Striking a deal: How one mom persuaded her teenager to eschew the tattoo

When my son was in high school, I read the emerging research about the limitations of the teenage brain and found that the description fit him like his favorite T-shirt.

Impulsive. Unable to anticipate consequences. Poor ability to imagine and plan for the future.

With all due respect to my fine young man, check, check and check.I had heard mutterings about tattoos, and I figured I needed a plan. I'm not the biggest fan of body art, although I have become more open to it as it has moved to the mainstream and stayed there. Frankly, I wasn't sure I could trust him to make a wise decision about a permanent mark on his body. I worried that he would choose something that would make him feel foolish or embarrassed when he was middle-aged. But I knew that once he crossed the threshold on his 18th birthday, I lost the power to make him do what I wanted.

So, how did I get him to voluntarily do what I wanted?

The answer I came up with was simple: cash.

I was never particularly extravagant with my three children, which is why a big fat bribe had so much power. Around the time he turned 16, my son and I struck what has come to be known as The Deal. I told him that I would pay him to not get tattooed. A thousand bucks at age 21, another grand on his 25th birthday.

He didn't have to swear off body art, he only had to delay it. What he might pick at 25 would be the choice of an adult, not a teenager. And, with a real reward at stake, he might think twice if the whole gang had a few pitchers and decided to get inked late one night.

But he didn't.

When he turned 21, I ceremoniously wrote him a check.

Just weeks ago, he turned 25 and I did it again.

I took the occasion to quiz him about The Deal and was surprised to hear that he is the only person in his group of friends without body art. Several of his buddies, in fact, have apprenticed as tattoo artists, and have offered him free work that he declined.

"If we hadn't had The Deal, it would have gone down," he said. "I should be thanking you. I probably would have something that I would regret and wouldn't like very much. In fact, I might have become a tattoo artist. Come on -- it's art you get paid for!"

"Yeah, probably. When the time is right," he said. "I'll know."