My son's tattoo hurt me deeply

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > My son's tattoo hurt me deeply

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

Put out the bunting, crack open the beers, stand there in the kitchen smiling from ear to ear, because he�s home � our student son is home and the family is together again. And after supper, after the washing up is done, the others � his younger siblings � drift off to watch television, and he says: �Would you like to see my tattoo?�

I say, �You�re joking.�

He says, �No, I�m not.�

But still I wait. Any minute he�s going to laugh and say, �You should see your faces� because this has been a running joke for years, this idea of getting a tattoo � the hard man act, iron muscles, shaved head, Jason Statham, Ross Kemp. He�s a clever boy. Maybe during his school years he thought a tattoo would balance the geeky glory of academic achievement.

His father says, �Where?�

�On my arm,� he says, and touches his bicep through his shirt.

His lovely shoulder.

In the silence, he says, �I didn�t think you�d be this upset.�

After a while, he says, �It wasn�t just a drunken whim. I thought about it. I went to a professional. It cost �150.�

�150? I think, briefly, of all the things I could buy with �150.

�It�s just a tattoo,� he says, when the silence goes on so long that we have nearly fallen over the edge of it into a pit of black nothingness. �It�s not as if I came home and said I�d got someone pregnant.�

It seems to me, unhinged by shock, that this might have been the better option.

His father asks, �Does it hurt?�

�Yes,� I say, cutting across this male bonding. �It does. Very much.�

For three days, I can�t speak to my son. I can hardly bear to look at him. I decide this is rational. The last thing we need, I think, is an explosion of white-hot words that everyone carries around for the rest of their lives, engraved on their hearts. In any case, I�m not even sure what it is I want to say. In my mind�s eye I stand there, a bitter old woman with pursed lips wringing my black-gloved hands. He�s done the one thing that I�ve said for years, please don�t do this. It would really upset me if you did this. And now it�s happened. So there�s nothing left to say.

I know you can�t control what your children do. Why would you want to, anyway? If you controlled what they did, you�d just pass on your own rubbish tip of imperfections. You hope the next generation will be better, stronger, more generous. I know all you can do as a parent is to pack their bags and wave as you watch them go.

So I cry instead. I have a lump in my throat that stops me from eating. I feel as if someone has died. I keep thinking of his skin, his precious skin, inked like a pig carcass.

My neighbour says, �There�s a lot of it about. So many teenagers are doing it.� I stare at pictures of David Beckham with his flowery sleeves, Angelina Jolie all veins and scrawls. Tattoos are everywhere. They seem no more alternative than piercings these days. But I still don�t understand. Sam Cam with her smudgy dolphin, the heavily tattooed at Royal Ascot � these people are role models?

�My niece had doves tattooed on her breasts,� says a friend, �And her father said, you wait, in a few years� time they�ll be vultures.�

It�s the permanence that makes me weep. As if the Joker had made face paints from acid. Your youthful passion for ever on display, like a CD of the Smiths stapled to your forehead. The British Association of Dermatologists recently surveyed just under 600 patients with visible tattoos. Nearly half of them had been inked between the ages of 18 and 25, and nearly a third of them regretted it.

I look up laser removal. Which is a possibility, I think miserably, that only works if you want a tattoo removed. And I�m not in charge here. My son is.

My husband asks, �Have you seen it yet?�

I shake my head. Like a child, I am hoping that if I keep my eyes tightly shut the whole thing will disappear.

�It�s his body,� he says gently. �His choice.�

�But what if he wants to be a lawyer?�

�A lawyer?�

�Or an accountant.�

�He�ll be wearing a suit. No one will ever know. And he doesn�t want to be a lawyer. Or an accountant.�

I know. I know.

I meet a colleague for lunch. �He knew how much it would hurt me,� I say, tears running down my face. �For years I�ve said, don�t do it. It�s there for ever, even after you�ve changed your mind about who you are and what you want to look like. You�re branded, like meat. It can damage your work prospects. It can turn people against you before you�ve even opened your mouth.�

She says, �Tell him how you feel.�

But I can�t. For a start, I know I�m being completely unreasonable. This level of grief is absurd. He�s not dying, he hasn�t killed anyone, he hasn�t volunteered to fight on behalf of a military dictatorship. But I feel as though a knife is twisting in my guts.

