Tattoos

I’m not crazy about tattoos. In fact, I really don’t like them. This is a very personal preference and I’m not being judgemental. It’s the same with jeans that some men wear which expose most of their underpants. Another personal preference because a lot of men, young and old, wear them.

When my children were teenagers I warned them against tattoos. Have as many piercings as you like because you can change your mind. The holes will grow closed. With a tattoo you’re stuck with it forever!

When my son was seventeen and had finished his A Levels he went with a few of his friends to Spain. I wasn’t happy about this. My husband, always the pragmatist, told me to stop worrying. Everything would be fine. He’s almost an adult and needs to take responsibility.

My son came back sporting a tattoo. I was horrified and ‘went off on one’! That was probably an understatement! I flipped! My husband, not a tattoo fan either, was quite blasé which upset me even more, if that was possible! My daughter shrugged her shoulders and went for a walk for some ‘peace and quiet’! The saving grace was that it was on the top of his arm so could always be hidden. But what if he decided to get more! It didn’t bear thinking about! Weeks later I was shown the arm again. It had been a henna tattoo and had worn off. He found it hilarious! I wasn’t amused!

Our summer hasn’t been great but we have had some rare warm, sunny days. This is when bodies come out and tattoos are proudly on display. Years ago when I lived in East London in South Africa, the town had a natural harbour. Many ships docked and the place was regularly filled with sailors. As young girls we were warned to stay away from them at all costs! Sailors had girls in every port and could never be trusted! A nice girl never went out with a sailor!

That was my first sighting of a tattoo. Many sailors sported them and they were proudly displayed as they wandered around the town centre. I don’t know what it was about a man in a uniform, or perhaps it was just part of being a teenager and wanting to push boundaries, but my friends and I never found them as awful as my mother had warned. We didn’t go out with any, but smiled coyly back at them when they greeted us, then rushed into the nearest shop!

But I wasn’t enamoured with their tattoos and could never understand why someone would want a picture of a girl, some barely dressed, on their arms! Maybe it was just to pass the time away.

But now we have people of all walks of life sporting tattoos. Sportsmen, many of them icons, have bodies covered in different hues, not only black or navy. The sad thing is that many of these celebrities are role models and, if it’s okay for David Beckham to have tattoos all over his body, then that must be the way to go.

I was speaking to my granddaughter a while ago. Like me she isn’t a tattoo fan. I told her about my dislike of them and we chatted for a while about how having a tattoo in your youth unfortunately will stay with you forever. Tattoo in haste, repent in leisure! I then spoke to my daughter in law and the conversation came around to beauty treatments.

My daughter in law has had her lips ‘done’, a line tattooed around the edge and a pale pink as an infill. It then struck me that, although I really dislike tattoos, I actually have them myself! My eyebrows and eyelids are tattooed! My eyebrows have been tattooed for the last six years. So, am I the pot calling the kettle black? Maybe.

I’m using them as an enhancement, not as random body painting. Does that count? Oh well, you can make up your own minds. Thankfully we’re all different. It’s what makes us unique. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Tattoos just aren’t in mine! 👠