Kids Are Dumb

Figure I'd have a quick rant since I'm 'researching' for a post about how much Steve Harvey sucks (would someone carve a line into his bald head, please?) and haven't posted in a bit. Just haven't been feeling it, or something.

Anyways...

Who the fuck are these dumb parents (and dumber kids) allowing their underage children to get modded? I was paraded with these people all week. A girl and her mother (a sensible one) were discussing the daughter's sixteen-year-old friend who has facial piercings and how she got them. We discussed how not only was the parent irresponsible for letting their child get pierced that young, but that the piercer doing it was probably a sketchy character.

But parents' and piercers'/tattooers' irresponsibility aside for the moment, it's short-sightedness on the part of the children.

More examples:

I waited on a nineteen-year-old who had a star tattooed on the webbing of her hand that had a least a couple years' fade on it.

Remember the seventeen-year-old with the tears on his face in an earlier post? How about the twenty-year-old with stars on hers?

I'm baffled. I want to ask these kids if they have a job, and if not, where they intend to find one.

First, to the parents: I know you want your kids to think you're cool. You're not cool. Your dumb ass is encouraging your dumb kid to make a dumb decision, a decision that should be looked at (moreso for tattoos) with a mature mindset from a person who knows exactly what they want and who they are.

Second, to the piercer or artist: What the fuck are you thinking, taking money from a kid under eighteen let alone letting a parent support dumb decisions? Yeah, I get that you wanna make money. But (again, mostly to the artists) do you have the integrity to step back and say, even to the kids who are eighteen: "How old are you again? What field of work are you trying to get into? Have you thought this through at all?"

Which leads to the kids. I just don't understand what the fuck you kids are thinking. I know any kids reading this would probably see me and call me a hypocrite. Nothing is farther from the truth.
Yes, I have a lot of visible tattoos that could make my life difficult if I lose my job. I understand the consequences of what I've done and made sure I was covered at my work before getting anything.
Yes, my work has no policy regarding tattoos and piercings. Would I have gotten hired, looking the way I do now? I doubt it.
Find yourself a job first that has some semblance of longevity or 'growth' or whatever the fuck they call it and then freak out a little bit with your body mods. Let the people you work for and with get to know you first and make sure they can't fire you or tell you to take jewelry out before getting modded, goddammit.
I doubt my parents would have signed off on a tattoo. Not that I wanted them when I was underage, but I'm glad I never asked. I got my first tattoo at twenty-three, and there's at least two pieces I wish I could cover up or do differently! What are you thinking?!

I think a lot more shops should resist the easy money of stupid people and say NO to letting parents sign. Tattoos and piercings are fucking grown folks' business!!! Keep the teenagers out of the studio regardless of whether they have mom's permission or the cash to pay. I've been saying for awhile now that they should change the 'modding age' to twenty-one; but then again I'm also of the opinion little kids shouldn't be allowed to have their ears pierced by guns that have a 'puncher' in them no sharper or sterile than the tines on a clean fork (the next time you think the cute girl with the nose stud at Claire's is positive exposure for piercings/tattoos, think again. She and her ilk are cretinous harpies promoting Blunt Force Trauma. Don't get me started on all that).

So unless the shops and parents step up to be uncool and assholey to these teenagers and actually have some fucking integrity, these kids will continue making these rash decisions involving some not-so-temporary shit. Recent studies have shown that the human brain is essentially fucking retarded until the mid-twenties, people. Parents, Body Modders, please have a little responsibility and discourage widespread jackassery regarding people who don't have a fully-developed front lobe.

And yes, I realize that more responsible parents and Industry members won't stop kids (and ignorant people in general) from going to Scatchy McScratcherson tattooing out of his buddy's basement, but we gotta start having some fucking sense regarding this culture start somewhere, don't we?

Man, these kids are fucking dumb. I suppose it's not entirely their fault, but it doesn't make them any less dumb.

-Swift