I get angry with myself. This is nothing but snobbery, I think � latent anxiety about the trappings of class. As if my son had deliberately turned his back on a light Victoria sponge and stuffed his face with cheap doughnuts. I am aware, too, that I associate tattoos on men with aggression, the kind of arrogant swagger that goes with vest tops, dogs on chains, broken beer glasses.

Is this what other women feel? Or perhaps, I think, with an uncomfortable lurch of realisation, just what older women feel. I stand, a lone tyrannosaurus, bellowing at a world I don�t understand.

Tattoos used to be the preserve of criminals and toffs. And sailors. In the 1850s, the corpses of seamen washed up on the coast of north Cornwall were �strangely decorated� with blue, according to Robert Hawker, the vicar of Morwenstow � initials, or drawings of anchors, flowers or religious symbols (�Our blessed Saviour on His Cross, with on the one hand His mother, and on the other St John the Evangelist�). �It is their object and intent, when they assume these signs,� says Hawker, �to secure identity for their bodies if their lives are lost at sea.�

Tattoos, then, were intensely practical, like brightly coloured smit marks on sheep.

Perhaps even then this was a fashion statement, a badge of belonging. Or just what you did after too much rum. Later, the aristocracy flirted with body art. According to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich (they know a lot about tattoos), Edward VII had a Jerusalem cross on his arm while both his sons, the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of York (later George V), had dragon tattoos. Lady Randolph Churchill, Winston�s mum, had a snake on her wrist.

But you can do what you like if you�re rich.

On day three, still in a fog of misery, I say to him, �Shall we talk?�

We sit down with cups of coffee. I open my mouth to speak and end up crying instead. I say, �You couldn�t have done anything to hurt me more.�

He is cool and detached. He says, �I think you need to re-examine your prejudices.�

I think, but I have! I�ve done nothing else for three days! But I don�t say that because we aren�t really talking to each other. These are rehearsed lines, clever insults flung across the dispatch box. (This is what comes of not exploding in anger in the heat of the moment.)

I say, �Why couldn�t you have waited until you�d left home? Why now when you�re living here half the year?�

�It�s something I�ve been thinking about for a long time. There didn�t seem any reason to wait.�

Which makes it worse.

�I�m an adult,� he says. �I paid for it with my own money. Money I earned.�

But we�re supporting you as well, I think. As far as I know, you don�t have separate bank accounts for your various income streams. So who knows? Maybe we paid for it. �If you don�t want to see it, that�s fine,� he says. �When I�m at home, I�ll cover it up. Your house, your rules.�

In my head, I think, I thought it was your house, too.

He says, �I�m upset that you�re upset. But I�m not going to apologise.�

�I don�t want you to apologise,� I say. (A lie. Grovelling self-abasement might help.)

He says, �I�m still the same person.�

I look at him, sitting there, my 21-year-old son. I feel I�m being interviewed for a job I don�t even want. I say, �But you�re not. You�re different. I will never look at you in the same way again. It�s a visceral feeling. Maybe because I�m your mother. All those years of looking after your body � taking you to the dentist and making you drink milk and worrying about green leafy vegetables and sunscreen and cancer from mobile phones. And then you let some stranger inject ink under your skin. To me, it seems like self-mutilation. If you�d lost your arm in a car accident, I would have understood. I would have done everything to make you feel better. But this � this is desecration. And I hate it.�

We look at each other. There seems nothing left to say.

Over the next few days, my son � always covered up � talks to me as if the row had never happened. I talk to him, too, but warily. Because I�m no longer sure I know him.

And this is when I realise that all my endless self-examination was completely pointless. What I think, or don�t think, about tattoos is irrelevant. Because this is the point. Tattoos are fashionable. They may even be beautiful. (Just because I hate them doesn�t mean I�m right.) But by deciding to have a tattoo, my son took a meat cleaver to my apron strings. He may not have wanted to hurt me. I hope he didn�t. But my feelings, as he made his decision, were completely unimportant.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.

