I had the pleasure of meeting a very nice 5 year old girl this past weekend - I stayed with her grandma, Elizabeth Mahina, for Tribal Caravan. This charming girl was intrigued by all the sparkley tattoos (read: henna with glitter on it) she saw on bellydancers, so she got her own little flower on her wrist. She was comparing it to my arm, peering back and forth, and finally she reached out and... poked my tattoo. She rubbed my arm, trying to figure out why she couldn't feel my tattoo like she could feel the henna on her skin, which was dry and raised at that point. She then poked each of the red spots on my tattoo in turn. It was cute and funny. I explained that it was part of my skin, like dye on fabric, but I figure she was a little too young to grasp that concept. But how sweet!

Another experience that made me think about kids and body mods was meeting my tattoo artist's daughter. Her mommy brought her in to visit while dad was working on my arm. The little girl leaned through the window in the booth to say hello - and she grabbed dad's 1" ear plugs and pulled herself in like they were handles! The motion seemed familiar to her, and I would guess she holds on to his ears a lot. It made me smile, because I realized that to her, his gauged ears are totally normal.

I think kids are wonderful for the way they will accept things that adults consider weird. I had black and pink fake dreads for about a year, and kids just wanted to touch them and play with them, but their parents were horrified that their kids would even dream of commenting on how "pretty" my pink hair was. I let the kids play with it just to make their parents more uncomfortable.