A video of the moment a college student revealed a new tattoo to her parents has gone viral thanks to the contrasting reactions of mom and dad.
Lucy Pettit, from Skipton, North Yorkshire, in the U.K., shared footage of the moment she revealed her new inking to parents Bob and Ruth to her TikTok @lucypxoxo. It’s been watched over 1 million times.
“It was actually one of my best friends that told me to post it online,” Pettit told Newsweek. “I’m not really a big poster on social media but she is one of my childhood friends so has known my parents for a long time and she said it was really funny to post.”
Tattoos can be the source of some contention among families, with the divide seemingly drawn along generational lines.
In 2023, a Pew Research Center survey highlighted this divide. While 41 percent of adults under 30 had at least one tattoo and 46 percent of those aged 30 to 49 did, by contrast just 25 percent of adults aged 50 to 64 and 13 percent of those 65 and older did.
Pettit’s parents are both 54, putting them firmly in the age bracket of those less likely to embrace body art. At age 20, however, Pettit is among those more likely to.
The inking she chose—the initials UTP on her toe—had special significance. “I was on a holiday with my football team from university in Albergeria, and some of the other girls got ‘UTP’ tattoos a few days before which stands for ‘up the poly’ which is what we say for our team when we play,” she said.
The decision to have a tattoo of a camel put alongside it was done out of the fact she thought it “would be funny.”
“We had had a few drinks so in my drunken state I obviously couldn’t choose between the two tattoos so ended up getting them both squished on my big toe,” Pettit said. “I woke up the next morning and forgot I had got it done and then all my friends had to tell me to check my toe.”
It would take Pettit a month to pluck up the courage to tell her parents, choosing to do so during a meal organized to celebrate her birthday. Going into the meal, Pettit was nervous. “I knew how my mom would react but was unsure about my dad,” Pettit said.
What followed when she finally revealed the tattoos was a contrast in responses. As the video shows, while her mom Ruth appeared thoroughly unimpressed, her dad Bob couldn’t help but laugh.
“I was kinda shocked he laughed,” Pettit said. “He was trying his hardest to hold his laugh in because he could see how my mom was reacting but he clearly didn’t hide it well.”
Despite the differing responses, Pettit said her parents have agreed on one thing. “They don’t really like my tattoo,” she said. “Luckily you can’t really see it much being where it is.”
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