Multimedia Reporting (Kuhr-Musser)

On Dec. 1, 2004, Colleen Walker, Ted Walker, T.J. Walker, Sarah Walker and Karron Schwartz all got tattoos. By 7 o’clock that evening, all five of them displayed permanent memorials to their family member, Ryan Walker, who died one year earlier at age 17.

Colleen first thought of getting a tattoo when she saw other memorial tattoos at Compassionate Friends, a group for parents whose children have died. Colleen and her family decided to all get tattoos on the one-year anniversary of Ryan’s death.

“I would have never gotten a tattoo if my son had not died,” Colleen said.

The family drew five original tattoos in memory of Ryan. The designs ranged from roses to Batman to angel wings. When other people see the Walkers’ tattoos, the family shows them off rather than hiding them.

“It gives us a chance to talk about Ryan,” Ted said.

Tattoos becoming more accepted by mainstream society is not a new trend. However, while tattooing is often seen as a teenage fad, 44-year-old Colleen, 46-year-old Ted and 63-year-old Karron are part of a lesser-known tattoo demographic. According to a 2003 poll of 2,215 adults by Harris Interactive, 16% of all Americans have at least one tattoo and about one in 10 Americans over age 40 have tattoos.

Not all 40-plus tattoos are old military symbols. Men and women alike are visiting the tattoo parlor for the first time after age 40. This age group gets tattoos for as many different reasons as the college-aged crowd.

Those in the tattoo field say that people get tattoos for three main reasons. Tattoos often display an emotion. This can be honoring the dead, displaying religious affiliation or celebration of a milestone. Tattoos have evolved from black-ink art to elaborate artwork, which has led to tattoos becoming a fashion statement for some. The third group of people gets tattoos solely for the allure of permanent body art.

Trudy Lough, like the Walkers, got a tattoo for an emotional reason. Lough is 48 and her daughter is a sophomore at KU. She got her first tattoo, a grapevine on the back of her right forearm, just one year ago.

“I had wanted to get one since I turned 40,” Lough said. “So after I lost my job last year, I just decided one day to do it.”

While Lough may seem unusual getting her first tattoo in her 40’s, her situation is much more common than many people may realize.

“When I got my tattoo,” Lough said, “the artist said that their average customer is a divorced woman of 38 years old.”

In contrast to the sentiment of Lough and the Walkers, Cyndi Hurst liked ankle bracelets but thought they were too much of a hassle, so five years ago she decided to get one tattooed on. The ankle bracelet idea evolved into a rose on her calf with the names of her children. She later also had a toe ring tattooed on her left foot. Hurst was 46 when she got her first tattoo.

“I never really thought about it younger,” Hurst said. “I guess I was 45 and rebellious.”

Some people, however, wait their entire lives to decide exactly what to ink on their bodies forever. George Marakas got two tattoos around age 50. He always thought that tattoos were interesting, but could not think of anything he wanted. Marakas finally decided on a dolphin and a dive flag to symbolize being a master scuba instructor for 20 years. Marakas says that the ideas surrounding tattoos in American culture have changed during his lifetime.

“The social sigma of the tattoo has changed,” Marakas said.

According to Rachel Robinson, a KU graduate student studying Polynesian tattooing, “tattoos first and foremost concern identity formation.”

This identity formation is not limited to bikers and rebellious teenagers.

“So far as people over the age of 40,” Robinson said, “perhaps they have had some life-altering experience – divorce, new job change, etcetera – and tattoos serve as a temporal and permanent souvenir to mark that particular rite of passage into a new phase of life.”

According to the Harris poll, many people with tattoos identify as being sexier, more spiritual, more rebellious and more attractive because of their tattoos. Non-tattooed individuals polled generally only saw tattooed people as more rebellious than people without tattoos.

“The recent trend is that tattoos have shifted in our western culture to what was once a ‘stigmatization,’ only the most undesirable individuals receiving them – sailors, carnival entertainers and people in prison – to what is now much more common and tolerable, although this too is dependent upon things such as age, gender and nationality,” Robinson said. “Tattoos today are seen more as a trend of fashion.”

Like any demographic, not everyone over 40 likes tattoos. The Harris poll found that 17% of those surveyed with tattoos regret getting their tattoos. This is most often because of a name on the tattoo, but can also be due to fading, poor placement of the tattoo and bad decision-making.

Doug Hayes, 46, got a heart tattoo on his arm at age 19 when his friends talked him into it. He always regretted the decision and felt that it hurt him in the workplace. He decided to have it removed in 1998 when he was 38. Even though Hayes had one for nearly two decades, he despises tattoos.

“I don’t like them,” Hayes said. “I think they’re disgusting and I don’t know why anyone would want to do it.”

Tattoos moving into the mainstream allowed the Walker family to get tattoos in memory of Ryan without serious social criticism. Colleen and Ted had not thought of tattoos in the past.

“Our generation didn’t grow up getting tattoos,” Colleen said.

The one unchanging fact of tattoos is the permanence of the tattoos themselves. The Walker tattoos serve as a daily reminder of short Ryan’s life.

“When you go through the loss of a child,” Colleen said, “the hardest obstacle is to think that someday someone will forget.”

Considering a memorial tattoo? Learn more before you go to the tattoo parlor.

How does the whole tattoo process work? Check out this step-by-step guide.