Last night was my mother’s birthday. My brothers and sister and all our families came in for a big family dinner at my parents house. Just like every big family gathering it was a joyous occasion, filled with laughter, good eats, and of course, a little drama

This is roughly the outfit that spilled the beans on his tattoo

If there is any gray sheep in the family, it’s my youngest brother, whose lack of maturity I’ve mentioned in a recent post. He’s a gray sheep, not black, because we all love him, but he certainly does his own thing, in his own way. The rest of the siblings attribute that to the spoiled, almost only child nature of his upbringing (he was a “surprise” child–much younger than the rest of us.) My brother is now in a hipster fashion phase. He’s actually dressing quite nicely compared to his old sweatpants and hoodie style of college. One item that his wardrobe seems to be full of is those short short-sleeved button downs that remind me of the Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady for some reason. At dinner he reached to pass Mom’s famous peanut-oil spinach. His sleeves stretched to reveal some ink on his upper arms.

My old school conservative parents ran a pretty tight ship while us elder siblings grew up. In high school there were no late nights, pretty strict rules about dating, and certainly NO TATTOOS or piercings. The siblings all gasped. Our significant others, including my husband also gasped. Even the kids’ table could feel something was up because all the grown ups became silent. Who am I kidding? We all were kids at that moment as we waited and watched for my parents’ reaction.

After some explanation the beans were spilled and we all found out that little bro got a few tattoos over the last six years. Only my oldest brother knew. My folks weren’t even that upset about the tattoo. What was upsetting to my mom was that he son violated a rule while still living in her house. But what’s the proper parenting response now? I mean, if he was caught back then, he certainly would have been scolded and punished. But now he’s an adult. Does he get amnesty?

After some surprisingly light-hearted family discussion, my folks eventually dropped the subject as they decided it really wasn’t a big deal. No one could really be surprised that our very own gray sheep would go violate one of the parents’ top rules. But it made me think from the parenting perspective. If my kids break a rule, get away with it, and I find out much later, what would I do? Well, in the mean time, I’ll just keep rolling up my sleeves.