Doina S.’s daughter was fourteen when she wanted her belly button pierced. So mom and dad went with her to meet the guy who was conducting the piercing, had him show them his sterilization method, the procedure was done, and they thought that was the end of it.
But a few years later, her daughter announced she was getting a tattoo, and Doina wasn’t thrilled. “It’s hard for a mom to see something that’s ‘perfect’ getting marked up,” says Doina, thirty-eight, a mother of three and owner of a health and wellness spa in southern Nevada. “I figured that part of growing up and becoming independent is making choices. She has always been sensible and we trusted her.” And the result?
“I hate her tattoo,” says Doina of the unicorn stomping on the moon on her daughter’s lower back. “You might as well poke me in the eye.”
Indeed, when it comes to body decoration, teens are often from Mars and parents from, well, Earth. Parents generally aren’t fond of the idea of marking up their babies with tattoos, piercings, and strange dye jobs.
Yet body decoration is no longer the domain of sailors, tribesmen, and the “bad kids”-even the “good ones” want them. Why? “They do it to stand out and be different,” says Pamela Cantor, Ph.D., a lecturer in psychology, Department of Psychiatry, The Cambridge Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts, who treats adolescents, “just as you might make a statement by wearing all black and being Goth.”
What’s a Big Deal and What’s Not
There are all kinds of body art, including piercings (think ear, nose, tongue, eyebrow, belly button) to tattoos (think anywhere!) to extreme haircuts, such as head shaving and permanent hair dying. What should you be concerned about as a parent?
The answer largely will depend on your parenting style, but let’s start with health concerns, which are paramount. Your teenage daughter dying her hair purple may seem harmless enough, but permanent dyes can produce allergic reactions to skin. “A test of the dye on the skin should be done prior to the complete dye technique,” says John C. Fleming M.D., author of Preventing Addiction: What Parents Must Do to Immunize their Kids Against Drug and Alcohol Addiction. With tattooing and body piercing, the health dangers become more serious, says Fleming. “With tattooing, we worry about hepatitis B and C being passed from unclean instruments because of blood left from a previous customer,” says Fleming, adding that Staph (staphylococcus aureus) skin infections are also possible from both tattooing and piercing procedures.