I am redundant. And that�s a legitimate cause for grief, I think.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/aug/11/devastated-by-my-sons-tattoo

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:13

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 8, 2024 00:01

PTSDeedly Do: Nov 24, 2014; VOID-DOME LOSER 2020

I want a tattoo of a 3
Son; with

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:15

gimme the GOD DAMN candy: Jul 1, 2007

i'm not clicking that link, gurf

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:15

drilldo squirt: Aug 18, 2006; a beautiful, soft meat sack; Clapping Larry

gimme the GOD drat candy posted:

i'm not clicking that link, gurf

I didn't even read the op.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:17

Pretty good: Apr 16, 2007

narcissistic personality disorder is extremely good

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:18

Mr. Sharps: Jul 30, 2006; The only true law is that which leads to freedom. There is no other.

Thanks op, I read the whole thing. Very interesting, that gal is a weenie and I wanna know what the sweet tat was!

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:22

Emmideer: Oct 20, 2011; Lovely night, no?; Grimey Drawer

I don't see a pic

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:22

Mr. Sharps: Jul 30, 2006; The only true law is that which leads to freedom. There is no other.

itt: we imagine what the tattoo could be.

I bet it's a heart with a banner that says "I love you Mom"

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:23

ClamdestineBoyster: Aug 15, 2015; Can't post for 10 years!

Jfc what was the tattoo of? I bet it was a penis. Big floppy cartoon donger. :mmmsmug:

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:24

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

I really like the part where after describing how she refused to look at or speak to him for days she writes "I decide this is rational"

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:26

Mr. Merdle: Oct 17, 2007; THE GREAT MANBABY SUCCESSOR

This woman is very well spoken but also very dumb. Huh.

I also laughed a lot at her absurd over dramatizations about a tattoo.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:26

Onkel Hedwig: Jun 27, 2007

My son and his lovely shoulder

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:29

Mr. Merdle: Oct 17, 2007; THE GREAT MANBABY SUCCESSOR

Onkel Hedwig posted:

My son and his lovely shoulder

My Son's Lovely Shoulder is a good username imo

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:31

Bareback Werewolf: Oct 5, 2013; ~*blessed by the algorithm*~

Your son is a lost cause. :sever:

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:33

SLICK GOKU BABY: Jun 12, 2001; Hey Hey Let's Go! 喧嘩する
大切な物を protect my balls

IronicDongz posted:

Put out the bunting, crack open the beers, stand there in the kitchen smiling from ear to ear, because he�s home � our student son is home and the family is together again. And after supper, after the washing up is done, the others � his younger siblings � drift off to watch television, and he says: �Would you like to see my tattoo?�

I say, �You�re joking.�

He says, �No, I�m not.�

But still I wait. Any minute he�s going to laugh and say, �You should see your faces� because this has been a running joke for years, this idea of getting a tattoo � the hard man act, iron muscles, shaved head, Jason Statham, Ross Kemp. He�s a clever boy. Maybe during his school years he thought a tattoo would balance the geeky glory of academic achievement.

His father says, �Where?�

�On my arm,� he says, and touches his bicep through his shirt.

His lovely shoulder.

In the silence, he says, �I didn�t think you�d be this upset.�

After a while, he says, �It wasn�t just a drunken whim. I thought about it. I went to a professional. It cost �150.�

�150? I think, briefly, of all the things I could buy with �150.

�It�s just a tattoo,� he says, when the silence goes on so long that we have nearly fallen over the edge of it into a pit of black nothingness. �It�s not as if I came home and said I�d got someone pregnant.�

It seems to me, unhinged by shock, that this might have been the better option.

His father asks, �Does it hurt?�

�Yes,� I say, cutting across this male bonding. �It does. Very much.�

For three days, I can�t speak to my son. I can hardly bear to look at him. I decide this is rational. The last thing we need, I think, is an explosion of white-hot words that everyone carries around for the rest of their lives, engraved on their hearts. In any case, I�m not even sure what it is I want to say. In my mind�s eye I stand there, a bitter old woman with pursed lips wringing my black-gloved hands. He�s done the one thing that I�ve said for years, please don�t do this. It would really upset me if you did this. And now it�s happened. So there�s nothing left to say.

