Generational Misunderstandings about Tattoos

[Bruce Wrenn]

Ever wonder how many jobs WEREN'T offered because of a tattoo? From my childhood, I associate tattoos with drunken sailors. Women what have breast reconstruction sometime get tattoos to add color to the nipple. Lady in our SS class did.

[Barry McFadden]

With so many young people getting tattoos all over their bodies.... all the different colors and tattoos running into each other... I predict that in 25 - 30 years when their skin starts to age as everyone's does, we are going to have the ugliest generation of seniors that the world has ever seen ..... it will look like Jackson Pollock painted them!!.... https://ca.images.search.yahoo.com/s...-s&fr2=piv-web

[Jim Becker]

Ever wonder how many jobs WEREN'T offered because of a tattoo?

This is something that's changed quite a bit in today's world, although "how much" certainly comes into play for certain types of occupations. There is a lot more acceptance of body art these days and many employers are not without, either.

[Art Mann]

I am a volunteer chaplain at a State prison and I know dozens of men who profoundly regret getting tatoos. I will guarantee you that tatoos are an issue for prospective employers. Lives and situations change but tatoos don't. They have wrecked many a man's future.

[Yonak Hawkins]

..... it will look like Jackson Pollock painted them!!....

Ha ! .. I heard a story the other day of an art professor who showed a slide he said was a Jackson Pollock and asked his art students about why it's important art. They expounded glowingly about "expression", and "inner tumult", and "rebellion". He then revealed it was a picture of his painter's apron.

[Ted Calver]

Don't have any but love the look of well done tats on anyone. I never let a decent tat influence a hiring decision and don't believe it impacts today's corporate hiring to any significant extent. It goes along with the whole diversity thing. We hired skills, not skin. Granted, no one came to us with facial tattoos, piercings and horns, but if they had an engineering degree and mad computer skills we probably could have found a desk for them.

I do have to admit that a poorly done conspicuous tat sometimes makes me shake my head. One of my daughters has a horrible tat of what is supposed to be a polar bear on her arm. She was born in Alaska, so we could understand the motivation, but that thing is atrocious and she admits the mistake....always wears sleeves to cover it up. If you're going to get a tat make sure the artist is well known and does fantastic work.

[Andrew Seemann]

I was never a big fan of tattoos, they kind of came in style for people about 5 or so years younger than me (I'm not 50 yet, but getting dangerously close). It seemed like the younger end of Gen X got into them, while I was more of the beginning of Gen X, more straight-laced, uptight 80s, vs grungy 90s. If you are into them, fine, just not my thing. Every once in a while you do see some really neat ones though.

I think my aversion to them comes from two different experiences. The first that was growing up, I worked in a business that had a lot of WWII vets as customers, and I remember seeing the tattoos they had gotten during the war. There was one guy in particular that had a naked woman on his forearm. Setting aside that a picture of a naked woman on someone in their 70s looks kind of out of place, the fact was that the woman on his forearm had aged as badly as he had and also now looked like she was in her 70s. I remember that a lot of those tattoos looked just awful after all those years.

The second was working in a machine shop for 5 years in college and hoping to come home each day with no additional permanent marks, scars, or holes in my body. The idea of having that done willingly just never made sense after that.

Tattoos go in and out of style. The Sherlock Holmes story "The Red Headed League" written in 1891 mentions tattoos, and implies that they were sufficiently common then for Holmes to have published a study of them.

[Jason Roehl]

Generally, I'm not a fan. I'm pretty ambivalent towards the discrete and tasteful that mostly stay covered, but I see a LOT of the "in your face" garbage--because I work at a courthouse. The previous comments about wealth definitely come into play there. I've talked to several judges who have brought it up in the courtroom because they'll have a young "man" or "woman" in there who can't pay their court costs, attorneys, child support, decent clothing, etc., but they always seem to have money for drugs, tats and piercings.

