My Mother’s First Tattoo

My Mother’s First Tattoo

My mother and I have never got along particularly well. Our relationship was "you leave me alone and I'll you alone."

When I first took an interest in modification, around the age of 14, she hated it. It was the source of countless fights, insults, and incidents that nearly led to me being kicked out of her house. She saw it as something I was doing out of peer pressure, which was absurd, as at the time none of my friends had any interest in modification. I didn't even know anyone, online or offline, who had any piercings other than their ears. To her, this was nothing more than a phase I'd eventually grow out of. She argued that I was ruining my life, that I'd never get a job, that my visible piercings would get me into fights at school, the list goes on and on. My father, though he never said much about it to me, felt the same way she did.

Somewhere along the line, something changed. When my 18th birthday rolled around, I was in college, living 17 hours away from my parents. My father called me one day and asked what I wanted for my birthday. I said I wanted a tattoo, expecting him to hang up on me. To my amazement, he said OK. So, when I was visiting for Christmas, my father paid for my first tattoo. My favourite birthday present thus far as it represents so many things.

It was then that I found out my mother had always wanted a tattoo. More specifically, she had always wanted a facial tattoo; a tiny butterfly tattoo close to one eye. As my father had threatened to divorce her if she ever got it, it was unfortunately something she never pursued. She was outraged that my father deemed it OK for me to have one. This led to many more fights.

Eventually, I had moved back into my parents house. After being back for about six months, my mother approached me and said she wanted to get a tattoo, regardless of how my father would react. I helped her pick out an image and took her to the studio to set up an appointment. A few days after she got her tattoo she approached me again. This time saying she wanted to get her eyebrow pierced. All the memories of the things she had said when I had my eyebrow pierced came flooding back.