I know you can�t control what your children do. Why would you want to, anyway? If you controlled what they did, you�d just pass on your own rubbish tip of imperfections. You hope the next generation will be better, stronger, more generous. I know all you can do as a parent is to pack their bags and wave as you watch them go.

So I cry instead. I have a lump in my throat that stops me from eating. I feel as if someone has died. I keep thinking of his skin, his precious skin, inked like a pig carcass.

My neighbour says, �There�s a lot of it about. So many teenagers are doing it.� I stare at pictures of David Beckham with his flowery sleeves, Angelina Jolie all veins and scrawls. Tattoos are everywhere. They seem no more alternative than piercings these days. But I still don�t understand. Sam Cam with her smudgy dolphin, the heavily tattooed at Royal Ascot � these people are role models?

�My niece had doves tattooed on her breasts,� says a friend, �And her father said, you wait, in a few years� time they�ll be vultures.�

It�s the permanence that makes me weep. As if the Joker had made face paints from acid. Your youthful passion for ever on display, like a CD of the Smiths stapled to your forehead. The British Association of Dermatologists recently surveyed just under 600 patients with visible tattoos. Nearly half of them had been inked between the ages of 18 and 25, and nearly a third of them regretted it.

I look up laser removal. Which is a possibility, I think miserably, that only works if you want a tattoo removed. And I�m not in charge here. My son is.

My husband asks, �Have you seen it yet?�

I shake my head. Like a child, I am hoping that if I keep my eyes tightly shut the whole thing will disappear.

�It�s his body,� he says gently. �His choice.�

�But what if he wants to be a lawyer?�

�A lawyer?�

�Or an accountant.�

�He�ll be wearing a suit. No one will ever know. And he doesn�t want to be a lawyer. Or an accountant.�

I know. I know.

I meet a colleague for lunch. �He knew how much it would hurt me,� I say, tears running down my face. �For years I�ve said, don�t do it. It�s there for ever, even after you�ve changed your mind about who you are and what you want to look like. You�re branded, like meat. It can damage your work prospects. It can turn people against you before you�ve even opened your mouth.�

She says, �Tell him how you feel.�

But I can�t. For a start, I know I�m being completely unreasonable. This level of grief is absurd. He�s not dying, he hasn�t killed anyone, he hasn�t volunteered to fight on behalf of a military dictatorship. But I feel as though a knife is twisting in my guts.

I get angry with myself. This is nothing but snobbery, I think � latent anxiety about the trappings of class. As if my son had deliberately turned his back on a light Victoria sponge and stuffed his face with cheap doughnuts. I am aware, too, that I associate tattoos on men with aggression, the kind of arrogant swagger that goes with vest tops, dogs on chains, broken beer glasses.

Is this what other women feel? Or perhaps, I think, with an uncomfortable lurch of realisation, just what older women feel. I stand, a lone tyrannosaurus, bellowing at a world I don�t understand.

Tattoos used to be the preserve of criminals and toffs. And sailors. In the 1850s, the corpses of seamen washed up on the coast of north Cornwall were �strangely decorated� with blue, according to Robert Hawker, the vicar of Morwenstow � initials, or drawings of anchors, flowers or religious symbols (�Our blessed Saviour on His Cross, with on the one hand His mother, and on the other St John the Evangelist�). �It is their object and intent, when they assume these signs,� says Hawker, �to secure identity for their bodies if their lives are lost at sea.�

Tattoos, then, were intensely practical, like brightly coloured smit marks on sheep.

Perhaps even then this was a fashion statement, a badge of belonging. Or just what you did after too much rum. Later, the aristocracy flirted with body art. According to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich (they know a lot about tattoos), Edward VII had a Jerusalem cross on his arm while both his sons, the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of York (later George V), had dragon tattoos. Lady Randolph Churchill, Winston�s mum, had a snake on her wrist.

But you can do what you like if you�re rich.

On day three, still in a fog of misery, I say to him, �Shall we talk?�

We sit down with cups of coffee. I open my mouth to speak and end up crying instead. I say, �You couldn�t have done anything to hurt me more.�

He is cool and detached. He says, �I think you need to re-examine your prejudices.�

I think, but I have! I�ve done nothing else for three days! But I don�t say that because we aren�t really talking to each other. These are rehearsed lines, clever insults flung across the dispatch box. (This is what comes of not exploding in anger in the heat of the moment.)

