brian- i grew up with two very liberal parents. they were tough when they needed to be, but let me roam freely when it was acceptable.

my mom has two standard lobe piercings in each ear and a visible arm tattoo that she got in her 40s. she's a total 'wild child' to this day. she was always the law in my house. my dad is a hippy to this very day. travels around to see moe. in concert (over a hundred shows and counting), has a ponytail, and is very laid-back. in 21 years, i may have seen him yell five times. oh, he has one ear pierced, as well. 

while they are the 'cool' parents all my friends wish they had, i still managed to bring out the judge and jury when i was growing up. if i did something wrong, i was punished appropriately. i may have been able to talk to them about everything from drugs to sex to music, and i may have gone to see billy idol, the offspring, and good charlotte with one of them by my side, but they still pulled off being parents.

as far as parties are concerned, all i can, say is that when i was 14, i went to a moe.show with my dad and was offered a blunt by the guy next to me. i turned it down, but my parents were not shy to bring me around things like pot and alcohol. i made up my own decisions on them in the end. being exposed to them didn't turn me into a raging alcoholic, and i don't do any drugs, unless you want to count caffine .

as long as you know you have to be a dad, and not her best friend, i think you're safe. 

How I feel about my kids getting mods: I don't have a problem with it at all.  I just want them to go to good shops, get good work and make smart decisions.

 I am not letting my 15yo stretch her ears past 8g right now but it isn't because I have a problem with stretched lobes.  I want her to be more fully formed as a human before she makes permanent changes to her body that could affect her career choices later in life.  Once she's 18, she can go larger if she chooses. It's her decision to make but if she makes it as a minor, I'm responsible for it.  I don't want her to do something now that she ends up regretting.  I don't want her to look back and wish her parents had given her more guidance.  I have two daughters but only one wants lots of piercings and tattoos.  My youngest has plans to split her tongue as an adult but nothing else. 

 Sometimes my kids love what I get done.  Sometimes they think I'm a freak.  When I came home with a pierced tongue web, all I had to do to get a moment of peace and quiet was open my mouth.  They'd immediately clam up in horror. It was pretty awesome.

 My parents are some freaks. They didn't wanted me to know anything about piercings and mods, and never let me make some on me, and cut me my pocket money so I wouldn't. At 5, I had both lobes gunned at 18g like my mom and sister, that's all. At 10, I started to really being interested by all this. At 13, I wanted a second hole in each ear. They said no. At 14, a rook? They said no. At 15, an eyebrow? They said no. At 16, I said FUCK OFF and was out all my birthday night, getting crazily pierced everywhere I could at this age. (Here in Québec, some piercings are legal without parents authorization at 14, some at 16 and the others, tatoos included, after 18) Got 3 news holes in each ear, helix, the eyebrow, the tongue, the conch and a surface in the neck, totaling 11 in 24hrs. It was such a shock for my body that every hole infected and I had to get out the 4th holes, the helix, the tongue and the neck surface, and been incredibly sick a whole week. Waited until 18 to get my tatoo, and now I do what I want, being 20, but I carefully learned my lesson. 

So when I'll have kids, grandkids, whatever, I think I won't try to get them away from piercings and tatoos, so they wont plunge in it. If they start being interested, I will talk with them, make them understand the consequences and the responsibilities. And I'll teach them to get their own money to pay, at least a part, their modifs.  I'd learn them about shocks, about the "definitive" and "forever" terms and remember them that in 50 years, they'll be as shrinkled as I will be at the moment.^^

 My sister baby like my stretched ears and putting his fingers in the big holes. That's about it, this little tiny men is 3 months old. We don't care about that yet.