Hair Cut

       A week ago, we cut Dee Dee's hair. Oh, how I hated to. After all, hadn't we endured months of growing out her bangs, hanging on to the hope that one day she would tolerate a barrette, a ponytail, a headband? Her hair was beautiful, dark blonde and thick, with lovely golden highlights and the sweetest curls down her back. It reminded me of my hair as a girl, hair I took such pride in even when the other kids teased me that I looked like Laura Ingles Wilder. 

Dee Dee's hair was beautiful, all right. When it was clean and brushed, that is, and therein lay the rub. Dee Dee hated to have her hair brushed, hated to have it washed, hated to have it pulled back in a barette or, God forbid, a ponytail. If I even tried to push it behind her ears while she ate, she would shake her head violently and push it back into her face. "I WANT my hair in my face!" For better or for worse, she had claimed it as her domain, and any encroachment was fought tooth and nail. No matter that she could barely see when she ran or played, or that she was forever peering out at life through a tangle of crusty locks. She'd brush it back from her face with an impish grin, looking just like a mischievous little elf parting a curtain into this world. 

 Forever in her face, it was inevitably caked in food, snot, and tears. "Crunchy hair," we called it, and tried to peel away the strands plastered to her cheeks with God knows what. Every night, Don would wash it, but after her bath she would run screaming around the house while I chased her with the brush and the spray bottle of detangler. "No!" she howled. "Don't brush my hair!" When I caught her, she would collapse in a writhing heap of tears and sobs, and I would quickly rake the brush through her hair, exasperated by her dramatics but still hating to torture her so.

Once we had decided that there was nothing for it, the hair had to go, I couldn't look at her without wanting to break out the electric clippers right there and then. "Do you want to cut your hair?" we asked again and again, and the answer was always a predictable "No!" Finally we enlisted the help of Clayton, to inspire her with his own hair cut, and when that proved insufficient, Dora. Dee Dee sat at the kitchen table with her sister, watching Dora the Explorer on the laptop, as Don tried out the buzzer on her hair. She hunched her shoulders and jerked her head away.  "No hair cut! No!"

I had better luck with the scissors; she barely flinched as her long locks began to fall away. "Look at Dee Dee!" Sylvia kept saying, tearing her eyes away from Dora to stare at her sister's new look. "Dee Dee got a hair cut! It's mine turn!" 

 I was, I admit, quite proud of the cut, since I have absolutely no experience as a barber, but at first my stomach fell every time I looked at her. What had we done? "I don't like it," I told Don sadly. 

But, really, that wasn't the point. Because Dee Dee did like it. Immediately. We could tell from the way she smiled and made faces at herself in the mirror. From the way she plowed into her food with her customary zeal, without that darn curtain of hair getting in her way. From the way she ran and played and jumped without having to stop to push the crunchy strands out of her face. And that night, after bath, there was not one single tear. 

The first few mornings, it was a shock to go into the girls' room and see her standing there. Now, of course, she just looks like Dee Dee. In fact, she looks even more like Dee Dee than she did before. This is who she is. She is wild, mischievous, curious, funny. She cares about making people laugh, running fast, and books--- not ponytails or barrettes or pretty hair. 

A few weeks before Dee Dee's hair cut, there was an article in The New Yorker about a transgender teen. One of the hardest parts, the author wrote, was for the parents, who had to learn to let go of everything they'd expected for their child, and just let her be who he was. A haircut is nothing like that, I know, and yet the article gave me the kick in the pants I needed to finally let go of what I thought Dee Dee should look like and break out the damn scissors already.

As parents, of course we have hopes and dreams for our children. I want all of my kids to love books and nature, to do well in school and treat others with kindness. But, ultimately, they are who they are, each with their own unique light inside. This was just hair, after all, but the lesson was there for me, nonetheless. I'm their mom, and it's my job to let 'em shine, let 'em shine, let 'em shine. 

Before

After