I say, �Why couldn�t you have waited until you�d left home? Why now when you�re living here half the year?�

�It�s something I�ve been thinking about for a long time. There didn�t seem any reason to wait.�

Which makes it worse.

�I�m an adult,� he says. �I paid for it with my own money. Money I earned.�

But we�re supporting you as well, I think. As far as I know, you don�t have separate bank accounts for your various income streams. So who knows? Maybe we paid for it. �If you don�t want to see it, that�s fine,� he says. �When I�m at home, I�ll cover it up. Your house, your rules.�

In my head, I think, I thought it was your house, too.

He says, �I�m upset that you�re upset. But I�m not going to apologise.�

�I don�t want you to apologise,� I say. (A lie. Grovelling self-abasement might help.)

He says, �I�m still the same person.�

I look at him, sitting there, my 21-year-old son. I feel I�m being interviewed for a job I don�t even want. I say, �But you�re not. You�re different. I will never look at you in the same way again. It�s a visceral feeling. Maybe because I�m your mother. All those years of looking after your body � taking you to the dentist and making you drink milk and worrying about green leafy vegetables and sunscreen and cancer from mobile phones. And then you let some stranger inject ink under your skin. To me, it seems like self-mutilation. If you�d lost your arm in a car accident, I would have understood. I would have done everything to make you feel better. But this � this is desecration. And I hate it.�

We look at each other. There seems nothing left to say.

Over the next few days, my son � always covered up � talks to me as if the row had never happened. I talk to him, too, but warily. Because I�m no longer sure I know him.

And this is when I realise that all my endless self-examination was completely pointless. What I think, or don�t think, about tattoos is irrelevant. Because this is the point. Tattoos are fashionable. They may even be beautiful. (Just because I hate them doesn�t mean I�m right.) But by deciding to have a tattoo, my son took a meat cleaver to my apron strings. He may not have wanted to hurt me. I hope he didn�t. But my feelings, as he made his decision, were completely unimportant.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.

I am redundant. And that�s a legitimate cause for grief, I think.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/aug/11/devastated-by-my-sons-tattoo

TL:DR

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:34

500excf type r: Mar 7, 2013; I'm as annoying as the high-pitched whine of my motorcycle, desperately compensating for the lack of substance in my life.

I was hoping the son never got a tattoo and was just teaching him mom a lesson, she still has never seen the tattoo....

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:39

get that OUT of my face: Feb 10, 2007

i kinda want to get a tattoo, in spite of the old wives' tale saying that you can't be buried in a jewish cemetery if you have one (you can)

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:42

Les Os: Mar 29, 2010

The dad was gay

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:42

The Landstander: Apr 20, 2004; I stand on land.

Man, I read the post title and automatically assumed "the tattoo was seen as offensive in some way". Never even crossed my mind that it could be a blanket objection to the concept of tattoos, was several paragraphs in before it dawned on me.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:45

ClamdestineBoyster: Aug 15, 2015; Can't post for 10 years!

I wanna get boobs tattooed on my balls. So they just look like boobs. That would be cool. :smuggo:

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:45

super sweet best pal: Nov 18, 2009

Clicked expecting viletat.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 06:48

flesh dance: May 6, 2009

lol just lmao at this insane woman publicly authoring her histrionic meltdown over something invisible under a t-shirt like it's the pokemon hentai rape full hand/arm tattoo, except on his face

what i mean is the son really needs to step up his game here

e:

EX250 Type R posted:

I was hoping the son never got a tattoo and was just teaching him mom a lesson, she still has never seen the tattoo....

even better

flesh dance fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Jul 6, 2017

# ? Jul 6, 2017 07:20

Blurry Gray Thing: Jun 3, 2009

IronicDongz posted:

I stand, a lone tyrannosaurus, bellowing at a world I don�t understand.

