Over 1,800,000 people around the world believe that tattoos should be accepted in the workplace — at least enough to ‘like’ a Facebook page advocating it. But this doesn’t change the fact that many of our parents continue to press us not to ink our skin right before we graduate and start the grueling process to find our first real jobs.
How much should we really be trusting our parents? They were born in a different time. A lot has changed. Forbes reported that having a tattoo may not be enough to prevent you from getting a job anymore. Bank of America spokesperson Ferris Morrison told Forbes that the company has no current policy on hiring employees with tattoos, and they “recognize that diversity and inclusion are good for our business and make our company stronger.”
As of 2012, 14% of Americans were tattooed, and I can only assume that the number is growing. Twenty years ago it would have been impossible to climb the corporate ladder with tattooed arms. Today it’s becoming more and more accepted in the workplace. Walk around any college town on a warm summer day, and you’ll see them everywhere. There are nearly 30 tattoo shops in Kansas City alone, and four just around Lawrence. Is it really that surprising that teenagers living on their own for the first time are coming home with body art?
There are many columns out there on how to best approach telling your son or daughter not to get a tattoo, and even more horrific stories of parents trying to police what their children do with their bodies. The Stir reported that when a 17-year-old girl approached her parents to ask for their consent to get a tattoo, they agreed, but not before paying the tattoo artist double to purposefully make her tattoo as ugly and as painful as possible in order to prevent her from wanting another one.
Any parent who would throw away money to permanently ruin their own child’s skin doesn’t sound like the type who should be trying to teach life lessons. If you really don’t want your son or daughter to modify their body, it’s your responsibility to make that clear to them until they understand it, not to be malicious about it.
I got my first (and only) tattoo when I was 19, and I can’t say that it was completely planned out. I had known that I wanted to get something for about a year, but I went through about seven different ideas before deciding on one. I had money saved up from a summer job, so in early September, I went to get it.
I wanted something small that I could hide from my parents, so I decided on an outline of the original cover artwork for the book “A Clockwork Orange.” I told the artist that I only wanted it to be a few inches on the side of my ribs so I could hide it under my bra strap, but he came back with a sketch much larger than originally planned. I let him do it because the design looked great, and I thought I might be able to get away with it anyway. And I did. For over a year. Eventually my parents figured it out, and they just kind of accepted it instead of blowing up (which I thought they would).
Would I take it back? Do I regret it? No, and I never will. But despite all of this, Forbes reported that a 2011 survey by CareerBuilder showed that 31% of employers still list tattoos as an attribute that that would dissuade an employer from promoting an employee. But this doesn’t mean our parents were right. It’s easy to continue to get tattoos and keep that internship in mind, if you’re smart about it. I’ve promised myself that until I have my career planned out, I won’t get any tattoos that would be visible in “business attire,” and I think this is a good rule to follow for anyone in college.
Unless you’re working to become a tattoo artist yourself, you need to understand that plans get derailed, and what you think you’re going to be doing in 10 years may not exactly be what you’re going to do. Anyone who has ever changed their major can understand this.
Tattoos are a great expression of ourselves. Our skin is a canvas, and throughout the years we accumulate scars and bruises and wrinkles that tell stories of where we’ve been and where we’re going, and tattoos are only part of this personal narrative. It’s important to be in control of your own body, and know that you can do whatever you want with it, but you should be smart about it. Until we reach that point where 100 percent of businesses accept tattoos, there is still a chance that the flower on your ankle will cause you problems.