will have money for luxuries, £30 a week on clothes would be £120 a month spare money.

Anyway getting terribly off the point, but she will be able to afford one and will have one so that's that really. You're well entitled to not want her to have one. But if she does, she will find a way and she will find a job regardless.

[EmmaBemma]

"I don't see what's so hard to understand about tattoos and people's views of them"

I don't think anyone finds that hard to understand? God knows, if mumsnet is anything to go by, people with a strong aversion to tattoos wang on about it often enough.

[ithaka]

OP - it ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it (as the song goes). Fair enough, share your views, point out pitfalls etc. But don't be a judgey uptight arse about it or you will ruin your relationship with your DD for a really petty reason.

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726]

Emma... Really? I find that it's the people with a strong preference for them that 'wang on about it'. I wouldn't have thought they'd need to defend themselves for their decisions, it's not hurting anybody else - the same as expressing an aversion to something doesn't hurt anybody else.

[DoYouLikeMyBaubles]

I'd say it's more people are quick to condemn those with tattoos, more labelling going on from the against lot than the for.

[HoneyDragon]

Hideous post menopausal with one of those awful scripts on her hand

Gosh, now I'm really put off. Damn my tats, that picture proves I will never look glamorous or classy when I'm old with ink.

[EmmaBemma]

Lying - yes, really. Also I'm a bit baffled by your assertion that people shouldn't defend their decisions or opinions - a discussion forum like mumsnet would die a death overnight if that were the case.

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726]

Emma... well your 'wang on' does sort of silence a discussion, doesn't it? Some people with tattoos do seem to get aerated about those who are trying to dissuade their children from having them. Why is that?

A tattoo is not any kind of statement as far as I'm concerned, it's ink on skin. I'm not offended by them, I just wouldn't have one myself and would dissuade my children from them.

If I had a tattoo it would have been something I considered and other people's views on it - for or against - wouldn't bother me either way. It feels sometimes that you can't have a view without causing a plethora of wailing and offence-taking.

[FloozeyLoozey]

I'm a heavily tattooed (by most people's standards) 33 year old mother and they really don't affect my life as much as you think. I live a normal life, chat to people normally, take DS to school and see the other mums/teachers, have non-tattooed friends, my family aren't bothered, I've even just got a promotion to a civil service manager! Some random people comment on them from to time, always positive (i presume if people are thinking negative things they are polite enough not to say). It doesn't affect my life in any discernable way, I forget that they're there most of the time (and I have some that are very visible).

[Fairenuff]

I think that picture looks like a scribble on her hand with biro Honey, like we used to do at school. I think her hands would look lovely without the tat, it draws the eye from the beautiful nails to the dirty-looking smudge on the hand.

[EmmaBemma]

Lying, I'm not trying to silence anyone. As if! You're hardly a persecuted minority. And if you read my posts you'll see that I agree with the OP that a first tattoo on the hand at 18 is a bad idea.

You asked what's so hard to understand about people's opinions of tattoos. I said that I don't think anyone finds those opinions hard to understand, as on mumsnet they are made abundantly clear at every available opportunity, with varying degrees of sneer about council estates, bingo wings, Jeremy Kyle, and so on. We get it. Really.

[Needthesunshine]

I'm 45, a senior nurse and got a tattoo when I was 21. You can't see it when I'm dressed and I've never regretted it.

[Sadoldbag]

I have two tatts let her get on with it the more you protest the more she will want one just get her to follow a few simple rules


1.no tatts on places that can be seen and can't be covered for work eg. Hands,neck, face lower legs.

2.nothing racist or smutty

1. Nothing bigger than a £10 note

1. Research the tattoo shop

To be honest if she follows. Those 3 rules I can see the issue


I have two and you would only know I had then f you were planing to have sex with me or walked in on me changing in the changing room

[JapaneseMargaret]

The policeman manning the road check we drove through on Christmas Eve had at least one whole lower arm tattooed. It was a warm day and his sleeves were rolled up. Obviously I'm not in the UK, but I think tattoos are now so passé ubiquitous, that literally every profession has them, some even on display.

As an aside (and putting the fact that I find her smug and annoying to one side), I think Helen Mirren looks good in that photo in spite of the tattoo, not because of it. She'd look better without it (a star? On her hand? Wow. That's really, um ... original/beautiful/adds to her 'depth'...). IMO, natch.

