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…

My son hit a milestone today; his hair is finally long enough to pull back into a ponytail!!  His dad and I have been waiting for this day since his hair’s been long enough to tangle!  Cutting it has not been an option for a few reasons, so we’ve been managing with hair picks and detangler and tears and struggles.  But now… oh, NOW we can tie it up and keep the tangles away (at least until he’s old enough to sit still for braids).

Anyway, I was super-excited to comb his Don King hairstyle into a bitty sumo bun.  He didn’t seem to care about it at all – shockingly, he barely noticed.  All was well. 

And then we went out.

In public.

The woman checking us out at one store asked me how old she was and told me that she‘s a very well-behaved child.

This struck me for a few reasons.

1. He’s never been called a girl. Ever
2. He was wearing blue jogging pants, an orange t-shirt, and white sneakers (with red and blue stripes); for better or worse, not something I’d ever see on my nieces or his girl friends.

I found it interesting that had his hair been down and curly, she would never have called him a girl. This got me thinking… his “gendered hairstyle” trumped his “gendered clothing!”  The ponytail influenced her assumptions more than his clothes did.

I didn’t correct her.  I’d like to say it was because I didn’t want to embarrass her, but it was actually because I didn’t want her to wonder why I put the poor boy in a ponytail.  No mother wants her credentials questioned.  It was none of her business, anyway. I don’t really care if she thinks he’s a girl.

Today reminded me of just how arbitrary our society’s binary gender designations are… the slightest alteration and people question, misinterpret, or become confused.  The boxes are so small that one little hair elastic changed Q’s gender. Weird.