When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, "Can I have my ears pierced?"
At A Glance Author Mosh IAM Mosherette The answer? An emphatic, "NO."
I think I first asked to have my ears pierced when I was about seven or eight years old. I can remember pestering and badgering my poor mum about it constantly � I was at the age when my friends at school were starting to get their ears pierced and I thought it looked so pretty. Neither my mother nor my elder sister had their ears pierced, and so it was totally new to me when my friends started to do it. But I didn't want to have mine pierced so I could be like them � I wanted them pierced purely because I thought it looked so lovely.
Finally, eventually, Mum relented. On my eleventh birthday, she took me to our hairdresser's in town, and I had my ears pierced at last. Ironically enough, Mum decided to let me get them pierced early (she'd always said I had to be thirteen before I could get them done) because this was the late Eighties � 1987, to be precise � and the panic about AIDS was really beginning to take hold. Mum decided I should get my ears pierced now, when it was still "safe" and AIDS was still rare...and they were pierced with a gun. Tsk. But then, body piercing hadn't really reached the small, northern, seaside retirement town where I grew up, so there wasn't much of an alternative!
I adored my new earrings. I cleaned them religiously as instructed � although I now know that the aftercare instructions were hideously wrong and I was probably doing more harm than good by soaking my ears in surgical spirit. But somehow my ears came through it with no problems and healed perfectly. Incredibly, the placement was very good, right in the middle of my lobes and nicely symmetrical.
Soon, I was clamouring for more. I wanted my right lobe pierced again, but Mum wouldn't hear of it. She was a bit of a snob back then, and said that more than one set of earrings on a girl looked cheap and tarty. (I didn't dare ask what she thought of earrings on a man.) I was still very young, only about fourteen, and although I contemplated rebelling and doing it anyway, I decided my mother's feelings were so important to me that I didn't want to hurt them.
Until I was seventeen, that is. I went out and got my right ear pierced again, on a whim. It was done with a hideous, huge gold stud, which I changed as soon as I got home to a smaller silver one which I wiped with surgical spirit before trying to put it in. Again I emphasis that this is not a good thing to do. Neither is trying to change the jewellery in a 20-minute old piercing. By the time I got the new stud through, I was feeling sick with pain and I was so pale that my lips were blue. But I had my new earring, and felt very cool and rebellious with it.
It took three months for Mum to notice, because I made sure I kept my long hair over it whenever she was around. She went ballistic. She was so upset with me for disobeying her that I honestly thought she was going to throw me out. She cried for hours about how much I'd hurt her. I couldn't understand why she didn't love my three earrings as much as I did, because to me they were so pretty � but I could understand that I'd hurt her terribly.
When she calmed down, I sat with her and talked about it. I said that I didn't do it to hurt her specifically, as she seemed to think � I'd done it because I liked the way multiple lobe piercings looked and for no other reason. As she calmed down, she realised that I was telling the truth: I really hadn't done it with the intention of hurting her.
The episode upset me a lot � I'd hurt my mum by my thoughtless actions, and I really hated to hurt my mum. I promised faithfully that I'd never do it again while I was living with her, and I kept that promise too. To me, waiting for a couple of years to carry on with my piercings was a tiny sacrifice to make compared with upsetting my own mother by my actions.
I now have four tattoos and fourteen piercings, and I plan on getting a lot more. Mum knows about everything that I have had done, and while she's not exactly over the moon about it, she accepts that this makes me happy. I hide my septum piercing from her when I visit her house out of respect for her feelings, and similarly she doesn't make remarks about me being immature or just doing it for fashion as she has realised that this is not true. I proved that to her by respecting her wishes and waiting until I had moved out of her house before I carried on getting modded.
I've written this in the hope that young people who want to modify themselves will read it and understand that their parents aren't forbidding them to do things because they're mean or cruel or want to stop you being yourself. A lot of the time, they don't understand what it's like to want a piercing or tattoo so much that it almost hurts. They think you're just trying to be trendy, because body modification, it has to be said, is incredibly fashionable at the moment. There's also a lot of ignorance out there about body piercing, tattooing and all the rest of it: many people think that the studios are dirty, that the artists are all drug addicts or drunks or both, that women who get tattoos are prostitutes etc.
It's up to you to try and educate your parents. First off, ask them why they don't want you to get your lip pierced, for example. Try to respond to their answers calmly and rationally � if you just start shouting then no one's going to listen to you.
If possible, take your parents to the studio where you're planning on getting pierced or tattooed. Let them talk to the artist, who's in a much better position to answer their questions than you are. Allow him or her to answer their concerns about sterile equipment, any possible side-effects or dangers of the procedure, and to debunk any urban myths they have heard such as the old tongue-piercings-cause-facial-paralysis stories. Show them that their preconceptions about body piercing or tattoo studios are misplaced.
You also have to remember that, no matter how mature you feel, your parents have had a lot more experience of the world than you. They know that people with visible body modifications still come up against a lot of prejudice, which they want to protect you from because they love you. No parents wants their child to be discriminated against. One of their concerns may be that you will find it difficult to get a job if you have an eyebrow piercing or a tattoo on your forearm. You must be able to allay their concerns in an adult manner, and not say, "Well, I don't care". What if, one day, you do care?
This is much more important for tattoos than piercings. Any piercing, after all, can be taken out if you just don't like it anymore. Yes, it will leave a scar, but it will be a tiny scar. Tattoos are permanent. They don't come off, ever. You get a tattoo, you will die with a tattoo. If you don't like the tattoo in ten years' time then you only have two options � cover it up with a new one, or live with it. That tattoo you have now, as a fresh-faced teenager, will still be under your skin, in the same place, when you are eighty years old. Nothing is as permanent as a tattoo. NOTHING.
I would imagine that in the vast majority of cases, parents forbid their children to have modifications simply because they care about them. They are frightened that the tattoo or piercing will hurt their child, or damage them in some way, or affect their future happiness. Some believe you are only wanting it simply because they don't want you to have it, and this is your way of rebelling. They think this because that's what they did when they were teenagers � they did exactly the opposite of what their parents wanted them to do. If you can be mature enough to demonstrate that this isn't why you are doing it, and that you are a responsible young adult, then your parents may be more likely to relent. This is what I did with Mum � I explained why I did it, and although she couldn't understand, she accepted.
But you cannot "make" your parents see your point of view. They may simply dismiss it as a phase, and be patronising about it � "You'll grow out of it one day". The only way to demonstrate that this isn't the case it to wait until you are independent of them, and get your modification then. Going out and getting your chosen mod anyway will only show them that they are right � you are an immature child who is just going through a rebellious phase.
One final word: you must also remember that some countries have legal age requirements for tattooing and piercing. Find out what the age requirement is where you live. If you are under that age, then I urge you not to try and get your modification anyway. Please.