By Cheryl Mattox Berry
A few months before her 18th birthday, Shavonda asked her mother if she could get a tattoo. Her mother said no. She got her name framed by wings and a halo tattooed on her arm anyway and hid it from her mother. Within two months, Shavonda also got a butterfly tattooed on her chest, tongue ring and belly ring. “For me it was growing into being 18,” she said. “I felt that I could make my own decisions.”
Then, she turned 21 and didn’t see the point of the body art or piercings. She took out the rings, but the tattoos are permanent. “Now, I wish I hadn’t done it,” said Shavonda, who described herself as a different person three years later. “Those people I was hanging with, I don’t any more.”
Shavonda discovered that her tattoos and piercings were a fad, something that is popular for a short period of time. Trends come and go, but tattoos are forever unless you have them removed. Because so many young people are tatted up, it’s hard to convince teens that they may regret their decision down the road. A Harris Poll conducted earlier this year found that 21 percent of adults in the USA have at least one tattoo, up from 14 percent in 2008. The survey noted that for the first time women were more likely than men to get inked.
Keep in mind that what’s hot today will be laughed at 10 to 15 years from now, maybe even sooner. All you have to do is look back at the clothes you used to wear. If you’re in middle school, check out those first grade photos; in high school, pull out some middle school pictures. Remember how cute those styles looked to you back then, but now they’re funny looking? That’s how many of you will feel about tattoos when you get older. Your interests will change. What you like will change. You will change.
Shavonda, now age 29, said she is embarrassed by the big tattoo of her name. She makes sure her other arm is the only one that appears in photos. For a July wedding, she is considering body makeup to hide the tattoo. “I’m going to have on a nice dress and this tattoo,” she complained.
She is also concerned about how other people view her. Shavonda works in retail sales but has a growing event planning business. Some prospective clients may not take her seriously if they see the tattoos, she said, so she wears something that covers her chest and long sleeves when making presentations. Shavonda said two of her girlfriends also wish they hadn’t gotten tattoos. “I tell my son all the time, ‘Don’t follow the crowd,’ “ she said.
Having tattoos may also affect whether you even get a chance to apply for a job, something most teens don’t think about when they enter a tattoo shop. If you’re lucky enough to get hired, your employer may ask you to keep the body art covered at work. Of course, you can get tattoos removed by laser surgery as rapper 50 Cent did for his acting career. Singer Pharrell also had several designs erased from his body. The procedure is expensive, time-consuming and painful.
So, if you’re contemplating getting some ink, think long and hard about how it. I suggest that you have the design drawn on a piece of canvas and hung in your room. That way when you get tired of looking at it, you can take it down. That’s not so easy when the design is etched into your skin with permanent ink.