Reforming the Feminine ContentHOW TO LOVE YOUR DAUGHTER’S SUGAR SKULL TATTOO
It wasn’t exactly the back-to-school accessory a mother plans for. I managed to mask the initial shock and awe as my newly crowned 18 year-old (oh, how she loves to remind me!) produced her forearm after attending the Seattle Tattoo Convention.
”Wow, honey, that’s a lot different than the little sparrow we talked about.”
“Yeah…”
“What happened to the rose you showed me from Ryan Adams’ album cover? I really liked that little rose.”
“Well, I liked this.”
My thoughts were racing, alternating lyrics, prayer (”Grace, grace, God’s grace“…”Proverbs, quick Jesus, gimme a little help here, some token apples of gold in settings of silver, snap snap…) and a smidge of the “What the hell!” parental mode as I continued to admire this PERMANENT ink work…
Mothers of little girls (and boys, but that’s another translation), consider this: In the future, you will have to love sugar skull tattoos. Before I expand on that absolute truth, the yellow caution light is already blinking BEWARE, if your little girl:
- Is an early eclectic;
- Displays an unusually large dose of self-sufficiency and a save-the-world mindset;
- Adores all (4-legged) creatures of our God and King;
- Regularly blows you away with premature spiritual gifts like discernment.
This will be especially frightening if it is NOTHING like you. Early warning signs for me were admonishments to recycle in pre-K (I grew up in Montana where the idea of recycling is a rusty pickup in your backyard), and eery kindergarten rebukes for discerning I had skipped Bible devotions on mornings I was particularly crabby. Preferring stuffed animals to Barbie is also a sign, and leads to carting home every stray in a two-mile radius and plastering the neighborhood with LOST and FOUND posters. Friends will always be an eclectic collection of dress and ideas, and you can expect a swing at your kitchen counter from agnostic PETA vegans to conservative Presbyterians. A preference for Value Village and Buffalo Exchange will override anything store bought. In fact, she may shun big box like Starbucks and Walmart. You like a band; you buy their cd. If these little girls likes bands (and Miya REALLY likes bands), they will devour books and anthologies on them, including 975-page biographies. (I recommend purchasing large bookcases now while prices are down). Girls with guitars will be familiar.
This may be miles from the foo-foo James Dobson model you were taught to lean towards.
Early on as a befuddled young mother, completely frustrated that I was unable to change my little girl into my own image, a mother with a little mileage on me suggested I get into her world, love what she loves, and appreciate her quirkiness because Jesus had created her in His own image. This was like setting off flashing lights and sirens. It was completely revolutionary thinking to a conservative, conformist hillbilly. Get into her world? Love cats? I hated cats. They were creepy and belonged in a barn. Love poems by Shel Silverstein? I preferred biographies and Nancy Drew. Shop for geometric shoes and let her get that strip of pink hair she’d been begging for? Mary Janes and headbands were tidier. Help her draw pictures of Fido and Fluffy, and graffiti the neighborhood with posters of MISSING DOG information? Who had time and who gave a crap? They should be keeping those mutts in their house anyway.
…”and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” Colossians 3:10
Well, alrighty then. Embracing the mother’s gentle rebuke, I put on my bad new self. Renewed. Recalibrated. Redeemed. Anxious to love my little girl as a unique creation of God Himself. (Funny thing was, up to that point, I never really liked me much anyways, so why I felt the urge to cram her into my image is rather masochinistic).
From that day forward, I began a study of my little girl, and worked to earn a spot in her world. We went through years of Lisa Frank paraphenelia and Leann Rimes. We studied all the passages in Scripture about animals. We visited PAWS and the Humane Society, and brought home a tortoiseshell kitten named Roseabelle, who I credit for healing me completely of my cat phobias. I bravely fought fleas while calling phone numbers from the parade of collared strays. Later I would embrace Gwen Stephani and learn to appreciate the creative brilliance of Robert Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan. Her first job would introduce her family to vegan pizza dinners at Pizza Pi . And most rewarding of all, I had an unfolding front row seat to her heart and mind, watching my eclectic little girl grow into a confident, beautiful, brilliant young woman, sharing her faith and quirkiness in effortless passion. In cottages and countries I never dreamed of, like a recent trip with Agathos to South Africa.
It wasn’t always easy and smooth. Like the thorns surrounding her PERMANENT sugar skull, we had our thorny moments as mother and daughter.
How do you love your daughter’s sugar skull tattoo? Begin by embracing and loving her Creator with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength. Then move towards loving His creation and all He has created in His image; his quirky, creative, brilliant, often unconventional, mind-blowing image. Continue a practise of loving well by embracing mangy stray mutts, tea parties with Pooh and Eeyore (accept that Barbie is nothing more than a dust collector), and submit to recycling. Read lots of dog-eared poems at night. Surprise your little girl with subscriptions to music magazines like Under the Radar and bring her to midnight showings of Pirates of the Caribbean.
Sugar skull tattoos have a way of showing up early on. Sugar skull tattoos are not sinful in and of themselves. Sugar skull tattoos are anything foreign to your tastes and preferences, and anything in your children you don’t consider conducive or redeemable to what you create in your own image. Sugar skull tattoos need love, because they show up as PERMANENT pieces that mean something to your child. Saying you hate their sugar skulls is a little like saying you hate a piece of them. The image bearer of a sugar skull tattoo is made in His image. Cease the toil and ugliness of cramming your image onto His image. Put on Colossians 3:10 and your new bad self, encourage your child’s gifts, love them and their sugar skull tattoos well, and trust their potential and fullness to Jesus Christ.
