Long beautiful hair!
Today, we cut Q’s hair. It needed to be done. It was hard to manage and it made all our lives miserable to the point that all of us avoided combing it at almost all costs. He’s not old enough to sit still for braids or cornrows, so we cut it until he can decide what he wants. It’ll grow back.
When we decided that we were actually going to bite the bullet and cut it (a decision that took many weeks to even consider), my heart started racing and I felt a pang of regret.
I know I’m not the only mom who is super-attached to her child’s hair. Why do we mothers do that? Attach ourselves to our children’s hair? Is it simply because it’s part of them? (but then that should extend to fingernails…) Maybe we associate their hair with their identity? For Q, this was a huge factor, actually. His hair had political and cultural significance.
We mothers will let our children’s hair hang in their eyes. We’ll let it grow so that it takes 20 minutes and countless tears to brush. We’ll let it grow in uneven and all different lengths. But, we never wanna cut. Often, it doesn’t even look good!
We don’t grow our children’s hair for their sake, so why do we do it? It really is a mystery to me…
October 30th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Oh my gosh… those curls!!!
October 31st, 2009 at 8:48 am
Ah – Q man! He’ll still be the wonderful Q with our without hair. I was just not wanting to cut Liam’s the first time, but when it got to Mad Scientist hair, I knew it was time and as you know we’ve had SEVERAL haircuts since then. It was the one where they took off alot more than I’d expected and he looked like a little boy and NOT a baby anymore that my heart started racing.
The decision as you said need to be made and you made it. You are right when he is old enough to decide and take care it, then he can do what he wants.