At the start of the summer, while accompanying me to my tattoo appointment, my nine year old daughter tattooed a funny face — the king of the pineapple people perhaps — on my foot with lots of assistance from the artist of course. Some people criticize it, but most (especially other parents) just love it and understand what a warm memory and special moment it makes permanent. I’ve been seeing quite a few similar moments in other people’s lives and it always makes me smile.
This particular image is Patrick Kielty’s daughter tattooing an image hilariously typical of what kids that age seem to draw of their dads — a bird plopping on his head!
I also wanted to include in this post a picture of Ferank Manseed being tattooed by his son. It stands out because Ferank does hand tattooing, so you won’t see a machine in this scene — as Alicia Cardenas commented, “handing our children the magic is our cultural responsibility…”
While some people might question the parent who exposes their child to body modification at a young age, the fact is that with the level of media saturation the subject has, we need to choose between being the ones to educate our children on this subject so dear to our hearts, or allowing the ignorant media empires to do it for us.
Comments
4 responses to “Handing our children the magic”
I don’t have any major problems with children tattoing their parents in principal, however i worry about what would happen if someone saw these photos out of context. My fear would be that people would get the impression that ‘tattooing is easy if a little kid can do it’ and proceed to tattoo without learning all that they should in order to tattoo safely.
Joe, I see your point, but we can´t safeguard everyone from everything. some people are just wilfully ignorant and won´t educate themselves even if they can, some people will exploit this fact, and some just don´t care. Nearly everything can mean something completely different when taken out of context. That shouldn´t be a reason for denying ourselves wonderful experiences like this one.
Anyone that’s so dumb as to assume such a silly thing may well deserve what’s coming to them 😛
My daughter has her own desk at my shop. She comes for an hour after daycare and draws. She is 3. She sometimes pulls a chair over and asks “momma can i watch??” while i tattoo a client. She knows to keep a safe distance and not to touch anything, and she asks a lot of questions. I am intrigued that this child asks more questions and shows more interest in tattooing than any shop apprentice i have witnessed over the years. You can bet i will be letting her do her first tattoo on me.