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Quote:

Tanya and Adam Phillips’s baby girl Honey-Rae was born with an unusual bright red birthmark on her right foot that travels from her leg all the way up to her back. The British couple didn’t want their daughter to feel self-conscious about it, so they made an extraordinary gesture: They got matching tattoos that resemble Honey-Rae’s birthmark.

"We wanted Honey-Rae to feel special, that her birthmark was something to feel proud of and not embarrassed by,” Tanya, a stay-at-home mother, told the U.K.’s Mirror on Wednesday. “Most people might think it’s very extreme, but to us it was the natural thing to do to ensure our daughter never felt different or alone in the world.”

When Honey-Rae was born, Tanya says she cried at the realization that her daughter would most likely feel ostracized because of her birthmark. “For the first few months of her life, whenever we went out, I made sure her legs were covered up,” she says. “I couldn’t cope with stranger’s curious glances or whispering comments.”

But last summer, on a particularly hot afternoon, Tanya dressed her daughter in shorts and left the house to run errands. While standing in line at a store, a couple began staring at Honey-Rae’s leg. “I was distraught,” says Tanya. “It was first time I had taken her out without covering her up and it confirmed all my worries and fears. People are cruel without even realizing. And I knew if adults could be that insensitive, then kids at school would also be unintentionally mean.”

So over Christmas, her husband Adam covered his leg in a tattoo that resembles their daughter’s birthmark, a process that lasted two-and-a-half-hours. And last week for her 40th birthday, Tanya got her own tattoo, an experience she called “incredibly painful” but “worth every second.”

That was made all the more clear when Honey-Rae’s saw their parents’ tattoos. “When the swelling went down, I showed Honey-Rae, and she gently touched it and smiled as she said ‘Match,’ pointing to her own leg….She now constantly touches mine and Adam’s tattoos then her own birthmark and giggles — I couldn’t be happier,” says Tanya.

Empathy, the ability to deeply identify with and experience another’s emotions and thoughts, is a valued trait in children, but according to a recent study published by Harvard University, it’s also hard to find. Eighty percent of children value personal success and happiness over the wellbeing of others, per the report. The Phillips’s exemplify emphatic parenting, which will likely cause their child to develop the quality. And the family is just one example. In 2012, when a German father discovered that his five-year-old son loved to wear dresses, he bought a skirt for himself and the pair strolled around town. “I didn’t want to talk my son into not wearing dresses and skirts,” dad Nils Pickert told the German magazine EMMA. “He didn’t make friends in doing that in Berlin already and after a lot of contemplation I had only one option left: To broaden my shoulders for my little buddy and dress in a skirt myself.”

Source


And a pic of Honey-Rae and her parents tattoos:

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Feral Nymph

...that's...um...sweet, I guess. I hope it's not one of those birthmarks that fades away as the child gets older. or the parents are going to have some odd stories to tell about their tattoos. sweatdrop

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Destructive Detective

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Utterly vile and a waste of money that could have been spent getting her birthmark removed. Hmph, and doesn't NHS help cover treatment for hugely disfiguring ones like this?

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They still arent on the level of the couple that tatooed incilin pumps on their bodies because their son uses one.

Insularis's Waifu

Witty Phantom

"Honey-Rae".

I hate them already.

Conservative Regular

Ratttking
Utterly vile and a waste of money that could have been spent getting her birthmark removed. Hmph, and doesn't NHS help cover treatment for hugely disfiguring ones like this?


NHS does not cover purely cosmetic treatments

and 80 notes are not going to cover that.

also it will fade within 4-5 years unlike that name.

Snuggly Buddy

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"We wanted Honey-Rae to feel special, that her birthmark was something to feel proud of ..

Oh good grief.
"not embarrassed" is thing. Sure.
Bit having a skin blemish is not something to be "proud of" or a reason to claim you are special.

And I thought they could often remove those red birth marks.

Undead Enchantress

Why would anybody be proud of a birthmark though?

What's the progress about that smart guy who developed that tattoo removing cream? Does he do birthmarks too?

