Amberniqua Iglehart

Composition 1023.10

Donna Souder

January 24, 2007

On Teenagers and Tattoos

I chose the article, On Teenagers and Tattoos, by Andres Martin, M.D. to read because I thought it would be interesting to see what the author would have to say about teenagers and tattoos. I, myself, have two tattoos, one which I got when I was sixteen years old. People always seem to have their own opinion about why teenagers get tattoos along with many other so-called “fads”. I personally believe that everyone may have their own certain reason for getting a tattoo on their body. A person’s motive for getting a tattoo is their own business. I don’t believe that everyone should develop stereotypes for the people that do. However, in the world we live in, everyone will always have some opinion towards a particular action made by someone else.

I was somewhat offended by what was said in the article. The author stated, “For the adolescent, multiple piercings or tattoos may be seen as personal and beautifying statements, while parents may construe them as oppositional and enraging affronts to their authority” (119). This is a judgment made about all teenagers that have tattoos or multiple piercings. In my experience, this judgment is not true. However, some teenagers do go out and get permanent markings on their body just to go against their parents’ say so. My mother picked out my second tattoo. While I was getting my second tattoo, my mother, grandmother, and aunt stood behind the counter and watched the artist permanently scar my skin. After my tattoo was completed, my mother told me I should get my belly button pierced for the second time.

Knowing that the author had M.D. behind her name made me question where the information had be acquired from. Someone with the author’s education should not be making such bold assumptions. I would have thought that an educated person, such as Andres Martin, M.D., would have did various research and then wrote an article but that was obviously not the case. Martin, M.D. probably wrote this article for teenagers in an effort to minimize the number of youth getting permanent markings. If that was not the author’s intentions, I don’t think that the article would have been published in a Composition book.

The article was not badly written. Nonetheless, the information found in the article was poorly researched. Some of the information was true that I found in “On Teenagers and Tattoos”. “Imagery of a religious, deathly, or skeletal nature, the likenesses of fierce animals or imagined creatures, and the simple inscription of names are some of the time-tested favorite contents of tattoos”, (Martin, 119). Tattoos, in many cases, have meaning behind them. They may represent something that has happened in the person’s life, something the person hopes for the future, or even an inspirational thought. Tattoos aren’t just a “fad”, they are a way some people express themselves and set themselves apart from the rest.