Mom Arrested After 10-Year-Old Son Gets Tattoo
A mother in Georgia has been arrested for reportedly allowing her 10-year-old son to get his own tattoo. The tattoo was done in honor of the boy's 12-year-old brother who was hit by a car, according to Atlanta's Channel 2 Action News.
A nice tribute? Well, not quite. Tthe problem is that in Georgia it is illegal for any child under 18 to get a tattoo. Chuntera Napier, who lives in Acworth, Georgia, said she knew nothing about the law. But now she faces charges of misdemeanor child cruelty after someone at her son's school reported the tattoo to authorities.
Napier was arrested on Tuesday and released yesterday morning.
Acworth Police Chief Michael Wilkie said the police were bound by the law to make the arrest.
Napier is not the only parent who has been arrested in Georgia for allowing a child under 18 to get tattoos. According to Channel 2 Action News, Patty Marsh and Jacob Bartels gave their children, who ranged in age from 10 to 17, homemade tattoos.
Another Georgia resident, Enrique Gonzalez, put a "quarter-sized tattoo" on his six-year-old after which he was threatened with a lifetime sentence for “aggravated mayhem and street terrorism.”
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There has been some talk about why is it legal (and encouraged, in many cases) for parents to circumcise their boys versus this case where a boy made a choice for himself and his mother facilitated that choice.
Circumcision: NOT approved by the American Association of Pediatrics Most often done on males shortly after birth without the individual's consent. Most often done for cosmetic purposes.
Ten year old gets tattoo: Informed decision. His body, his choice. What would I have done if I were this mother? I probably would have tried to come up with another way to commemorate the brother. That being said, this is silly, the state should focus their sites on truly abusive parents.
You bring up some very good points. Circumcision is usually performed for religious reasons or because the parents are simply uninformed. That is truly permanent life-long mutilation. It can be said so is a tattoo, but it is more fashion and stupidity. How qualified is a 10 y/o to make a decision about anything permanent?
Yes, there are truly abusive parents that slide under the radar. I think they should be prosecuting the tattoo parlor, not the mother. You cannot legislate away stupidity or ignorance.
Thanks for your sensible post.
If freedom means anything, it is the liberty to tell others what they do not want to hear.
Yes, it's nice to be able to alter your meaning after the fact, isn't it?
If freedom means anything, it is the liberty to tell others what they do not want to hear.
That is a silly law... and perhaps the tattoo parlor should have also been aware of the law, assuming that's where he got it. Whatever the case though, I'm sad to see that happen.
"To remember his brother"? Is she saying that, without mutilating his body, he's so stupid, he'll forget he had a brother? Well, she might have a point, it is Georgia.
If freedom means anything, it is the liberty to tell others what they do not want to hear.
Oh for goodness sake.
Welcome to the nanny state.
Do you mean parents should be permitted to make any decision, no matter how harmful, for their children? What if this woman had decided, as a sign of mourning, he should cut off a finger? This is common in some cultures.
Or what if she wanted to subject him to daily beatings with thorn branches "in remembrance of your brother's suffering"?
Because people are often stupid or cruel, someone has to step in and say, "Not that". True sometimes that goes to ludicrous extremes. I think forbidding bodily mutilations is not. What tattoo doesn't degenerate into a muddy mess in a few years? This kid will be stuck with it forever.
If freedom means anything, it is the liberty to tell others what they do not want to hear.
While I'm not a fan of tattoos, equating it to cutting off a finger is just silly.