The first contestant for "Mother of the Year 2010" (as seen on CS!)

[Parrothead]

http://www.wrcbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11756786#

Woman arrested for tattooing six of her seven kids. (except, apparently, one of the kids wasn't hers).

[Bloodsoul]

So the kids could have something they could say it was.

Wait... what?

Just to make sure I'm understanding it correctly, I'm assuming she means that if the kids say it's a tattoo, then she's making sure that it is a tattoo.

[Amina516]

At least she came to her senses and didnt tattoo the 7 yr old b/c of how young he was..... /sarcasm

What a jackass.

[Greenday]

She said her kids really wanted a tattoo just like hers, so of course she gives them one. I believe the proper response would be...

"NO!"

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

I might be wrong but I think in some tribal cultures children are sometimes given markings at a young age.

Obviously this woman didn't belong to a tribe but I don't think tattooing children is completely unheard of. Bad parenting probably, but I'd even go as far as to say there are far worse examples of poor parenting behavior than this.

[chanlin]

As with any story you don't know the full details without actually being there, but I think I might venture to say this woman did nothing wrong. I base this on a few points.

1: Article says she tried the homemade tattoo gun on herself first. - aka she was making sure it would be safe.

2: Article says she claims to have changed the needle for each person - aka she was being sanitary to some degree.

3: Article says mother does not intend for the tattoos to be permanent.

4: Obviously no lasting damage has been done, or at least the article did not mention whether or not the home made tattoos on the children became infected. Assuming they did not, then what harm is there in a parent supervising what her children are doing and allowing them to try out something they are curious about in prenatally supervised safety?

Yes things probably could have gone wrong, but the mother at least from what I can gather had a handle on what she was doing.

[the_std]

Oh, that's all well and good, except for the fact that it's illegal to tattoo a child in her state... Because of the possibility of things going wrong. There are HUGE, HUGE risks to any kind of tattoo, even when it's done by a professional in a sterile environment. The circumstances under which she tattooed her kids are definitely dangerous. The fact that nothing went wrong in the case doesn't mean much. She got hugely, hugely lucky and she should never have put her kids in the position that she did.

[fireheart17]

I might be wrong but I think in some tribal cultures children are sometimes given markings at a young age.

Obviously this woman didn't belong to a tribe but I don't think tattooing children is completely unheard of. Bad parenting probably, but I'd even go as far as to say there are far worse examples of poor parenting behavior than this.

They do use markings yes, but not with a tattoo gun like that!

The closest thing I can think of was a mum who made some temporary tattoos for her kids that had something like "If I'm lost, please call <number>" and any food allergies. That was for a decent reason.

chanlin, unless she was a professional tattoo artist, there are a heck of a lot more risks in her case. Especially using a guitar string as a needle. It may have been sterilised, but I know from experience that those things are not good for anything except their use.

[Lace Neil Singer]

She said her kids really wanted a tattoo just like hers, so of course she gives them one. I believe the proper response would be...

"NO!"

Or, "Here honey, have a transfer". Temporary tattoo transfers are perfect for kids; they stick well, wash off if there be need to get rid of it quickly; if not, they fade away just in time for the child to lose interest in the marking.

Well, that's what sane parents do. This woman obviously doesn't fall into that category. O.o

[Daskinor]

Reminds me of a woman I know with identical triplets.

Before they came home from the hospital they tattooed each of their left feet with;

"1" "2" "3"

this is so they could tell the difference between them.


Oh BTW, if you think twin girls are creepy. Triplets are downright scary. They can have the most in depth conversations with each other without saying a single word.

One time thier mother asked them what they wanted for dinner. They looked at each other then simultaneously said, 'Panera'

They also like to play swap as well so you can never be sure that Erika you are talking to today is the same Erika you talked to yesterday. But no matter who is who, they all know the correct information that that person needs to know. So if you asked fake Erika a question, real Erika will know that you asked the question.

So I swear the girls are Telepathic too, cause they can pull that crap off if they been separated for days. But thier mother is good at seeing when they are pulling something and I have heard her go "Shoes and socks off NOW!"

