Mother's day celebration in Detroit

A Mother’s Day Stick Shift: What Mom’s Cars Say About Her

Many members of the tribe of the auto-obsessed can trace their compulsion back to parental indoctrination—a sort of vehicular Munchausen-by-proxy, in which the implanted toxin is a father’s fascination with a rusty Austin-Healy 3000 or a mother’s preening affection for all things motorized and Italian. Not so for me—or not exactly. Though my father took me to the Detroit Auto Show every year and patiently indulged my fetish for things be-wheeled, tacky, and baroque, his own vehicles were (and remain) unerringly quotidian.

If you’re wondering what to get your mom this Mother’s Day, there is one gift that is certain to leave a lasting impression: a tattoo for her, on you.

While some children display affection by showering their mothers with flowers, cards and candy, other metro Detroiters have made a bigger, more permanent commitment.

My mother always says, "Once a mother, always a mother."

Growing up, I never really liked the sound of that. I thought it was sort of Bates Motel. What would I want with a mother breathing down my neck when I was an adult? Telling me what she thought about my hair or my outfit. Giving me unsolicited advice about my relationships or my scruples or my religious orientation or my politics. Staying up until I got home at night and yawning the next day from worry and lack of sleep. It sounded like trouble. Wasn't adulthood all about freedom, after all?