Story by Nicole Moorefield
Graphic by Rylee Parsons
Karleigh Wallace and her mother, Aubrey Gregory, watched “Gilmore Girls” for the first time when Wallace was a freshman in high school.
Gregory had Wallace at 18, so they instantly connected with the show’s young mother-daughter duo. They grew up together like the characters did.
When Wallace was about to go away to college, they restarted the series, cried together when the character of Rory graduated, and decided to get tattoos together in honor of the show.
Thirty percent of Americans have at least one tattoo, according to a 2019 Ipsos study. Forty percent of respondents between 18-34 years old and 36 percent of respondents 35-54 had at least one tattoo, while 16 percent of respondents 55 and older did.
And there’s also a growing trend of adults getting tattoos to match their children. This intergenerational ink can bring a tight-knit family even closer.
Wallace, now 22, is from Conover, N.C. She has four matching tattoos, three of which are with her parents.
At 17, on a trip to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she could get one with parental consent, Wallace persuaded Gregory to get coordinating tattoos — her first and her mother’s second.
They found sun and moon designs on Pinterest — Wallace said she and her mother are similar except Gregory is more extroverted, like a sun, where she is more introverted, like a moon — and found an artist they liked, who drew up her own custom versions.
“As a mother, there is no greater honor than having a bond so strong with your daughter that she wants to have a permanent marking signifying your love for each other,” Gregory said.
Getting that tattoo was such a positive bonding experience that, about a year later, they got their “Gilmore Girls” piece — a coffee cup, dragonfly and umbrella, symbols that represent the show. Wallace said she continues to rewatch the show regularly and finds herself getting most emotional at the point in Rory’s life that matches where she is in her own.
They got the tattoos done by father-and-son artists in their hometown. Wallace has gotten three of her 10 total tattoos at that studio, including her next matching one with her father, Danny — a pointillist interpretation of Led Zeppelin’s iconic symbols.
“My favorite song when I was 3 years old was the ‘Immigrant Song,’” Wallace said, and some of her earliest memories are riding in her father’s truck and singing the band’s songs.
It was the first vinyl her father owned, “and then it was my first special musical experience,” Wallace said, “so it was something that we shared together.”
Wallace would encourage people thinking about getting matching tattoos to take the plunge.
“Tattoos don’t have to have deep meaning,” she said, but “if it’s something that means something to you, even just that sparks joy in you, then it’s worth getting.”
That’s even more true when the matching tattoo is with someone you love, especially a family member, she said, because the bond there is so strong.
Ally Henson of Hickory, N.C. has a tattoo that commemorates her grandmother, who died just before COVID-19 hit. Her tattoo, the word “courage” next to a butterfly, coordinates with her mother’s, which says “to life” in an infinity sign alongside the same butterfly.
Henson got the tattoo with her mother, Deborah Reid, in 2021.
“I remember it meant a lot to her, too, because that was her mom,” Henson said. “She was really emotional, and it was just nice that we both have this thing now.”
Henson’s grandmother “was a very influential woman in my life,” Henson said, who “battled cancer on and off for about 10 years.”
The tattoos themselves have many levels of symbolism.
“My grandma never had her own Facebook,” Henson said, “but she liked to use my grandfather’s Facebook, and she would just spill her truth. She’d say whatever came to mind, and at the end, she’d always say, ‘To life, Judy.’”
Henson’s parents divorced when she was around 5.
“We’d go see my grandma sometimes, and she’d sit me and my brother down in a circle, and she’d be like, ‘I’m giving you all my courage,’” Henson said. “‘You can get through this.’”
The butterfly holds meaning as well. Her grandmother loved them, but it’s even deeper than that. In eighth grade, Henson visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and bought a cup covered in butterflies for her grandmother, who is Jewish. That cup stayed on her grandmother’s dining room table through all her moves.
When Reid looks at her tattoo, she is reminded not only of her mother’s lasting legacy but also the connection she shares with her own daughter.
“The bond we have is like no other,” Reid said. “I feel there is a part of me marked on her and a part of her marked on me.”
