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…