Flower Girl Takes Hair Into Her Own Hands

Allison had been begging me to get her hair cut for the past few weeks.  "Mom, I want it shoulder length!" The last time she got her haircut, she tricked her dad into it by tagging along with her brother on one of his journeys to Great Clips. "Daddy!  I need to have my haircut!  My ends are really dry!  They're all split!"  Of course, being a normal dad, he had no idea what this really meant, but it sounded legitimate. My friend Claire (who happened to be there with her son) and the stylist confirmed that 'dry ends' was an absolutely acceptable reason for a trim, and a few minutes later, Allison was in the chair.  She was 4, and  unbelievably pleased with herself. The thing is, her ends WERE really dry, and they DID need to be trimmed.

The evidence.

This time around, I had been putting her off, because my sister's wedding was coming up and I wanted to be able to sweep it up into a little minibun.  I promised her we would get it cut the week after the wedding, but the night before we were to leave on our early morning flight, I walked into the shower and saw Allison with her hand holding a lock of hair, scissors in the other. There may have been screaming.  I don't exactly remember.

Feeling remorseful.

Honestly, it could have been worse.  She was caught just in time.  Not that I was going to let her off the hook, even though, when I was about her age, I did the same thing.  Only worse.  I had two pig tails, and I chopped both of them off at the base, then was about to get started on my cousin's hair.  I was caught in time to save her, but not in time to save my bottom from a sound smacking.  That was back in the old days when you could whack your kids but you didn't really take them in for a paid haircut.  Well-meaning moms just got out their bowls and cut their kids' hair at home.  My hair therefore looked terrible for a long time while it grew out.

I asked Allison, "Why did you do it?"  Even though I already knew what the answer would be.  She shrugged. If you ask 10 women if they ever cut their own hair as girls, I bet 7 of them would say yes. All I would be able to come up with is an underlying vague yet overwhelming feeling of compulsion and self-determination. Allison's pretty smart, but I would be apoplectic if she could articulate that.  If someone asked me why I cut my hair when I was little, I would have shrugged too. Not that I'm going to tell her any of this, because I want her to be remorseful and remember to exercise self-control when she gets an uncontrollable urge to pierce something or get the Rolling Stone lips tattooed on her groin. (I've seen this and it's not what I would call classy.)  Hair at least grows back.  The Rolling Stone tattoo will be there when she is once again getting her diapers changed, only this time in a nursing home, and frankly, I don't want the caregivers to snicker behind her back just in case she is not as hard of hearing as they think.

Why should I care so much about her hair, anyway?  (I'll be struggling with this question for the next 20 years or more.) It's her hair.  And really, she didn't do that awful of a job.  Not that I'm going to tell her that anytime soon. After evening it out a little, there was still plenty left for an updo. She pulled off the part of the flower girl without a hitch.