And if you think about it, for God’s sake (literally), go back and thank the quirky image bearers who surround sugar skull experiences. The panorama of encouragement and love given by friends, teachers, musicians, family, and even those “one night stands” like a French artist at the Tattoo Convention, are all intricately placed by Jesus, and contribute to remind us that many pieces of life (even PERMANENT ink) can be springboards for conversation about our Creator Jesus.
Shelly,
Thank you so much for this! As the mother of two very artistic, eclectic, thrift-store shopping literature-loving twenty-somethings, so much of this resonated with me. I am afraid I didn’t do as well as you did in learning early on to accept my daughter. Growing up as I did in a time when conformity in clothing was the norm, I found myself embarassed at times by her creative look. (While secretly proud of her bravery!)
She told me recently that she never felt I accepted her, and as much as I had tried to hide it, she was right. She has been away from the church for a few years now, and I feel that it is partly because of my criticism of her while she was still living at home.
I recently asked her to forgive me for this, (she said ‘Yes’) and have felt a spirit of freedom in my relationship with her that hasn’t been there for many years. I not only sense her being more at ease with me, but I am finding the grace to accept her where she differs from me instead of wanting to change her! Only God could do this!
Awesome! Jesus is SO good! What a wonderful opportunity to show your daughters the Gospel lived out in your life, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being RENEWED day by day.” I will be praying for you!
Great post!
I love it!
Wonderful words.
“Cease the toil and ugliness of cramming your image onto His image”
Love this!!!
[...] How to Love Your Daughter’s Sugar Skull Tattoo - Shelly Ossinger. This is probably one of the best posts I’ve ever read (on VPN or anywhere else). Totally about Jesus, transparent, and really engaging. Maybe it’s because I’m a twenty-something daughter, who knows . . . (although I think my “sugar skulls” are things other than tattoos) . . . [...]
I have a four year old that I can imagine growing into this kind of personality. Already I have to bite my tongue at her insistence on wearing fuzzy argyle tights with a striped dress in the middle of summer. Thank you for this picture into my future.
Fantastic post — great writing and visual — thanks so much.
Can someone technical please turn of the graphical emoticon smiles? Or give commenters a choice on enabling them? Many thanks.
about as good as I can get is erasing it Bryan. Consider yourself warned now!
mmmm gotta love the emoticons…
your daughter sounds hot
Thank you Shelly-
I really love this post. I too was challenged this week by another mother to see the scary, irritating, challenging things in my older daughters as precious and unique to them–designed by God–in need of redemption.
This confirmed and added clarity.
[...] the Feminine - How to Love Your Daughter’s Sugar Skull Tattoo - Shelly [...]
I dont care. Of coarse I’d still love my daughter but if she gets something this ugly put on her arm. I am going to take her in to the lazer removal place and she is giving up her allowance for the next 50 years to pay for it.
One of the only things that makes me hesitate about raising kids in seattle. In the country you get a real strong sence of the structure and rules there needs to be. In the city, being relational is good but its all about the individual. It usually takes the average joe till they are 35ish to get some wisdom.And I dont want them falling into a hole.
But Daniel did it. I recon I can too. You dont want to know what I’d do if she got a nose ring.^_^
“Do nothing out of selfish conciet…” this city is all about that.
But by Christ’s grace, I can teach em to be a servant. And not following the crowd off the cliff like a lemming or that there is wisdom higher than thier own. That they might not understand but its there to help em out.
Actually, the lemming definition referencing people who unquestioningly go along with popular opinion even into mass suicide, is a myth and misconception, popularized and traceable, as I recall, to a faked sequence in a Disney film.
In any case, although I would humbly disagree on several statements, I appreciate your insight and comments, and wholeheartedly agree that as Christians, we all raise our children by Christ’s Grace. This, then, becomes my same comfort. Forgiveness and Grace lavished and promised (Eph. 1:7), and being assured that nothing can separate she or I from the love of Christ (Rom. 8:33-39), despite all definitions of sin or folly. “If you continue to love Jesus, nothing much can go wrong with you.” C.S. Lewis Knowing Miya loves Jesus with all her heart, to me, this is nothing much.
Is this the same Miya who just went to South Africa in mid-August??
If so, I LOVE MIYA!! She’s such a dear. I went with her to Africa =)
BTW, what a blessing to have you as a mother….=D
As a tattoo artist myself I loved this blog. Sugar skulls have a big meaning, remember that day of the dead is a christian festivity to celebrate life and to remember loved ones, so its a good choice for a tattoo
Thank you for sharing that, J!
Hey Shelly…as one who only wishes she was brave enough to have someone go at her with needles in a place that will eventually sag…I love that Miya is a beautiful girl who loves Jesus and is so okay with going her own way as long as it’s Jesus’ way too. She is too cool and I love the tattoo.
WOW. This post is amazing! I appalaud you so much! I’m a 23 year old female whose personality mirrors that of your daughter. My mom has never restricted my uniqueness, but she hasn’t embraced it much either. It has been a battle pretty much from the start… It’s never verbal, but definitely unspoken. I hope when I have children of my own that I will remember those judgmental, uncomfortable half-smiles on my mom’s face after showing her my new tattoo or latest piercing. I hope I recall how desparately I wanted her to TRY to understand me and my views. I hope I will be as open with my love and tolerance as you have been with your daughter.
Thank you for this post!
By the way- I found this while searching for “sugar skull tattoos”. I’m planning on getting a second tattoo and searching for sugar skull designs. It has great meaning and special sentiment.