Hell, same.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 07:39

SMILLENNIALSMILLEN: Jun 26, 2009

I don't understand why the son wanted to hurt his mother so badly.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 07:48

ScRoTo TuRbOtUrD: Jan 21, 2007

Do not educate stupid people - a treatise

# ? Jul 6, 2017 07:57

meet girls at the store: Nov 4, 2002

The hell is a vest top?

# ? Jul 6, 2017 08:06

Altared State: Jan 14, 2006; I think I was born to burn

You read a story from five years ago. Congrats.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 08:08

ArbitraryC: Jan 28, 2009; Pick a number, any number; Pillbug

Lil Peeler posted:

This woman is very well spoken but also very dumb. Huh.

I also laughed a lot at her absurd over dramatizations about a tattoo.

I think all the flowery language is supposed to make the last two lines about how "it's not about the tattoo it's just about her little boy growing up" look powerful but instead she just looks like a jackass.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 08:20

R-Type: Oct 10, 2005; by FactsAreUseless

Its time for those three little words that all parents should use more frequently than not, unfortunately.

So, as a parent, lets all be reminded that it's important that we communicate when facing situations like coming out, incarceration for crimes, wrecking a car, or getting a tattoo.

Face your child, look in their eyes and say these three little words as if you were talking to their heart:

YOU

DISGUST

ME

# ? Jul 6, 2017 08:22

a bone to pick: Sep 14, 2011; by FactsAreUseless

IronicDongz posted:

I really like the part where after describing how she refused to look at or speak to him for days she writes "I decide this is rational"

Call me crazy but I think that was a mom making a joke about how she overreacted.

I know you guys immediately want to hate the woman in the story but I think this is a general mom story.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 08:24

ArbitraryC: Jan 28, 2009; Pick a number, any number; Pillbug

a bone to pick posted:

Call me crazy but I think that was a mom making a joke about how she overreacted.

I know you guys immediately want to hate the woman in the story but I think this is a general mom story.

I get that the point of the story is to show how self aware she is but it still falls flat imo.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 08:27

FisheyStix: Jul 2, 2008; This avatar was paid for by the Silent Majority.

IronicDongz posted:

Put out the bunting, crack open the beers, stand there in the kitchen smiling from ear to ear, because he�s home � our student son is home and the family is together again. And after supper, after the washing up is done, the others � his younger siblings � drift off to watch television, and he says: �Would you like to see my tattoo?�

I say, �You�re joking.�

He says, �No, I�m not.�

But still I wait. Any minute he�s going to laugh and say, �You should see your faces� because this has been a running joke for years, this idea of getting a tattoo � the hard man act, iron muscles, shaved head, Jason Statham, Ross Kemp. He�s a clever boy. Maybe during his school years he thought a tattoo would balance the geeky glory of academic achievement.

His father says, �Where?�

�On my arm,� he says, and touches his bicep through his shirt.

His lovely shoulder.

In the silence, he says, �I didn�t think you�d be this upset.�

After a while, he says, �It wasn�t just a drunken whim. I thought about it. I went to a professional. It cost �150.�

�150? I think, briefly, of all the things I could buy with �150.

�It�s just a tattoo,� he says, when the silence goes on so long that we have nearly fallen over the edge of it into a pit of black nothingness. �It�s not as if I came home and said I�d got someone pregnant.�

It seems to me, unhinged by shock, that this might have been the better option.

His father asks, �Does it hurt?�

�Yes,� I say, cutting across this male bonding. �It does. Very much.�

For three days, I can�t speak to my son. I can hardly bear to look at him. I decide this is rational. The last thing we need, I think, is an explosion of white-hot words that everyone carries around for the rest of their lives, engraved on their hearts. In any case, I�m not even sure what it is I want to say. In my mind�s eye I stand there, a bitter old woman with pursed lips wringing my black-gloved hands. He�s done the one thing that I�ve said for years, please don�t do this. It would really upset me if you did this. And now it�s happened. So there�s nothing left to say.

I know you can�t control what your children do. Why would you want to, anyway? If you controlled what they did, you�d just pass on your own rubbish tip of imperfections. You hope the next generation will be better, stronger, more generous. I know all you can do as a parent is to pack their bags and wave as you watch them go.

