Judgy family members are always a pain. If that wasn’t bad enough, it seems like if they’re judgy, you can bet they’re going to be nosy on top of it. 

What you get is someone who constantly snoops about to find something to get mad about – a perpetually unpleasable person.

Reddit user One-Fudge3629 details her story about her nightmare MIL, who never approved of her, especially not of her tattoos, going so far as to even gift her a $500 check to get them removed.

More info: Reddit

What can you do with a gift that is openly against what you believe in and stand for, but store it away somewhere

Image credits: Mike Steele (not the actual photo)

A poster wanted to share a story about her judgy MIL who had never approved of her being with her son

Image credits: One-Fudge3629

The thing she hated the most about her daughter-in-law was her tattoos, but shut up about it after her son said that enough was enough

Image credits: One-Fudge3629

It all came to a head when the mom gifted a $500 check for tattoo removal to the wife, which she just threw in a drawer for 3 years

Image credits: One-Fudge3629

Image credits: Karolina Grabowska (not the actual photo)

After posting, she got a great suggestion to give it away to a restorative justice organization where someone could use it to have an antisemitic tattoo removed

Image credits: One-Fudge3629

This is not the first nor the last incident with the MIL, her calling the OP a “lazy mother” at another point

The poster mentions being married to her husband for 3 years, after being together for 6, but her MIL still won’t accept her, nor her tattoos.

This tension was made even more apparent when during a birthday dinner, the MIL gave a $500 tattoo removal check to her as a gift, saying that she’ll want to get them removed someday, seeing as she’s a married woman and will have kids in the future.

3 years and 3 more tattoos later, the check was still lying in a drawer somewhere. After sharing the stories on the Just No MIL subreddit, she got the suggestion to give it away to a restorative justice organization where someone who actually needs it could use it.

Even better, the check would be used to remove an embarrassing antisemitic hate symbol, which is powerful for the OP as she is Jewish herself.

In another post on the same subreddit, the poster detailed another story with her MIL revealing that she had another major clash a year after the tattoo removal gift.

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She and her husband had a baby together and MIL only got to see the daughter once before the quarantine began, meaning the next time they all saw each other was a whole year later.

Her husband really wanted to have a child and was a super involved dad, helping with everything equally, so when MIL saw this happening a whole year later, she got all huffy and puffy.

She called OP a lazy mom, saying that this is far beyond “modern parenting”, jumping to conclusions that the poster was abusing her precious son after seeing their parental load sharing for one day.

OP explained the situation and said that if MIL wants to be invited back, she should stop behaving like this. A lot of crying from MIL later, she got this for an apology: “I’ll just keep my mouth shut next time.”

Image credits: Nico Becker (not the actual photo)

For this article, Bored Panda reached out to a Lithuanian tattoo artist named Jogailė for some expert comments about people’s changing opinions on tats. She loves all forms of art, striving to do tattoos from as early as 15, beginning her apprenticeship at 17.

She’s been learning, gaining experience and tattooing people for more than 4 years now. You can find more of her tattoos and her art on her IG page – Jogurtukas.

According to her, tattoos are still looked down upon quite often, so naturally, a lot of parents are against it. Sometimes Jogailė’s clients even choose to get smaller tattoos in less visible places to avoid conflicts with their parents. “In general, I’d say parents are more disapproving,” Jogailė confirmed.

Nevertheless, she has stories during which family members changed their minds about tattoos.

She recalls when her own mom found out that Jogailė wanted to do tattoos for a living and naively said that she can be an artist without having any tattoos herself. “Which I found hilarious and just stayed quiet, knowing that I won’t be one of those artists.”

As soon as her 18th birthday came, she got her first tattoo, covering her entire forearm and hid it at first. But Jogailė’s collection of tattoos kept growing until she couldn’t hide it any more.

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Her mom wasn’t satisfied, but didn’t really say anything at that time.

“Only once I got my face tattooed, she called in distress and told me to not get any more,” the artist says, going on to say that things did change over time, “with years, I think she realized that it’s a part of me.”

Her mom may not be happy, but is definitely more accepting of tattoos than before; just goes to show what a mother’s love can do.

Image credits: Anna Shvets (not the actual photo)

Another example she has is of her ex-boyfriend’s family. His dad hated tattoos, saying that only prisoners or thieves got them. He got to know Jogailė, and started saying that he finds her tattoos beautiful and that she should get even more of them.

“I’d tell stories of what my tattoos mean and what my clients get. He realized that regular, everyday people get them done all the time. Since then he’s been a huge fan.”

If you’re scared of getting tattooed, Jogailė can share some words of encouragement that tells to her clients.

“Life is incredibly short, once you’re old, your biggest regrets will be not doing what could have made you happy. Tattoos are a beautiful reminder of stages of life you lived through.”

If people judge you for taking control of your body, they don’t deserve to be around you and are doing you a favor by showing their true colors.

You’ve got to have thick skin, because people love commenting about tattoos, but the tattoo community has some of the kindest, loveliest and most open-minded people, who will never judge others based on appearances, Jogailė says touchingly.

“Your happiness and self expression should always come first, and others’ opinions are always directed to their own dissatisfactions in life,” she finishes our talk.

Unfortunately, studies from as late as 2018 still find that tattoos still carry a stigma in societies, despite their increasing prevalence. The aforementioned study found that tattooed people, especially women, were described as stronger and more independent than those without tattoos, but were also rated more negatively on character attributes.

Interestingly enough, another study on tattooed people from 2012 found that they had significantly higher scores toward extraversion, experience seeking, need for uniqueness, and held more positive attitudes toward tattoos (who would’ve guessed that last one? Not me!).

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Image credits: liz west (not the actual photo)

A BBC article about tattoos underlines that there may be broad differences from country to country whether cultures in general accept tattoos. For example, in Japan, tattoos carry a major stigma from being associated with Japanese gang members – the yakuza. 

These tattoos were a show of wealth, masculinity, and your ability to withstand pain – as getting a large tattoo in one sitting is a painful ordeal – especially if it’s in a sensitive place like the ribs or joints.

Speaking more about yakuza tattoos, it’s one of the ways impressionable youths get sucked into the gangs. As they can cost tens of thousands of dollars, the gang says they’ll front the tattoo and they will pay back the cost by working, according to a different article.

Despite the stigma and various fringe examples, tattoos are slowly becoming more acceptable in society. EU Business News says that, for example, 26% people in the UK have tattoos, with them being more popular with younger folk.

They’ve become so popular that even world leaders have or had tattoos, from King George V, to Winston Churchill, to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau.

Don’t forget – tattoos come in all shapes and sizes, designs and colors. It shouldn’t matter what they ‘mean’, they may be a part of a person’s identity and story or they may simply be a design they love – neither of these should invite people to be rude.

If you liked this article, we suggest you read another Bored Panda piece about how a Newscaster steamrolled a hater who was talking smack about her traditional Maori tattoos. Tell us more about your tattoo designs, tattoo stories or even that tattoo you’ve secretly been wanting to get in the comments below.

The commenters were the ones who suggested for the card to be given away before the update, also jesting about the pettiness of the MIL

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