I am now the mother of a teenager

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I am having a constant fight with my inlaws about having the VunderKind’s ear pierced. I am opposed, and they twist the knife because of it. Since he’s living with them at the moment, it gets rubbed in real hard.

I flat out refuse to allow it before he turns 16 (early March), but most of all, I want it to be his 16th BD present from me because I’ll have mine done at the same time. I always wanted a big honkin’ ruby in my left earlobe…

Of course, they know about the BD plans, but that doesn’t stop them from threatening to have it done anyway.

22

As a person on the last of her teen years… I got lucky, my parents were cool. They thought, if it doesn’t hurt you in ten years, it’s not worth fighting over. My mom helped me dye my hair blue at one point. The only thing not allowed was a tongue piercing. I got a tattoo and my navel pierced after I turned 18. I showed them to my parents, but it wasn’t an “escape from the parents and do what I want!” thing. It’s just me expressing and imprinting something I love, and decorating. All my “decorations” hide easily under normal clothing. That was a personal requirement.

However, to those more conservative, I knew and know alot of teenagers that came from conservative homes where tattoo was a swear word. And they all graduated, went away to college, got away from the parents, and went wild. I think my parents way was safer, more responsible, and personally better.

23

My mum wants me to dye my hair dark blue and get it spiked (it’s about ten inches long now, and I’m male) on the grounds that it would look ‘hilarious’. Does that make her a cool mum?

That aside, Marlitharn, that is very good form indeed. I’ve never really thought that there was much to be gained from denying children stuff like that, especially something as trivial as an ear piercing. Intent, what you said about children of conservative parents going wild the moment they’re out of sight is pretty much what I would expect to happen. Kind of unfortunate.

~ Isaac

24

Now days ear rings and belly button rings are fairly normal
for teenagers. sometimes younger. Let them be who they
want to be. Just think of the Circumsision the boys had to
deal with when they were babys…
Is that any different. At that time they didn’t have a choice…

25

Marlitharn, you are a hell cool mother!
…that is all

26

I let Young Tiger get his ear pierced when he was young; however, in a few months a theater program he was in (in California, no less!) told him that if he wanted to be in the current play, he’d have to take the earring out. Out it came, and never went back in. So that was an easy one.

Daughter whiterabbit and her cousin both decided to get tattoos to celebrate her cousin’s 18th birthday. We were all visiting their great-grandmother in Texas, so cousin’s mother (my sister) and I decided that since I knew my way around town and had the car, I’d be delegated to go along with them and make sure the place doing the tattooing met sanitary standards. It did; they got tattoos on their ankles; we’ve never told my mother that I was the one who took them, although she knows about the tattoos – doesn’t like 'em, at least appreciates she never had a vote.

I’m with the as-long-as-you-can-live-with-it-in-ten-years school. I work with a young man who used to be a bigtime Goth, dropping out of school, hanging out in the French Quarter and generally throwing his life away. Till one day he woke up, and now he’s an honor student in a computer program, working three days a week in our very conservative law firm. As he says, “I’m just glad I didn’t get any facial tattoos!”

So yay with the piercings and blue hair! And have fun with a teenager, Marlitharn – just remember, most of the time you’re arguing with hormones!!

27

My daughter dyed her hair blue 2 days before senior pictures. :eek: (Had them posponed until she came to her senses).

28

I thought that I would pierce a lot of stuff when I was a teenager. I did have three piercings in each ear, but I didn’t wear earrings all the time. My ears are pretty sensitive to metals - it’s gold or good silver, or they get upset. I never did pierce anything else; the upkeep seemed to be too much of a bother.

I thought for sure that I would get tattoos, but I found that I couldn’t come up with something I would want to see on my body forever. Symbols that I once found important changed in their value as time went on. This was before everyone started tattooing themselves with characters from Japanese or Chinese or whatever (in my awareness, anyway), but I would have been loathe to jump on a bandwagon I couldn’t get off of.

I learned not to consider having someone’s name tattooed on me one day when I was around fourteen. My friend Tammy’s cousins were the products of her aunt, who everyone called Mom (and various and sundry men I never did get to meet). We were all hanging out, since Mom was cool with her house serving as a Grand Central Station, when I noticed the name Mike tattooed on Mom’s arm.

“Hey Mom,” I said, “who was Mike?”

“You know, honey,” she said, waving her cigarette for emphasis, “it was the seventies and to tell you the truth, I have no idea who the hell Mike was.”

We laughed. I laughed. My mind was made up on that subject, at least.

When I did dye my hair, it was always more naturally based colors, since I wasn’t willing to bleach my hair and other colors wouldn’t stick unless I did.

I started wearing black around the fourth grade whenever I could, but I had a limited wardrobe and no funds to be picky. As time wore on, I acquired more black and stayed with it. Most of my closet is black today. My mom did not disapprove and we didn’t have arguments about what I wore; she actually liked my taste, even when it came to black leather dresses.

My mom probably would have freaked if I had gone through with the piercings or tattoos or purple hair - but I didn’t give her the chance. Damn.