Most parents end up giving their teenage children an emphatic “no” when they ask if they can get a tattoo. However, after thinking about it for a long time, Diana Register ended up deciding to allow her 15 year-old daughter to go forward with the tattoo that she desperately wanted. Before you judge Diana for this, you should probably know that the tattoo her daughter wanted was no normal one.

“I let my 15-year-old daughter get a tattoo, and no, I don’t care what anybody has to say about it,” she wrote for Love What Matters. “Documenting important events in the form of a tattoo is nothing new, in fact, some cultures still view it as an actual rite of passage. Warriors did it to commemorate their battles, and to honor those who have fallen.”

It turns out that her daughter wanted the tattoo for a very special reason.

“So when my teenager asked me for one, trust me, I thought about it. And thought about it. And thought about it. What was her reason? What did she want? Was she trying to impress her friends? Was she just following some trend?” Diana asked herself. “We talked about it and she told me that she wanted to get a very small, very appropriate tattoo to honor her dad, who passed away from cancer when she was 13. Even with that reasoning, I still struggled with it.”

Her daughter Savana ended up getting a tattoo that read, “I IV IX” the Roman numerals for 1-4-9. These were the numbers on her father’s police badge.

“I couldn’t think of a more beautiful tribute. In fact, it still takes my breath away. I started thinking about the meaning and it was so much deeper than just numbers,” Diana wrote. “You see, after his valiant fight with his disease, his badge number has become synonymous with strength, courage, and hope. That’s what it means to me, and clearly what it means to my kids.”

Diana herself got a tattoo for her husband as well. Her tattoo is his EKG showing his heartbeat.

“So when Kaitlyn and her sister decided to get a tattoo to respect the battle and to honor their hero that fell, there was no way I was standing in the way of that. Not for one second,” she said.

Diana allowed her daughter to get her tattoo on her inner ankle.

In the end, Diana has no regrets about getting a tattoo and allowing her children to do so as well.

“One of my favorite things was laying on his chest listening to his heartbeat, and now I can still see it anytime I want. And my kids can look at theirs and be reminded that they can survive anything,” Diana wrote. “So yes, I let my 15-year-old get a tattoo and no, I don’t care what anybody has to say about it, because they have shown me, you, and anybody else who will listen what surviving looks like. They get to show that off however they damn well want to. They’ve earned it.”

Do you support what this mother did? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.