I'm in Trouble

While we were at the game Saturday night, I noticed a very pretty girl sitting on the row in front of us. I’m guessing she was a freshman or sophomore, judging by her young face and the way she seemed to be trying just a little too hard to be confident. When she took off her coat, I could see a star tattooed on her left shoulder blade. It bothered me. A lot.

I kept thinking about was how upset I would be if Ella comes home one day with a tattoo on her perfect skin. I grew that skin and gave birth to it, and protected it from the sun and took care of it, how could she scar it with a tattoo?

Then I realized it’s not my skin. And when she gets old enough to get a tattoo, it won’t be my decision. Yikes.

I think I might have just had my first very real (and small) understanding of what it might have been like to be my parents, watching me make my own decisions to date, move out, pierce my belly button, buy a house, get married, etc. Suddenly it doesn’t seem so much like they were trying to control me when we butted heads about these things, but more like they were struggling right along with me as I became my own person. If I’m already thinking about how I might grieve for her perfect skin if she comes home with a tattoo one day, how much harder will it be for me to step back and let her find herself after I’ve spent 16, 18, 20 years raising her? Holy cow, I really am in trouble.

All I can do is what I kept telling my parents they did – raise her right and trust her to make good decisions. Somehow that sounded so much easier before I had a daughter.

I don’t hate tattoos. I’d be lying if I said I’d never flirted with the idea of getting one. It wouldn’t have been something I did to look cool or fit in anywhere. Those weren’t things I struggled with. I’ve always been my own self, not really fitting any certain mold or group. I would have done it simply because I wanted one. The reason I don’t have one has less to do with the parental threats of removal and more to do with the problem of figuring out where to put one that wouldn’t be viewable by the general public but also wouldn’t look absolutely hideous after a pregnancy or when I’m seventy. And, I just wasn’t sure I wanted to put something so permanent on my body. Would I get tired of it? Was there anything I wanted inked on me that I love so much that I could look at it every day in the mirror? In the end, I decided the tattoo wasn’t for me after all. But I’m still intrigued by them. I guess I did learn from my parents to think things through before making decisions. How will I be able to find fault in Ella if she thinks it through and makes a different decision for herself when she’s grown?

I digress; this post isn’t really about tattoos. It’s about my realization that there will come a day in my sweet baby’s life when I don’t get to make the decisions for her, that she might make different decisions than me, and my ability to accept the differences. I’m not raising her to be me. I’m raising her to be her own self, so I’ll have to let her do that even when I disagree. Yikes.