Why do they do that?
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
We were taking my mother to get some shoes last week and parked in front of a tattoo/piercing parlor. "Need something pierced, Mom?" I joked as I helped her out of the car. "I just don't understand why these people do these things," my mom answered, echoing the sentiment of every older generation.
I remember when my daughter Jana and her friend were going to get a tattoo — she already was old enough to make her own decisions without my lectures, so I kept still. She and her boyfriend had a heavy discussion, however, and was I ever glad that he had a strong bargaining tool. She didn't get the tattoo and he quit smoking!
Every generation has their thing — some trend that sets the decades apart. My aunts, in the 1920s were clever ladies and the latest trends from the city would not leave them behind. Aunt Bertha cut her sister's hair and marceled them in elegant waves, close to their heads. It was the rage and their parents didn't say a word as long locks of hair fell to the floor. Aunt Clara (the oldest, with a meek personality) cried her eyes out after her long hair was cut. She thought it was the end of the world and she'd been ruined for life by following her silly sisters.
Aunt Erna was the make-up queen and she helped my mother pluck her eyebrows for the first time.
"Did Grandma get mad at you?" I wanted to know.
"She didn't say a word," Mom still recalls the event vividly, "but my older sister set me straight — I hardly had any eyebrows left!" (I've begged my mother to let me print her sisters retort — in German, of course; but Mom says, "You DON'T put things like THAT in the paper, Patricia." So I guess you'll never know the punch-line.)
Growing up in a conservative religious environment, make-up was taboo! The first time my mother caught me with mascara on my eyes she said, "What on earth makes your eyes look so different? And are you wearing lipstick?" I veered quickly to the lipstick question and said, "No." Truthfully, I wasn't — we'd taken Boston Bean candies and smeared the red color on our lips — simulated lipstick, but not the real thing (an important technicality).
A lady visited with us from Newton last week, and somehow we got on this subject of trends and she said, "Let me tell you one: My granddaughter came home with a set of straps — like you'd have on a bra or a slip — just straps and they could be taped on to show under other things, mind you!" She paused a moment. "In my day, we went to great lengths to HIDE our straps!"
"I'm glad now that I didn't get that tattoo," Jana says. "My friend regretted hers — it was a cow skull commemorating her roots in Texas — now she lives a very different lifestyle and has probably had it lasered off." Jana, the psychology major, went on to explain that tattoos, piercings, and fashion trends are about trying to regain that sense of belonging that we miss in our modern lives, "It's a tribal thing," she explained, "as well as claiming ownership and responsibility for your own body!"
It's another day in the country and three generations, five decades, are represented at the table for lunch today. We look at each other and realize that piercings come and go, tattoos fade, hair color grows out, fashions change — eventually, we won't have to worry that your pants will fall completely off or your straps look obscene. Through it all, you're loved! You're family! You are part of my Tribe!
