Alison Belsham waited a long time to get her tattoo – and then decided to keep it secret. But as she did, she realised their relationship had changed profoundly

Do you remember coming home in trepidation after your first visit to a tattoo studio, terrified of how your parents would react to the new ink on your arm or leg? You have my sympathies. When I got my first (and only) tattoo, I decided there was no way I was ever going to tell my mother about it.

It’s not such an unusual story – except that I have grown-up children of my own, and my mother is in her 80s. I’m not a teenager – not by a million miles – but I’m still keeping secrets from her. Most of my friends find it hilarious, but they all want to know why – and I found that in answering that question, I’ve learned something about my relationship with my mother, and about how our relationships with our parents change as we get older and we become parents ourselves.

It all started in the summer of 2015. I decided, for reasons that are only now becoming apparent to me, that I wanted to get a tattoo. No one in my immediate family has tattoos, although my submariner grandfather came back from China in the 1930s with beautiful dragon tattoos on his arms. I think seeing these fuelled a life-long fascination with ink on skin. My mother was not impressed and it was her strong disdain for tattoos and for people with them that stopped me having one for most of my adult life.

I was certain that revealing the tattoo to her would make me persona non grata in her eyes. Or something worse

However, that summer I reached a point where I thought it was now or never. In November, I booked an appointment with my brilliant tattoo artist, Matt Gordon, in Berlin. It was the first of five sessions and 25 hours of tattooing, and I now sport a three-quarter sleeve on my right arm, the main feature of which is an enormous octopus. It was larger than I intended to have, but I absolutely love it.

“What will your mother say?” asked a number of friends who know me well. The answer was simple. I wasn’t going to tell her. From now until for ever, it was my intention to wear long sleeves whenever I saw her. She need never know and I need never be subject to her disdain and disappointment. For I was certain that revealing the tattoo to her would make me persona non grata in her eyes. Or something worse.

It was only when my older son broached this subject with me that I really considered the deeper reasons for not wanting to tell her. “Now I have the perfect blackmail tool,” he said with an evil laugh.

“No,” I answered. “You go ahead and tell her – but bear in mind that you’ll be hurting her more than you hurt me.” That was when I realised that the real reason for not telling her was not fear of her reaction, or a particular need for her approval, but more in recognition of her point of view, which I obviously don’t share. I didn’t want to put her through the hurt and disappointment she would feel, however unjustified I thought it was. I was protecting her feelings rather than my own.

Of course, my tattoo was not the first thing I hid from her, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. And since being asked to write this article, I have actually told her about it. I have a novel coming out next year, a thriller set in the world of tattooing, and there isn’t a chance that she won’t see a picture of me with my tattoo on display – so I felt it would be better to tell her in advance than let her discover it by accident.

Even so, it took me several weeks to get up the nerve. In the meantime, I spoke to a number of my friends about what they hide from their parents in adulthood. When we’re young, we all hide a lot – the dates with unsuitable partners, the spliff we smoked the previous evening, the risky behaviour with alcohol or drugs at university, abortions and all sorts of other things. White lies or downright deception. I know my children keep things from me, and I’m probably thankful for it, on the whole. But as adults, why should we feel the need to keep secrets from our parents any more?

A remarkable number of people do, though. My friend Catherine works for NGOs and charities, and often travels to perceived danger spots in places like Rwanda and Sierra Leone. A decade ago, she was held up at gunpoint during a robbery in her local corner shop. Despite the trauma of the experience, she decided not to tell her parents about it. The reason? She knew they worried about her when she worked overseas and she didn’t want them to worry about her safety when she was at home, too. “Eventually, my brother spilled the beans to our father,” she says, “and I finally told my mother years after the event, because it just felt weird to be keeping something from her for that long.” However, so much time had passed that her mother was now more upset about having been kept in the dark.

Another friend didn’t want to tell his mother when he received the news that he was HIV positive. This, however, was not to protect her feelings. It was to protect his own which were, naturally enough, somewhat fragile in light of the discovery. His concern was that she would tell other people as soon as she knew and use it as currency for drama in her life. “But telling her was inevitable at some stage,” he says. “I doubted that she would keep my trust, and I was proved right. I found out very quickly that she’d told other people. I knew when people started asking me very pointedly if I was OK. It was obvious that they knew.” He didn’t confront her about it but simply stopped confiding in her, and eventually broke contact. They’ve been estranged ever since.

It seems we don’t tell our parents about certain aspects of our lives, whether to protect theirs or our own feelings, based on the assumption of what their reaction will be. What’s interesting is that while some conform to these expectations, they often don’t react in the way we think they will. So how did my mother respond to learning about my tattoo? Remember, I was expecting shock, horror and recriminations.

My son's tattoo hurt me deeply Read more

I picked my time carefully. I arranged to have dinner with her the evening before going to this year’s Brighton Tattoo Convention – it made an easy introduction to the subject. I told her I was going to the convention and she asked me why. I explained that my book featured tattooing and I was going there for research. “As long as you’re not going to get one yourself,” she said. This was my moment.

“Actually, you need to know, I already have one.”

She looked perplexed. “Where?”

“On my arm?”

“What does it say?”

“Nothing. It’s an octopus.” And then the most unexpected thing happened. She started to laugh. She laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks. She didn’t ask when I got it or why, and she didn’t ask to see it. Those things will come later.

But she did have one final word on the subject: “Did it hurt?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I don’t think I’ll be getting one then,” she replied.

I’m glad I told her.

• The Tattoo Thief by Alison Belsham will be published by Trapeze in spring 2018.