So I cry instead. I have a lump in my throat that stops me from eating. I feel as if someone has died. I keep thinking of his skin, his precious skin, inked like a pig carcass.

My neighbour says, �There�s a lot of it about. So many teenagers are doing it.� I stare at pictures of David Beckham with his flowery sleeves, Angelina Jolie all veins and scrawls. Tattoos are everywhere. They seem no more alternative than piercings these days. But I still don�t understand. Sam Cam with her smudgy dolphin, the heavily tattooed at Royal Ascot � these people are role models?

�My niece had doves tattooed on her breasts,� says a friend, �And her father said, you wait, in a few years� time they�ll be vultures.�

It�s the permanence that makes me weep. As if the Joker had made face paints from acid. Your youthful passion for ever on display, like a CD of the Smiths stapled to your forehead. The British Association of Dermatologists recently surveyed just under 600 patients with visible tattoos. Nearly half of them had been inked between the ages of 18 and 25, and nearly a third of them regretted it.

I look up laser removal. Which is a possibility, I think miserably, that only works if you want a tattoo removed. And I�m not in charge here. My son is.

My husband asks, �Have you seen it yet?�

I shake my head. Like a child, I am hoping that if I keep my eyes tightly shut the whole thing will disappear.

�It�s his body,� he says gently. �His choice.�

�But what if he wants to be a lawyer?�

�A lawyer?�

�Or an accountant.�

�He�ll be wearing a suit. No one will ever know. And he doesn�t want to be a lawyer. Or an accountant.�

I know. I know.

I meet a colleague for lunch. �He knew how much it would hurt me,� I say, tears running down my face. �For years I�ve said, don�t do it. It�s there for ever, even after you�ve changed your mind about who you are and what you want to look like. You�re branded, like meat. It can damage your work prospects. It can turn people against you before you�ve even opened your mouth.�

She says, �Tell him how you feel.�

But I can�t. For a start, I know I�m being completely unreasonable. This level of grief is absurd. He�s not dying, he hasn�t killed anyone, he hasn�t volunteered to fight on behalf of a military dictatorship. But I feel as though a knife is twisting in my guts.

I get angry with myself. This is nothing but snobbery, I think � latent anxiety about the trappings of class. As if my son had deliberately turned his back on a light Victoria sponge and stuffed his face with cheap doughnuts. I am aware, too, that I associate tattoos on men with aggression, the kind of arrogant swagger that goes with vest tops, dogs on chains, broken beer glasses.

Is this what other women feel? Or perhaps, I think, with an uncomfortable lurch of realisation, just what older women feel. I stand, a lone tyrannosaurus, bellowing at a world I don�t understand.

Tattoos used to be the preserve of criminals and toffs. And sailors. In the 1850s, the corpses of seamen washed up on the coast of north Cornwall were �strangely decorated� with blue, according to Robert Hawker, the vicar of Morwenstow � initials, or drawings of anchors, flowers or religious symbols (�Our blessed Saviour on His Cross, with on the one hand His mother, and on the other St John the Evangelist�). �It is their object and intent, when they assume these signs,� says Hawker, �to secure identity for their bodies if their lives are lost at sea.�

Tattoos, then, were intensely practical, like brightly coloured smit marks on sheep.

Perhaps even then this was a fashion statement, a badge of belonging. Or just what you did after too much rum. Later, the aristocracy flirted with body art. According to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich (they know a lot about tattoos), Edward VII had a Jerusalem cross on his arm while both his sons, the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of York (later George V), had dragon tattoos. Lady Randolph Churchill, Winston�s mum, had a snake on her wrist.

But you can do what you like if you�re rich.

On day three, still in a fog of misery, I say to him, �Shall we talk?�

We sit down with cups of coffee. I open my mouth to speak and end up crying instead. I say, �You couldn�t have done anything to hurt me more.�

He is cool and detached. He says, �I think you need to re-examine your prejudices.�

I think, but I have! I�ve done nothing else for three days! But I don�t say that because we aren�t really talking to each other. These are rehearsed lines, clever insults flung across the dispatch box. (This is what comes of not exploding in anger in the heat of the moment.)

