Motherhood Tattoo Ideas for All Kinds of Moms

Published June 5, 2018
Tree of Life tattoo on back

Whether you are a single mother, stepmother or have several children, being a mother is an important part of your life. Showing it in ink can forever demonstrate your devotion and dedication to your family.

Embrace

A mother's hug can heal a broken heart or stop a scrapped knee from hurting. When your child is born, you embrace it against your skin, signifying your bond. Therefore, the embrace tattoo is a popular motherhood design. The embrace can be a complex portrait of you and your child, or it can be a simple line drawing with the mother and child embracing within a heart. A mother's embrace tattoo is generally small and a single color. It can fit just about anywhere, but placing it over your heart or along the collarbone are popular places.

Mother and baby embrace tattoo design
mother and baby embrace tattoo design

Mother Child Tattoo

Using animal representations of a mother's love is a great way to show your connection to your child. These are typically created with elephants and giraffes. The child representation is typically holding the mother's tail. A great way to customize this for stepmoms is by having the mother and child being two different animals like an elephant and a baby giraffe. Mother and child tattoos are typically cartoon-like and can be full or single-color designs. Placement of these designs is only limited by the imagination, but you will see them commonly over the heart or on the collarbone, forearm, and ankle.

Cartoon fox and kit tattoo by Zach Alvey

Pregnant Mother

Motherhood comes in all forms. Whether your child is growing inside of you or grown, you can showcase the bond that you shared for nine months with a pregnant mother tattoo. This tattoo is typically a simple outline of a pregnant woman leading into the baby growing within her womb. Hearts and birth dates can be added for customization, along with colors. While you can put this tattoo on your arm or leg, many women will choose to add this to their stomach to symbolize where their child grew.

pregnant woman with birth date tattoo

Twin Mother

If you are the mother of twins or even multiples, there are several specialized designs to show your family. A popular design is to have a stylized mother holding the hands of all her children. She will be in one color and her identical children will be in another. You can customize this as well for your fraternal twins by having a boy and girl standing next to you.

Mother with twins tattoo by Inksplosion Tattoos

Hearts

Many tattoos are symbolic and hold meaning only the mother truly understands. However, linked hearts are an interesting way to show your connection to your children. The heart can be larger to represent you and link to smaller ones representing your children, or it might also be a cluster of hearts all linked together. These hearts also work great for single mothers with words like 'You and I against the world.' Since this is a reminder of your life and children, having this in a place you can see like your wrist is common.

Hearts tattoo on pregnant woman's hand

Birds

Another great idea for single mothers or older children are the birds. These birds work to signify your children flying away or your flock flying together. The birds in this design can be styled in a simple outline or detailed. While this design can fit anywhere, the birds flying along the collarbone or back adds interest and intrigue.

Flying birds tattoo on shoulder

Heartbeat

The first thing you hear from your child is their heartbeat. That strong steady rhythm of the heart tells you that a child is growing inside of you. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that a lot of mothers show their love for their child using a heartbeat tattoo. These can be the actual child's heartbeat or a stylized beat ending in a heart. In some instances, a mother and child might also get matching tattoos. The shape of this design makes it fit well on the ankle, wrist, or shoulder blade.

Woman showing pulse heartbeat tattoo

Tree of Life

Symbolizing your connection to your children or stepchildren is what all motherhood tattoos are about. Therefore, trees are a great way to demonstrate your growing connection to one another. This can be as easy as just having a tree with many branches or it could be a stylized tree of you and your child. To showcase your stepchild, you can have two trees connecting at the roots. These tattoos can get a bit larger so placement on the thigh, bicep, or shoulder blade is common.

mother child intertwined wayne morel tattoo

An Eternal Connection

Whether you are a single mother, mother of multiples or even a stepmom, there are different ways for you to ink your eternal connection to your child. And the great thing about tattoos is each design can be customized to demonstrate you and your children.

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Motherhood Tattoo Ideas for All Kinds of Moms