[Curt Harms]

[grumpy ol' man]I poke enough holes in myself by accident. I don't need to poke any holes on purpose[/grumpy ol' man]

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I am a volunteer chaplain at a State prison and I know dozens of men who profoundly regret getting tatoos. I will guarantee you that tatoos are an issue for prospective employers. Lives and situations change but tatoos don't. They have wrecked many a man's future.

My wife is a volunteer chaplain at the local prison as well. She also teaches at the university and is getting her PhD. She has 9 tattoos. It all depends on where they are and what they are. Certainly a face tattoo is going to hinder your job search.

[Rod Sheridan]

I think because I was taught by my parents generation that tattoos were worn by people of a "lower" class. I certainly wasn't born into a family of upper class, my father was a tradesman, and a WWII veteran, however tattoos were certainly something you didn't acquire.

I'm not saying that was correct, it's just what I was taught. Likewise my father would never be seen in public unless well dressed, and wearing a hat such as a fedora, certainly never a baseball cap, see reason above.

I remember working with him as a child, if you had to go to the store while you were working on something, you changed out of your work clothes, and put on pants and a shirt, even if you were going to pick up a bag of cement.

Similarly my father never swore, and in the company of women, or upon entering a building you removed your hat, and of course opened and held doors for them.

I remember once when I was young, we were going into a store, my father held the door open for my mother, and I sauntered in, in front of her.

My Dad's hand hit the right side of my head, the left side bounced off the door, and my father said "Don't ever walk in front of your mother again". You know what? I've never done that again, or walked in front of any woman through a door since.

I think all of the above, including not having tattoos are something that has changed, my youngest daughter has a tattoo down her arm, which she now regrets as she has to wear long sleeve shirts at work......Rod.

[Pat Barry]

Tatoo's are a demonstration of a masochistic / self-destructive personality. The relationship between the number and magnitude of the tatoos and the degree of the masochistic behavipr is not linear, it is exponential. Anyway, that's the way I see it.

[Jim Becker]

I think because I was taught by my parents generation that tattoos were worn by people of a "lower" class.

This is what I was kinda tip-toeing around in my original post...and at a point in time, it may have been somewhat true. Fortunately, that's no longer the case.

[Phil Mueller]

Rod, I was raised the same way. Not to get off topic, but the rare occassion where it is appropriate to walk in front of a woman is a revolving door.

[Al Launier]

I've never been fond of tattoos, perhaps because I've always felt that a person is who he/she is without any adornment. If someone feels a need to express/portray themselves with tattoos, that is their choice, yet I feel it deflects from their real personality, perhaps a false representation of them, whereas their individuality should stand on its own merits. When I see/meet a person I look at them, especially into their eyes, feel the grip of our handshake, listen to them, talk with them and draw my conclusions based on them not what they are wearing.

My daughter has a small dolphin tattoo on her ankle because she was a certified dolphin trainer at a Hawaiian research lab (KBMML). It is small, inconspicuous, and for her it keeps her in touch with her love of the sea and sea mammals, and her experiences with them. Yet, despite its meaning to her, every time I do see it I think that's OK for her, but not me. I know what she went through, so the tattoo is a realistic symbol of an important part of her life. To me it's similar to my college diploma which I still hang on a wall in my study.

Yesterday I received a shipment from a highly reliable, top end local furniture store. The driver and his assistance were both in their twenties, with radical hairstyles and although not disrespectful, all of their exposed skin (short sleeved shirts with open neck and shorts) were totally covered with tattoos that I couldn't recognize; no words and the graphics were indiscernible as I couldn't tell if they were dragons or goldfish. Attempting a brief conversation and to thank them for delivering the furniture proved fruitless. They were in and out, not typical of this store. Well, their overall appearance and demeanor was a turn-off for me as my immediate thoughts were that these guys don't represent their employer well. To me impressions do matter.

So Chase, are you a psychoanalyst attempting to develop a thesis or book?