One anonymous mother took to Reddit to seek reassurance after she made her decision to give one of her twin toddler sons a tattoo so she knows which one of her children is which and caused a major discussion on the forums.
SheKnows reports the Reddit forum AITA had a flurry of activity after the mother reached out to the Internet for advice in order to quell a current family feud with her mother-in-law.
The mother, who has since deleted her username on Reddit, revealed that her mother-in-law was furious over the fact that she decided to give one of her sons a small tattoo on his ear, despite the fact that the little boy’s mother was doing it due to medical issues.
“I have two beautiful fraternal twin boys named Adam and Jake,” the concerned mom posted on the Reddit forum. “Jake has a condition—without going into detail, he has to get a shot once a week. Once he’s older he’ll be able to take medication. Now, they may be fraternal, but they look exactly alike and everyone mixes them up. I’ll be honest, my husband and I often get confused about which one is which.”
The toddler mom went on to explain that after she went back to work, her mother-in-law offered to watch her grandsons. She would give Jack the injection every week at 10 a.m. right after the little boys’ scheduled snack time and before their nap.
One month prior to this post, the boys’ grandmother made a big mistake that caused her to quit babysitting the two toddlers.
“She gave the shot to the wrong kid,” the mom said. “She immediately noticed her mistake and called 911. They were then transferred to the hospital. By the time I got there, Adam had been given the reversal agent and they were both happily sipping on juice. He was never in any danger since it is a very slow-acting medication that, at worst, would have given him diarrhea in a few days. My mother-in-law was beside herself. I tried to ease her worry, but she refused to babysit so I enrolled them in daycare.”
The mom thought the daycare would be able to tell the two of them apart so they don’t have another incident, but even they struggled to tell the difference between the twins. She was expressing her frustration at a recent doctor’s visit and the doctor recommended a medical tattoo.
“They tattooed a freckle that’s no bigger than the end of a pencil eraser on an area of skin that's easily seen while the child is under mild sedation similar to dental offices,” the mom wrote on Reddit. “Because of the area it's in, the temporary tattoo usually fades in two to three years. By then, the child should have developed more personal features and may not need it redone. So after some discussion with my husband, we did it and he now has a 2mm brown freckle on his earlobe.”
Many Reddit users agreed that the mother did the right thing and the toddlers’ grandmother overreacted.
“I’m against body modification without the consent of the individual if it’s not easily reversible,” Reddit userAccomplished_Hat_576 wrote. “This is the epitome of reversible and so minor it’s not even noticeable.”
Fellow poster AllInWithAces also made a good point about the mother-in-law’s behavior.
“I think she heard the word ‘tattoo’ and got upset,” they said. “Then she felt like she was too committed to being upset once she realized she was overreacting.”