Judgmental Parents

And I have two of them. God knows I love my parents and they love me, but we don't see eye to eye at all on the subject of mods. They both grew up in pretty conservative households and they were teens and 20-somethings in the '70's. Tattoos and piercings were for weird people, not perfectly normal, pretty girls. My first few tattoos went over fine because they weren't visible with regular clothes on. They didn't take the foot very well, but ultimately got over it. What really did them in was the now covered fleur de lis on my left wrist. It wasn't a big tattoo, maybe 3 inches by 2 inches, but the way they reacted it was like I'd gotten an entire forearm piece done.

It came to a head when my dad cornered me and questioned my decision making. Since I felt ambushed, I didn't really have a good response. Once I calmed down and could think rationally, I explained that I'm well aware of the consequences of my actions. I'm not trying to be a rebel. I'm not trying to make a statement. This is just me. Maybe they're confused how they managed to raise a child perfectly willing to stick needles into her skin, but I think they should be proud. They raised a kid who was confident enough in herself and her own judgment to make such choices in the first place. They're still not happy with it, though my mom has warmed up to them slightly. She actually said she thought rose was pretty. Dad's still holding out on me. Yesterday he said he's waiting for the day where I've "realized I have enough".

That mentality bugs me a lot, especially from people who don't have tattoos. They automatically assume that I want to cover every inch of skin I have. Umm...why? I certainly have no desire to tattoo certain areas. Not only that, because of our history of skin cancer, my dermatologist put her foot down and said no tattoos over moles. Some parts of me are very moley, so they're an automatic no. Some places, I just don't think they look good and they certainly wouldn't look good on me. Does anyone listen to me when I try to explain this? Of course not. They clearly know more about it than I do even though it's my body.

I'm not holding my breath for them to change their minds, but it would certainly make my life easier if they'd just accept it and move on.