HAVING tattoos doesn’t make you a bad mother, says Orange mother of two Jess Bloomfield who is offended by the Facebook page Your Tattoos Make You A Horrible Mother and wants it removed from the internet.
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The Facebook page claims children of tattooed mothers can look forward to “a life of drug and alcohol abuse, ankle monitors (and) debilitating carnival ride accidents”.
Mrs Bloomfield said she’d contacted Facebook to demand the page be taken down but the company had refused to do so.
“I think it’s really offensive and so do a lot of my friends,” Mrs Bloomfield said.
“We’ve contacted Facebook about 15 times asking them to remove it but they won’t.”
Mrs Bloomfield, who considers herself a good mother to her own children and three step-children, is angry the page suggests mothers with tattoos are likely to be criminals or have children who grow up to be criminals
“I know a lot of people judge people with tattoos and think tattoos defile your body, but tattoos don’t reflect who you are as a person,” she said.
Mrs Bloomfield was 17 when she and a group of friends all had the word ‘sinful’ tattooed on their bodies.
She also has tattoos of the names of her sons Nicholas and Riley, as well her husband Mark, and a tattoo tribute to an aunt who died.
“I’ve seen people who have gone too far with their tattoos and have them everywhere from head to toe, but I don’t judge them, each to their own,” Mrs Bloomfield said.
Mrs Bloomfield said people often had strong opinions about the way mothers should look and behave and admitted to having received flak for being a stay-at-home mother.
“I don’t think people have the right to enforce their beliefs on other people,” she said.
The manager of Orange’s only tattoo shop, Wicked Ink Tattoo and Body Piercing Studio, Kelly Ward said there were many reasons why people decided to have a tattoos.
“Tattoos are used by so many cultures for so many reason,” Ms Ward said.
“It’s become very mainstream now and is seen as something that’s done for decorative reasons as much as anything.”
Ms Ward said she’d seen people have tattoos as a form of celebration or as a way of commemorating the dead.
“At the end of the day it’s art, it’s no different from buying a paining but you’re wearing it on your skin,” she said.
“It’s all about personal choice, people shouldn’t judge other people.”
Ms Ward, who has only one tattoo, said only one of her two adult daughters had chosen to have a tattoo.
“When I got my tattoo about 25 years ago I felt I would be judged for having it so I got it somewhere I could hide it if I wanted to, but there are a lot of people who are out and proud about their tattoos,” she said.
tracey.prisk@fairfaxmedia.com.au