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726]

yy JapaneseMargaret. It really doesn't add anything and too me it looks like a doodle.

[Caitlin17]

Re the "it's only chavvy scum" attitude in my law office one of our trainees who has a law degree and a PhD has a full sleeve, one of the female partners has them on her ankle and wrist another female solicitor(who is the most ladylike person I know) whose father is a university professor has one on her shoulder. I'm sure there will be others. And this is a firm which is "blue chip" and does not do legal aid.

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726]

I don't even think it comes down to 'chavvy' or 'scum' or anything else. It's not a judgement of the person but a liking for or disliking of ink on skin. In a professional setting, I would find a tattoo distracting because it's jostling for attention with whatever the professional issue is. That's how I feel about it anyway. I don't like tattoos because they're permanent; I don't like anything permanent.

The photo in the link above is of Helen Mirren, a beautiful woman, dressed in a ballgown or similar get-up. The tattoo, in my opinion, looks badly done and out of place on her hand and incongruous with that kind of outfit. I'd still think it looked badly done if she were wearing a more casual outfit but it may go with the outfit better.

She's still a beautiful woman and I'm sure she wouldn't give a shiny shit about what people think of it/her.

[willyoulistentome]

I also think HM would look much nicer without that on her hand. It looks shit.

[ExcuseTypos]

I used to dislike tattoos but now know so many people with them, in all walks of life, that I really don't mind them.

I know 2 people who have lost children and they have tiny tattoos. I think that's very sweet actually.

[HoneyDragon]

That's my point. Fine to think tattoos in themselves are ugly. Not fine to belittle, degrade or lesser the person underneath them. It's an attitude I utterly loathe, as I am sure the majority of posters on this thread to do.

[KittyLane1]

I have tattoos, 1 small but visible, 1 medium which can be hidden and 2 large planning 1 more large hidden.

I fail to see why a stranger would feel any iota of emotion at all towards my art :/

You know in the fetish scene tattoos are becoming too common, the new thing (well,not new but still underground) is to have scarrification, which is designs cut into your skin.

Maybe just be glad she doesn't want that?

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726]

'Scarrification'? Pfftt... I had that thirty years ago from surgery, looks like a dancing seahorse if I squint. Nothing new under the sun.

[PresidentServalan]

I have nine tattoos and I have a professional job - none of them are visible.

[Lovecat]

Helen Mirren's tattoo looks like the one my Dad had done when he was 21 - he's been dead a few years now but was 79 when he went and by that time his looked identical - his was done drunkenly in South Africa before leaving for the UK and was his initials (not quite sure what purpose/meaning that one had, but hey ho, he was youngish, drunk and had also had all his teeth pulled out as a 21st birthday present as was the fashion back then so was probably not quite in his right mind anyway...).

I have nothing else to add to the debate but it was quite interesting to see HM with the same tat as my dad!

[NiceTabard]

Not read whole thread.

Tattoos seem to really split people down the middle for/against.

If it were my DD I would be saying this:

It will be there for your whole life - through your twenties, 30's, when (if) you have kids, through to later lafe, retirement, elderly and you're pottering around. You need to be sure that you want it forever.

And from that, get it somewhere that is not visible generally. Yes tattoos are becoming more mainstream but still visible tattoos (hands, face, poss ankles) are going to go down BADLY in many job interviews. I have a friend who is heavily tattooed in a trad industry and even in the height of summer she has to wear long sleeves and tights/trousers to cover, and can't wear her hair up. That's just how it is, at the moment.

If you're going to do it you need to get something that is meaningful to you which isn't going to feel wanky when you're older. Or something you like the pattern of. Following positioning / pattern due to fashion (I like cheryl cole's) is not the way forward. Be the person other people copy, not a sheep.

And at the end, I wanted a tattoo since 16 but didn't get one til about 26. I am now much older than that and still happy with it. I don't pay it any mind though, it's just a part of me. I am working up the courage to get another, quite sad and rather large tattoo right now I don't regret it at all. Mostly they just become a part of what you look like, like a mole or a scar or something, just part of you. I don't know anyone who has ever wanted one removed (but lots who have lots).

There you go

Maybe show her the thread?