My second-born child, my only daughter, my baby, turned 18 this month. She’ll graduate high school with honors in June, and can’t wait to start on her liberal arts degree this fall. And all I can think is, how did it happen? How did she turn into a young woman so quickly?

She was two weeks late arriving, and weighed in at a whopping 10 lb, 3 oz (which I blame on my quitting smoking during the pregnancy). At age 18, she weighs little more than 10 times that much. She’s a committed vegan, and is passionate about the environment and the local music scene. She is tattooed and pierced and absolutely gorgeous, in my admittedly biased opinion.

Yes, my beautiful baby is tattooed. Fairly heavily, in fact. And yes, we still butt heads over it occasionally. I keep urging her to slow down; life is a long journey and she won’t be the same person tomorrow as she is today. Of course, she insists she knows what she wants on the canvass of her own body. And as she has pointed out to me when I raised the specter of health concerns, modern tattoo parlors are not the purveyors of dread diseases that we’ve been led to believe they are. Not a single case of HIV has been traced to a tattoo parlor in America, whereas 7 cases have been attributed to dental clinics. Likewise, you are far more likely to contract Hepatitis C at a dental clinic than from a tattoo (unless your get your tattoo in prison, perhaps). Thankfully, with the exception of a few modest pieces, her tattoos are discreet and private, and not for public consumption. I know that tattoos are becoming more mainstream every day, but visibly tattooed people still encounter negative reactions. I have no doubt that tattooing will eventually become so commonplace that it will no longer carry such negative or deviant connotations, but in the meantime, I’m just grateful my daughter likes to keep her body under wraps.

But what got me started on this blog post? Reading teasers for the May edition of the WetNoodlePosse ezine. Our own Dr. Debra will field a question from a mother whose daughter wants more piercings but dad isn't excited about the idea. Having been on the same hot seat as that mom a number of times, I can't wait to read Dr. Debra's advice!