Hate Your Kid’s Haircut, But Allowing Personal Expression?

I knew it wouldn’t look the way she thought. But she asked for it. 

There was a time – not long ago – when I would take my daughter to the hair cutters, plop her in the red airplane/barber seat, and get her the haircut of my choice.  Whether it was bangs, a bob or a trim, I was in charge.

Well, my daughter is 10 and I am clearly no longer in charge.

Recently, I took her to get a haircut and she insisted on getting bangs.  My first thought? “This isn’t going to end well.”  I knew from my vast experience as a woman that she just wouldn’t look good in bangs (and because I tried them on her when she was two.  Big mistake.) 

Okay, I shouldn’t say they “wouldn’t look good.”  Of course, she’s beautiful no matter what her hair is like.  To be more precise, I knew that bangs wouldn’t look the way she imagined they would look.    She has this thick, beautiful, wavy hair and I knew that the second they cut it short, it would poof up, she would end up struggling with it daily, and she would hate it.  She hates when her hair gets poofy.  

But she was insistent.  And of course, I didn’t want her to think, even for a second, that anything would make her look less than fabulous.  That she could be anything other than beautiful to me.   So I thought I’d try another route…

She sat down in the salon chair and said to the stylist, “I want bangs.”

From my bench behind her I said, “You know, honey, bangs are a lot of work.”

“I want bangs.”

“They grow fast.   Really fast.   They’ll grow right into your eyes.” 

“I want bangs!”

“You’ll have to fight with them everyday to get them right.”

“I want bangs!”

“They’ll drive you crazy…”

“You’re driving me crazy!  I WANT BANGS!”  She squinted her eyes at me. 

I guess she wanted bangs.  I backed off.

And here’s what I realized; maybe every kid, to a reasonable extent, has a right to express themselves through their clothes and hair (as long as the hair isn’t a green mohawk and the clothes don’t expose underwear by being too low, too short, or too droopy.  I HATE those pants boys wear that hang completely off their butts.  What’s next?  Wearing them around your ankles?  Just carrying your pants around in your arms- not even putting them on?  Seriously??!)

I mean, we all made bad hair choices growing up and we’re better for it, right?   Heck, I had a “Dorothy Hamill” in 7^th grade (and like my daughter, very wavy thick hair that did NOT look good short).   But my mother let me cut it.  And when I sat in the stylists chair staring back at the “new me” I felt different.  In charge.   Excited!  Of course within a day or two my hair curled back up and since I could never recreate the look my stylist achieved in the salon, I eventually grew it out.  But my mother had given me the chance to try something different.  To figure out; what I liked, what worked for me and who I was.    Of course, when I look back at pictures now, I ask my mom “how could you let me do that!?”  She responds, “You asked for it.”  (She can be so facetious....)

I guess every kid deserves a chance to try out something new.  To figure out what makes them feel good and how they want to present themselves.  To see what will happen if we just let them spread their “wings”…or bangs.

And isn’t that my job as a mom, anyway?  To give her a safe haven to do that?

So I let her get her bangs.  But I took a lot of pictures.  Because even if she doesn’t want to listen to my advice now, I know that one day she’ll say “MOM!  How could you let me do that!” and then it’ll be my turn to say, “You asked for it.”