Step mother offered to pay for my step daughter to have a tattoo for 18th bday! (ideas, girls)
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I agree with Wmsn4Life. The step mom is being irritating in the extreme, but you raised this girl. If she is 18 and can't stand on her own or make an adult decision (your words), whose fault is that?
I also have a girl who is 18 and just graduated high school. She certainly will need (and want) guidance, but she is ready to fly. I would feel like a failure if I hadn't prepared her for the next steps. Hopefully, you are just venting when you describe your daughter because if not, the issue isn't the tattoo at all.
No she did not ask for her step mother to do this. She just went whining to her about it and so she made the offer. She did not discuss this with biodad at all.
Even still...as I keep saying, this lady is the next thing to an outsider. She has no place in this family. But you can easily see why our daughter likes her....
So would you feel the same if her best friend or best friend's mom offered the same deal?
She's not an adult. She has zero capacity to stand on her own and make adult decisions.
Dude - this is not about you...unless you make it about you. If she waits until she's eighteen, which sounds like the plan, she'll be an adult whether or not you and your wife ever prepared her to be an adult. It is her body, even if you sheltered it, fed it and clothed it for the past ten or fifteen years. You have no standing and an extremely limited negotiating position.
Do you really want to negotiate her out of your lives over a tattoo? As a divorced father of two, now adult, daughters (one tattoo free, I think; the other looking like a pirate, which bothers me) I get the sense that this is much more about the ongoing venom between the kid's parents, et al. Since you are just one of the et als, I'd suggest you butt out and let her biological parents battle it out, it will have absolutely no effect on your life. And get your blood pressure checked.
If she's going to have a tattoo at least make sure its amazing work and the shop is clean with a great reputation and you'll help her avoid 75% of the crappy work out there.
It addition to helping your daughter you'll also get a little parental justice. A good tattoo artist might have waiting list (typically a few months) and will cost much more. If you play your cards right your daughter will get a beautiful peice that can be appreciated for years to come and step mom can cough up $200-1000 (rather than the cheapo tattoo most people expect).
This.
Don't see the big deal. *shrug* I'd gladly take one of my kids to get a custom tattoo from a reputable shop. Their body, their choice.
Your house your rules...I don't care how old they are.
That doesn't work when it comes to an adult's body. There is nothing any adult can do about another adult getting a tatoo.
If the OP feels strongly about it he can refuse to allow the SD to live in his house. He can refuse to pay for her education. He can refuse to pay for anything. However, he cannot stop her from getting a tatoo.
The OP has to decide if his lifelong relationship with his SD is valuable to him. If he draws a line and says "If you get the tatoo, you're out of here" he will have to live with the consequences of that. It hardly seems worth it to me.
What bothers me most about any discussion of tattoos is the basic generalization of them and the people wearing them. Why do people take so much energy to tell how much they dislike them? Why do people continue to stereotype people with tattoos as if they are some sort of branding on a person to make them a degenerate etc?
If done lawfully (age), at a maximum it's between a parent and child if that argument exists. Outside of that, it's a persons choice. And please, we can talk about them being permanent and making bad choices all day long. I'm 55, a CPA, and have two of them (one on each upper arm). No biggie to me.
You really need to let this issue go. The more that you resist this (the tattoo), the more it will appeal to her. Are you and she struggling in any other way; is she trying to assert herself and making more and more decisions on her own?
She is an adult or on her way to becoming one and needs to start making her own decisions. Some of them you will like and some of them will have you shaking your head with disbelief but they are her decisions for better or for worse. You can't control her actions forever.
A friend owns a tattoo shop in a small town and I asked her about this.
Her thoughts were that anyone that has someone else paying for a tattoo shouldn't get one. Two reasons, if you have to pay your own money you think about it more (and are more responsible) and (in her business) it stops people (often partners) from pressuring someone to get a tattoo.
Her daughter has no tattoos and won't until she is living on her own.
Good point.
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