Let’s move on to shaving. I remember shaving my legs in secret at [my friend] Christine’s house in sixth grade. I was so convinced you’d be mad. But did you even notice or care?
Nope! You could shave your legs whenever you wanted. I didn’t care. The only thing I really cared about was the tattoo thing.
Oh yeah, you never wanted me to get a tattoo. But everyone has them now. I don’t, but what if I showed up with one? Would you be mad? I AM 32, after all.
Right, I would probably not like it, but I would obviously recognize there’s nothing I can do about it. And it’s not really for me to say, it’s your body. I personally don’t think they’re that attractive, and I’ve seen some beautiful tattoos, but they fade and just don’t stay looking very good for long. They’re just not as clear and sharp as they once were.
But I got my bellybutton pierced at a tattoo shop in high school!
You and your dad decided to go get your bellybutton pierced. Or, you wanted it, and you persuaded him to take you somehow. I didn’t think it was a great idea, so I wasn’t going to encourage it, but it’s not like a tattoo that was going to be there forever. The hole might be, but it’s fairly unobtrusive.
And the good news was that you didn’t faint cause you got to lay down! [Note: I had a habit of fainting when I was younger and getting stuck with needles.]
But I did take you to get your ears pierced. And that was fairly young. Wasn’t it for First Communion?
I think so? It was either second or third grade.
Yes, then it was for your First Communion.
Why did you decide that was a good time?
I wanted you to think about it, so we didn’t just run out and do it, so I said a target day. As an adult, I can make an informed decision about having someone stick my ear, but I think it’s harder as a child. I wanted to talk to you about it happening and make sure it was something you still wanted to do.
I also wanted to give you a target day so it wasn’t just like “some day we will do this.” I wanted you to have a definitive date so it wasn’t frustrating and you wouldn’t become impatient or upset that you kept asking and it didn’t happen.
I think that’s a good idea.
Plus I felt like, well my ears are pierced, and to say you can’t have it, when I did, seemed wrong. I know you can tell your child that I’m the adult and you’re the child, but it didn’t seem like a big deal. I didn’t think there was anything tawdry about having pierced ears. I thought they were pretty, and it was something I personally liked, so I didn’t have a hard time saying you can do it too.
How did you feel about nail polish? I started painting my nails in probably second or third grade. Did you care about that at all?
No, I didn’t care. I felt like that is something that is so transient it’s like putting on a pretty dress and wearing it for a while and taking it off. Nail polish is so transient that it never bothered me.