Needless to say, don’t tattoo kids.
Seriously, DO. NOT. TATTOO. CHILDREN.
An incredibly irresponsible mother and an equally irresponsible tattoo artist were arrested in Lloyd earlier this month, New York, a city about two hours north of New York City, after a 10-year-old got a tattoo on his arm.
The mother, Crystal Thomas, has been charged with one charge of child endangerment, a misdemeanor. The tattoo artist, identified by police as Austin L. Smith, has been charged with two counts – unlawful contact with a child and endangering a child’s well-being. It is illegal in New York State to tattoo anyone under the age of 18, even with the consent of a parent or guardian.
Cases like this get our blood boiling here at Inked. Every time an idiot goes out and tattoos a kid, or tattoos their pit bull, or commits some other irresponsible act, it devalues all the work that has gone into showing that tattooing isn’t just something enjoyed by the degenerate and bully . Countless people have dedicated their lives to proving that the tattoo industry is not only safe, but a thriving industry full of phenomenal artists and some of the most creative minds on earth. And then some absolute idiots do this nonsense.
Tattooing a child is child abuse. Period. end of sentence.
I don’t give a shit if this kid is “really mature for his age” or so fixated on Marvel movies that he “really, really knows he’s always going to love Iron Man,” it’s just wrong. There aren’t many times in this life when we can say there isn’t a gray area, but this is certainly one of them.
I recoil in horror at things I would have had tattooed when I was 10—a portrait of the Micro Machines man, a ring-tailed lemur, my favorite Johnny Tremaine quote, a Chicago Bulls logo. Are some of these things cool? Maybe. But my life changed tremendously over the next few decades, I don’t want to look down on an insanely faded (and stretched from all the growing up) mark of those years.
It’s easy to laugh at this scenario, but this is a very serious problem. Kids, especially kids at that boisterous age, can disagree with something that will change their lives forever. Tattoos are permanent and should be taken seriously. A 10-year-old just isn’t mature enough to make that decision on their own. This is an age when you look at your 26-year-old teacher and think he’s inscrutably old. Her parents might as well have been born before indoor plumbing was invented. A 10-year-old has no idea who they will be a month from now, let alone a year or a decade later. Getting a kid tattooed is an idea akin to letting them take the wheel and drive home, and no sane person would ever do the latter, so why the hell would anyone do the former.
To reiterate, getting a child tattooed is reprehensible. We should never have to write an article like this, but there are people out there doing disgusting shit all the time, so here we are. Sigh.