I say, �Why couldn�t you have waited until you�d left home? Why now when you�re living here half the year?�

�It�s something I�ve been thinking about for a long time. There didn�t seem any reason to wait.�

Which makes it worse.

�I�m an adult,� he says. �I paid for it with my own money. Money I earned.�

But we�re supporting you as well, I think. As far as I know, you don�t have separate bank accounts for your various income streams. So who knows? Maybe we paid for it. �If you don�t want to see it, that�s fine,� he says. �When I�m at home, I�ll cover it up. Your house, your rules.�

In my head, I think, I thought it was your house, too.

He says, �I�m upset that you�re upset. But I�m not going to apologise.�

�I don�t want you to apologise,� I say. (A lie. Grovelling self-abasement might help.)

He says, �I�m still the same person.�

I look at him, sitting there, my 21-year-old son. I feel I�m being interviewed for a job I don�t even want. I say, �But you�re not. You�re different. I will never look at you in the same way again. It�s a visceral feeling. Maybe because I�m your mother. All those years of looking after your body � taking you to the dentist and making you drink milk and worrying about green leafy vegetables and sunscreen and cancer from mobile phones. And then you let some stranger inject ink under your skin. To me, it seems like self-mutilation. If you�d lost your arm in a car accident, I would have understood. I would have done everything to make you feel better. But this � this is desecration. And I hate it.�

We look at each other. There seems nothing left to say.

Over the next few days, my son � always covered up � talks to me as if the row had never happened. I talk to him, too, but warily. Because I�m no longer sure I know him.

And this is when I realise that all my endless self-examination was completely pointless. What I think, or don�t think, about tattoos is irrelevant. Because this is the point. Tattoos are fashionable. They may even be beautiful. (Just because I hate them doesn�t mean I�m right.) But by deciding to have a tattoo, my son took a meat cleaver to my apron strings. He may not have wanted to hurt me. I hope he didn�t. But my feelings, as he made his decision, were completely unimportant.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.

I am redundant. And that�s a legitimate cause for grief, I think.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/aug/11/devastated-by-my-sons-tattoo

The only thing left for your son to do is find a girl with a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge forehead to pine after

# ? Jul 6, 2017 08:29

BIG PUFFY NIPS: Mar 7, 2007; College Slice

yeah im profoundly mentally ill too

# ? Jul 6, 2017 08:36

ArbitraryC: Jan 28, 2009; Pick a number, any number; Pillbug

tl:dr I was a piece of poo poo but maybe learned my lesson, please everyone pat me on the back for my newfound sense of self awareness.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 08:42

Nut to Butt: Apr 13, 2009; by FactsAreUseless

Blurry Gray Thing posted:

Hell, same.

lmao

# ? Jul 6, 2017 08:58

Fur20: Nov 14, 2007; すご▞い！
君は働か░い
フ▙▓ズなんだね！

IronicDongz posted:

I am redundant. And that�s a legitimate cause for grief, I think.

lady i know, you just spent three pages being redundant to prove this point but like you shouldn't beat yourself up over it

# ? Jul 6, 2017 09:02

Thundercloud: Mar 28, 2010; To boldly be eaten where no grot has been eaten before!

This is from a series of Guardian articles that include things like 'I am lonely living in my literal castle with obscene wealth provided by my husband'.

It's a look into the mind set of the sort of people who write for the Guardian, and why it is a shitrag.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 09:15

Zzulu: May 15, 2009; (â°ËvËâ°)

Was waiting for the mom to bang the son

# ? Jul 6, 2017 09:18

Lawrence Gilchrist: Mar 31, 2010

this prose is so purple it died shortly after childbirth for lack of oxygen

Thundercloud posted:

This is from a series of Guardian articles that include things like 'I am lonely living in my literal castle with obscene wealth provided by my husband'.

It's a look into the mind set of the sort of people who write for the Guardian, and why it is a shitrag.

I convinced myself this statement was rational

# ? Jul 6, 2017 09:24

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 8, 2024 00:01

Murray Mantoinette: Jun 11, 2005; ＴＨＥＰＯＳＴＳＭＵＳＴＦＬＯＷ; Clapping Larry

More like the Tardian.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 09:35

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > My son's tattoo hurt me deeply

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