This year I got a massive tattoo on my arm. It didn’t cross my mind to talk to my mum about it first – I’m a grown man, in my 30s. But a few months back, when I casually mentioned tattoos on the phone to her, she was beside herself. She made me promise I would never get one. Now she has decided to come to visit for the first time in 10 years, and I won’t be able to hide the tattoo. So I need to break it to her somehow. I could wait and talk to her once she is here, or maybe it’s better to do it over the phone? I love the tattoo and don’t regret it. It may not be how my mother wishes to see me, but it is who I am.
As a mother myself, I find it sweet that you still care what yours thinks and feels. My daughter is on the precipice of becoming a teenager, and I confess the dread that I feel at the thought of her getting a tattoo – on her face. Her body I can take: I wouldn’t declare it a national holiday, but I wouldn’t be depressed for a year, which is how I imagine I would feel if she tatted her face.
Every time I voice this anxiety aloud, my husband shushes me and tells me that putting it out there will only make it infinitely more appealing to our kids.
I’m not suggesting that your mother’s distaste for ink was the only motivation behind your decision, if indeed it was any motivation at all. And, let’s be honest, tattoos don’t have the countercultural associations they once had; most of the mothers at my children’s schools now have them. But we mothers can’t help but remember how we felt when you were born – all pink and perfect, without a blemish on your body.
Still, life happens. Our bodies don’t stay perfect: we get permanent scars that we don’t ask for, both inside and out. I believe that tattoos can symbolise what we feel in our soul, put on the outside for the world to see. In your final sentence, you say it all: it may not be how your mother sees you, but it’s who you are. It’s time for your mother to accept you and to let go of some perfect vision of you that she has been holding on to. I suggest you tell her on the phone, so she’ll have time to get it together before the trip.
In the meantime, maybe you could get another one? Surprise her with a big heart with “Mother” inside, a big arrow going right through it.
• Send your dilemmas about love, family or life in general to askmolly@theguardian.com