Also...which is Tanya and which is Adam in the picture? They seem too alike now. I'd like to say the one on the left is Adam on account of the hair, but you never know.
Then it turns out its a temporary rash
They got shitty tattoos for no reason lol

Ferocious Browser

I agree with the posters asking if it will fade naturally in some years.... @_@

The parents could have gotten henna ones and maintained them. I suppose that would be costlier in the long-term; but if their child's mark fades, they wouldn't be stuck with tattoos. Although, as an adult, at least the kid can still appreciate that her parents really love her.

Also, I disagree that it is hugely disfiguring. Sure, she will be made fun of and stared at; but I don't consider spots and blotches of any color to be quite that horrible in the long term. I categorize things like burn scars on the face or hands (somewhere usually visible), or cleft palate, or losing an eye into the get-surgery-now category instead. Those can affect relationships and job prospects.

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The little girl's doesn't stand out as much as her parents do. I know there's a few birthmarks that won't fade, but I'm going on the theory that as the kid grows, the birthmark will at least 'thin' out a little. Right now, she's got a 1:3 head ratio to the rest of her body. It won't stay that way. By the time she hits a 1:5 ratio, you may not even notice it.

I empathize with the parents, but dresses don't stick to your bones. Tattoos can be identified long after you're nothing but bones. The latter is going a bit far. There's temporary tattoos these days; you can make your own apparently, I'd read somewhere. She could have turned it into artwork every school day if it was really going to stand out.

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Texadar
Ratttking
Utterly vile and a waste of money that could have been spent getting her birthmark removed. Hmph, and doesn't NHS help cover treatment for hugely disfiguring ones like this?


NHS does not cover purely cosmetic treatments

and 80 notes are not going to cover that.

also it will fade within 4-5 years unlike that name.
They will if they are presented a case that it is for the patient's psychological well-being, and it doesn't even have to be a particularly convincing case. Remember that b***h who got them to pay for her boob job so she could get work in the sex industry?

Not all birthmarks fade, some do, but some stay the same or even get worse with time. That name... gonk

                                I just feel like this whole thing is a huge step in the wrong direction. We've spent //YEARS// trying to make people - men, and women - believe that being different, and being unique makes each of beautiful. Yet, instead of teaching their baby to love herself for who she is and what she looks like they altered themselves to make her feel less different, to help her 'fit in'. They admitted to covering her up so people wouldn't see it and judge them on it, but why would that even be necessary if THEY were comfortable and confident with the perfect angel they were given?

                                The mother also says -- " I just sobbed and sobbed knowing my baby was going to permanently marked for the rest of her life." -- and that just... Really bothered me. When I saw my daughter's 'Stork Bites', I wasn't worried about them being a permanent mark on her body, I was concerned that it was a rash, or something of that nature. My first worry was for her health. Even when they explained that it was a harmless birthmark I didn't immediately jump to "OHMYGOD BUT SHE'S MARRED!", it was "thank God she's okay!".

                                This whole thing is just so silly to me. What if their daughter was born with a cleft palette/lip that needed corrective surgery? Would they get scars/tattoos to look the same? What if she had Down syndrome? An abundance of freckles? Teaching our kids that others will conform to us to make us fit in is exactly the wrong idea to implant, especially at such a very young, impressionable age.

Snuggly Buddy

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Ratttking
Texadar
Ratttking
Utterly vile and a waste of money that could have been spent getting her birthmark removed. Hmph, and doesn't NHS help cover treatment for hugely disfiguring ones like this?


NHS does not cover purely cosmetic treatments

and 80 notes are not going to cover that.

also it will fade within 4-5 years unlike that name.
They will if they are presented a case that it is for the patient's psychological well-being, and it doesn't even have to be a particularly convincing case. Remember that b***h who got them to pay for her boob job so she could get work in the sex industry?

Not all birthmarks fade, some do, but some stay the same or even get worse with time. That name... gonk


Ironically, if inf the future they did try to pursue the psychological angle their present actions might hinder it.
"But you have publicly stated she should be proud of her birthmark and you even got tattoos to match. Obviously you don't really believe it is psychologically damaging." smile

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