[Shangri-laschild]

As with any story you don't know the full details without actually being there, but I think I might venture to say this woman did nothing wrong. I base this on a few points.

1: Article says she tried the homemade tattoo gun on herself first. - aka she was making sure it would be safe.

How long did she wait between tattooing herself and the children? She says she tried it out on herself first but that doesn't necessarily mean she had the knowledge to get all the information she needed to assure safety. We don't know one way or another.

2: Article says she claims to have changed the needle for each person - aka she was being sanitary to some degree.

As was pointed out, it was a guitar string. I don't know about home tattooing but that sounds a bit weird to me.

3: Article says mother does not intend for the tattoos to be permanent.

Again, does she know enough about tattooing (having lots of them doesn't mean she does) to know if it's not perminent and just because it won't last forever doesn't mean it wouldn't still last for 10-20 years or so.

4: Obviously no lasting damage has been done, or at least the article did not mention whether or not the home made tattoos on the children became infected. Assuming they did not, then what harm is there in a parent supervising what her children are doing and allowing them to try out something they are curious about in prenatally supervised safety?

And if they only didn't get harmed because the parent and children got lucky and not because they did their research and made sure they had all the facts first? That's like saying "there are my kids and I drive safe and they've never gotten hurt despite me not properly buckling them in so what's the harm?" No, not as drastic as that maybe, but still. We don't know how much she knew about tattooing, just that she said she "took precautions" which doesn't always mean she took the right ones.

Yes things probably could have gone wrong, but the mother at least from what I can gather had a handle on what she was doing.

Again, she may have just got lucky and whether or not you think it should be allowed, it's illegal.

Also, looked up the process and found this on one of the sites (it's not about this incident specifically):

Unless this kid is using gas oxide or autoclave sterilization, which is unlikely as those units are very expensive, he is putting everyone he works on, including your son, at risk.

Also, if the boyfriend wasn't licenced, it was illegal even if they were of age I believe. Not to mention, after looking around, there are a lot of safety regulations like the unused ink shouldn't go back into the container or be used on a second person. We don't know what procedures they used, but the autoclave one is pretty big in my mind.

[AFPheonix]

As with any story you don't know the full details without actually being there, but I think I might venture to say this woman did nothing wrong. I base this on a few points.

1: Article says she tried the homemade tattoo gun on herself first. - aka she was making sure it would be safe.

2: Article says she claims to have changed the needle for each person - aka she was being sanitary to some degree.

3: Article says mother does not intend for the tattoos to be permanent.

4: Obviously no lasting damage has been done, or at least the article did not mention whether or not the home made tattoos on the children became infected. Assuming they did not, then what harm is there in a parent supervising what her children are doing and allowing them to try out something they are curious about in prenatally supervised safety?

Yes things probably could have gone wrong, but the mother at least from what I can gather had a handle on what she was doing.

http://us.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2...ttoo.kids.wtvc

The cop in this video says the home-scratcher boyfriend used the same needle for all of them.
Even so, this is a frickin' prison tattoo setup. There's no way he could have kept sanitary conditions in his home to provide a safe tattoo experience, even if it was legal to tattoo 7 year old children. He exposed his kids to some potentially devastating bacterial infections, and he totally screwed up the tats on his stupidass girlfriend. I lost track of the blow outs and crappy linework on her leg, there's so many of them.

If the kids wanted to mark themselves up, a responsible mother would have handed them a sharpie, not stand around looking dazed and saying gems like "I don't know why this blowed up so bad".

A tattoo is something that isn't easy to remove if you don't like the thing. You don't permanently mark up your child with them. The law makes people wait until their brains are a little more mature so they can be a little less impulsive about something that's more or less permanent. I have a tattoo, I love it, it's great. But I thought long and hard about it before I got it done, and when the time comes for me to get more of them, I sure as hell wouldn't let some crappy ass home scratcher "artist" touch me. There are professionals out there who will do the job right.