'How come my Gen Alpha students make nasty comments?': Heavily-tattooed teacher questions why her young students constantly criticize her ink

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  via Les Taylor

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  A woman with tattoos sits on a desk with books

• How come my Gen X and Millennial colleagues have NEVER given me **** for my tattoos, but my Gen Alpha students make nasty comments?

  So I (28F) have been an entrepreneur for a few years and thought I'd go back to school to get a teaching license. I am currently doing rounds of substituting in different schools, and have had a wild ride. I am also heavily tattooed. Very heavily tattooed.

  Contrary to popular belief, I've never been denied a job because of it as far as I know, and have held some really cool jobs in the past. I worked in corporate insurance, as a teaching associate in grad school, in computer science research, and as a publishing consultant. People always scared me about getting tattoos when I was younger, but I have been very successful in my career despite having very very visible tattoos. Yes, sure, there's a few I sort of regret having got done my a ****** artist, but overall, I wouldn't change being a tattooed person for anything.

  -u/Excellent_Detail5196

• This woman had an interesting experience to share as someone who had a bunch of tattoos, and some students wanted to say a lot about them. Tattoos have become so normalized in culture, and we definitely have Gen X and Millennials to thank for that. They've become so popularized that you're bound to know a bunch of people who have them, even people who might not consider themselves alternative. But what will upcoming generations think about them?

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  via Annie Spratt

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  A woman reads a book with tattooed arms

• No one at work ever comments on my extensive tattoos, except I've had a few Gen X colleagues say they think it's cool and show me their own secret tattoos, lol. I've also worked in a more conservative area in Eastern Europe shortly, and again, absolutely no one said anything about my tattoos, ever.

  Anyway, I am now substituting Gen Alpha a few days a week and things are changing. They're around 13-15 years old.

• We have a tendency to rebel against that which came before us. Anything our parents did, we might consider "lame" and want to do the opposite. For a lot of millennials and Gen X-ers, tattoos were something that their parents disapproved of, so it made it a more exciting option. But if your parents are tatted up, then maybe the biggest rebellion is going inkless. The Gen Alpha kids in this story seemed to think so. Keep reading for the full story and see what some commenters had to say about this interesting question for the culture.

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  via Kateryna Hliznitsova For Unsplash+

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  A group of Gen Alpha girls sit on a couch taking a photo

• I've had quite a few Gen Alpha kids openly tell me that they think my tattoos look trashy and "low-class" among other weird things about my appearance, like how my pores are huge, or that I need to exfoliate my skin? Yeah kids can be mean, but I've heard the tattoos comments more than anything else now. It seems to really bug some of them.

  I teach in a very liberal area. Most of the parents of the kids are very nice and decent people. It's a school with a really good reputation as well.

  What is going on? I've had a few dirty looks from older boomers in the past, but truly nothing like this, ever. Is the pendulum swinging backwards and Gen Alpha is now more "traditional" or something? I was genuinely shocked when this started happening more.

  -u/Excellent_Detail5196

• procrastireading

  I’d be curious to see if their parents have tattoos? Or grandparents? This might be following the trend of “it was cool for a previous generation, thus is the pinnacle of shame for the current one”.

• Clouds_drifting_by

  It’s not the subject (tattoos, pores, etc) or being traditional, it’s the lack of social filter/basic politeness.

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  via Quilia

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  A group of middle schoolers sit in a classroom

• ehco

  They're completely immersed in social media that constantly compares and criticises everything. And the more nasty you are the more engagement you get.

  We thought fashion magazines were bad back in the day? Imagine literally having 100 people criticising every fashion magazine photo, and also every photo album photo (video) a random teenager puts up.

• LibertyDochas

  I think it’s a bit like how Gen X were disdainful of hippies there for a bit. More conservative cultural attitudes tend to follow on the heels of more liberal ones. The tattoos are likely associated with what they consider overly liberal excesses. Even if they aren’t intentionally thinking that way.

• Beruthiel999

  I just can't get over any kid insulting a teacher's appearance to their face and getting away with it. When I was in school I certainly had opinions about my teachers' fundie grandma church wear and wannabe-football-coach-but-too-flabby looks, but I knew better than to let them hear it!

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