Signing the bottom of the agreement for my first tattoo felt like signing my soul away to the devil. I’d grown up with my father telling me that tattoos and piercings are something that employers take note of every time a candidate walks into an interview, so I heard his voice whispering warnings in the back of my mind. But alas, I was 18 and freshly pierced, and I wasn’t thinking down the line at all.

I was never forced to confront my impulsive decision head-on until last semester when I signed up to volunteer in an elementary school classroom through Madison House. Insecurities suddenly flooded my mind. What would the teachers think of me? Would they see me as unprofessional? And most dauntingly, what would the children — in all of their reckless and unconstrained honesty — say about me? Or would they even say anything at all?

I knew my father’s world is completely different from my own, so I wondered if students and younger teachers in today’s school system would even have an opinion. I know from my own upbringing that millennials and members of Generations Z and Alpha have been raised on messages of self-expression and acceptance, so the youth of today must be far more used to seeing tattoos and piercings on a day-to-day basis.

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