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so the reason i started this thread is because i wanted to know how other peoples families reacted to their first tattoos and everyone who contributed to the thread did not disappoint! i was hoping that peoples stories might give me inspiration to get over my fear and just do it and that maybe one day i would be able to add another entry with my own story. well at a young age my dad put the "FEAR" into me and my brother which made him a very scary man to us,(thats why i said i was afraid that he might kick me out of the house, its so easy to imagine the worst possible scenario). we were sitting on the couch this evening watching the news about the Japan earthquake and i just decided to come out and say it. I gave him this long explanation in one breath and when i was done i had to try not to look away because thats when i usually get the "look". what i mean by the "look"- if you dont know already- is what we would see when we got in trouble as kids and it would scare the crap out of us. well the "look" did not come and neither did many words! actually no words at all, just a sound, something along the lines of hmuhff !?1? then he turned his attention back to the TV and i left the room and had to remember to breath again! i wonder if i shocked him or if my plan of leaving tattoo magazines strategicly placed all over the house(to desensitize him) worked? anyway whatever the reason im glad i got it over with!

I know a guy that works for another EMS company and he has FTW in rather large font down the back of his arm. Standing around one of the local hospitals I heard a kid say "Check it out. He has for the win tattooed on his arm." I laughed for awhile on that one.

all i can say is thank you....for reminding me how awesome this job is..and for bringin your a-game with these videos, the cholo don knotts cracked me up. then came the knit tie stage....wow.

My parents lied about my age to the tattooist in order to get me my first tattoo. It was a present for graduating early and the artist (biker shop, yeeehaw) wouldn't tattoo anyone under 16. I had just turned 15 and my Mom, a feisty Southern Baptist, did NOT like being told no. She she lied and said I was 16 but without a driver's license. They were very supportive, my folks. Instead of family trips, they'd send my brother and I to tattoo conventions. We even managed to get my Dad to get a little tiny tattoo with us years back. When I first started moving past the safety zones- onto the hands, throat... my Mom asked me if I "knew what I was doing". I said yes (I was working at a Fortune 100 at the time) and she never questioned it again.

OMG IMO FTW = what you said first

on my partner kayla. done by scott harrison.

it was so nice to meet you Hogg! i love that these meet ups feel almost like great family dinners. good stories and lots of laughs.

Was living away from home, and before getting it I told her I was planning on getting one. She said all those motherly things she's suppost to say. The next year when I went back home for vacation, first time back after getting it. Maybe the second day I was home she knocks on my door after I take a shower and asks to see it. She looks at it says well that ain't to bad. It's a bmw roundel on my chest, so she didn't mind it cause size and placement. Planning to take her with me so she can see how tebori is done (and show her my legs) when she hopefully comes here later this year. I don't think she has ever walked into a tattoo studio, let alone heard skin snap from needles. My mom and I have had a pretty open mother/son relationship, growing it was a little different.

walking to the shower, the tattoo was on the inside of my upper arm, so i had my arm pressed against my side trying to hide it, but just a little bit was still visible, my mum with a look of extreme horror on her face said "WHAT'S THAT?!", i said "a tattoo", we just kind of looked at each other in silence for about 10 seconds, i walked into the room with the shower in and she *slammed* the door behind me. she soon calmed down thankfully. tattoo's are still now refered to as "things", such as, when they're still healing.. it will be "how's your... thing..?"..

I was 15 and I forgot to bring my clothes into the bathroom with me to shower(so I was fully dressed when exiting). I went out to get my shirt and my mom saw the tattoo on my arm. After gasping she said, "well I guess I should've expected this". Soon after she kicked me out of the house. Four years later she let me move back in for a little and let me set up a 'home studio' in the garage and even tolerated all the cholos coming over to get tattooed. Very hip lady

Hahaaha foiled again by moms! They're always surprisingly perceptive..

i was 16 or 17. i got a small tattoo on my calve. back then i never wore shoes or socks. as soon as school let out the shoes and socks came off. so the day after i got it done i was in the kitchen and i had socks on(to hide the tattoo) and the conversation went like this mom "so letes see it" me "see what?" mom "the tattoo. dont play dumb" me "i dont know what youre talking about" mom "BS, youre wearing socks. youre hiding something."

I was 14 and my mom chased me through the house trying to stab me with a pair of scissors. Ha-ha lets say it didn't go well.

such a great observation...

I was visiting my parents with my new baby. I leaned over the crib and they saw it. I just remember them shaking their heads. My dad was from a NY blue collar Irish Catholic family and my mother from an upper middle class Jewish family. My parents were pretty liberal thinkers but for them a tattoo was more of a class thing. Even though tattooing eventually became my life it was never anything I shared or share with them. When my father was hospitalized with a terminal illness I stayed with him and tended to his needs till he died. I wore long sleeves so that he wouldn't see my tattoos on my arm--- just in case he would make a deathbed request that I not get any more tattoos. I've come to the realization that my mother's inability to understand,like or appreciate my tattoos is not very different from my inability to accept her dislike. Recently she also was hospitalized and I told her not to worry that I would get on a plane and be by her side In the morning ( even though my untattooed brother lives within an hour of her) What did she say? "Cover your tattoos!" I've come to realize that many people when looking at tattoos can not see content, skill,quality. When I first started getting tattooed my mother said to me that she didn't wnt my life made harder because of my tattoos and people judging because of them and I said that if people were going to judge me by the way I look they are not the people I want to be friends with anyway. My mother's attitude has really helped me in my own relationship with my children. how to be more accepting of their appearances.

So, we grew up in the same house? I got bluebirds on my chest and after a truly devastating first semester at college, I moved back home. My mom came into my room in the morning -- without knocking! -- while I was asleep and saw a wing peeking up out of my t-shirt. She started shouting at me, emptied the laundry basket on top of me, and ran downstairs. Now, almost TEN YEARS LATER, she seems almost proud that I've become this kind of tattooed oddity. She just sent me some page from the Washington Post magazine about the Baltimore Tattoo museum hahahahaaa -- the first time she's actively showed an interest in anything tattoo-related!