Mum was always a rebel. She spent her youth sneaking into discos and living with rock bands, so it was awfully tough to shock her with anything we did growing up. However, in 2001, when my older brother, Mathew, phoned home to say he’d gotten a tattoo in a back alley in Thailand, well, that just about did it. Mum was never religious, but that night, so concerned Mathew would catch some horrible disease or infection, she prayed.
Then, right after my 18th birthday in 2008, my own tattoo journey began. My mother’s fears around the risk of diseases from tattoos, such as hepatitis, had faded, but other stigmas still lingered. When I told Mum I had made an appointment to get my first tattoo at a professional studio in Sydney, it was my prospects, not my health, that worried her – how it would affect my ability to find work, or whether I would end up regretting it.
