In a few weeks, my older child, a daughter, will be eleven, so I guess it’s time to start talking to her about not getting a tattoo. But you know, these days you go in for Restylane and Coolsculpting and your dermatologist asks if you want her to take off the tramp stamp while you’re in there. So maybe that’s not even a thing anymore?
I did bring up her changing body the other day–I mean, not hers specifically–God, she would kill me–and she really wasn’t receptive at all. So I think what I’m going to do to kind of check that box is to give her the talk about pet ownership. I’m not at all nervous about this one because I have given this talk to several of my newly married friends when they wanted to get pets either to “test things out” before they started having children, or just, I don’t know, travel less and spend their extra money on emergency vet bills.
Personal story: A long time ago I used to have a job. I won’t say what it is because that would be too personal a story, but I took both it and myself seriously enough that I believed the time was wrong for my dream animal, a German Shepherd (or similar).  So I got onto the dial-up internet and ordered some Burmese cats. (From Texas! Like I’m going to order cats from Burma/Myanmar.)  They are still alive. They have ruined most of my furniture because I used to be nice and I didn’t have them de-clawed and now the vet won’t do it.
It is much less humane to have two healthy cats removed than it is to have a cat tattoo removed, and, presumably, even more expensive, because of the discretion involved. Also, the vet bills, food, destroyed furniture and what-not add up. And if you get a dog, you can’t go on vacation. And you’ll stop liking it if you have a baby.

Next: Babies are also more permanent than tattoos.