I relate to both you and your mom. I had my hair kept short as a child because my mom didn’t want to deal with my super thick hair. My childhood photos are atrocious, my daughter is the one who is most humiliated for me.
However, as a mom of kids with special needs and who was also dealing with her own health problems I found as much as I desired to keep my own daughter’s hair long according to her preference, the hair had to be sacrificed at one point.
She inherited my thick locks and she didn’t have the wherewithal to deal with them in the second and third grade. But we managed. I made sure she didn’t have to go through the humiliation and shaming of a bad haircut.
I researched how to achieve a cute bob hairstyle that allowed her to have longer hair around her face and kept it short at the nape of her neck. She still looked cute and very girly but we avoided the humiliation and hard feelings. There are no horrible photos to prolong a bad memory.
My daughter grew out of her neglectful phase regarding her hair and by high school had long lustrous locks that she continues to keep healthy and well kept.
I encourage exasperated moms to find similar solutions so we don’t set our daughters up for humiliation. Hair does matter.
Wow, Ruth. What you wrote here is such a loving demonstration of what can be done in these kinds of situations, rather than succumbing our daughters to this kind of humiliation.
As a mom myself, I do understand my own mother’s exasperation with my thick and unruly hair. I get it. My own daughters don’t often brush their hair and then I am the one who needs to get the tangles out. In my mom’s defense, we did not have detangling hair spray in the 80s. We do now.
I am just in awe of the way you figured out a way to help your daughter still feel good about herself but also have a stylish haircut that could be more easily maintained. Thank you for sharing that.
Oh my heart. My heart!!!! Being a child can be so harrowing and our toxic beauty culture makes it even more so. I came of age in the 80's with similar traumas and I want to give that little girl in the photo the biggest hug. What a powerful essay this is, you touched my heart. And my soul.
Jeannie, you hit a topic that all of us have some sort of experience with…good, bad or indifferent. You had a terrorizing experience and were treated cruelly during your terrible haircut time and the way your chronically pained mother treated you during hair brushing sessions. Sounds like the historical perspective you’ve found around your mother’s illness has given you understanding of your mother during that time. And maybe some forgiveness softening that harsh memory.
Back to the importance of hair…..for me I found the way my face was framed crucial to how I judged if I was attractive or not attractive. Still do. It’s a human thing I think for many of us. Also, as a kid I wanted my hair to look like Audrey Hepburn’s in The Glass Slipper and then Debbi Reynold’s in Tammi where she lived in a houseboat, wore jeans, a yellow shirt and a rope belt which, of course, I had to copy!! So, for me hair has been mostly a vanity thing though hard to admit that. A horrible haircut would do me in. To this day a dear friend and I always first ask when we talk across the miles: “How’s your hair?”
Thanks for this, Tina. I wonder, though, if what you were describing isn’t vanity but wanting to be beautiful as you perceived beauty, based on the cultural lens in which you were immersed during that time of your life? I mean, we women tend to be incredibly harsh with ourselves, quick to assume blame for anything: in this case, wanting to look beautiful (whatever that means to us) and then quickly rushing to call it vanity.
I do believe there are vain people. In my experience, you are not one of them.
You’re right—I’m moving toward forgiveness and grace with my mom. She has done so many loving things in my life, but it’s all so complicated. I wish it weren’t, but it is.
Now that you say this, Jeannie, I’ve started to think about this more deeply. It has to do with looking “cute” in order to gain, what I esteemed, love from others. More like “mother love”. There are dynamics arising from this one! Oh!
Your Mom’s voice is my mom’s as well. The nest at back, the visit to the hair cutter, the whole thing.
I was 7 probably in 1st or 2nd grade so very similar to you. The difference is, my extreme haircut was in 1972. It set the tone for my entire school experience. While everyone was doing Farrah Faucett wings, I was attempting to grow out curls that no matter how long it got were a bowl.
Thank you for putting this together. Hair history and psychology is important to understand!
Thanks for sharing this story, LaMonica. It seems like, no matter what we tried to do with our hair during our coming-of-age years, by the time we felt we were fitting in, there was a new hairstyle to take over!
You are sweet to say that. I was told years later by the girl who sat behind me in homeroom every day (another L name) she would be mesmerized and jealous of the curls on the back of my head! Go figure!
We were actually just all more critical of ourselves than we had to be. The tragedy was there was no one telling us that!
Isn’t that something, LaMonica? It seems like no one likes their own hair! I now have curly hair (after having five kids), and my 14yo daughter with stick straight hair tells me, “I love your curls!” While I am looking at her gorgeous natural highlights and thinking, “Wow, I love how beautiful your hair is!”
This piece brought back a visceral ache for me, not just because of the haircut (though I winced in solidarity), but because of everything tangled up in it. What struck me most in your story was how early we're taught that our hair isn’t just ours. It becomes a battleground for control, shame, identity. That moment in the salon, being talked about but not to, rang so true. My hobble haircuts weren’t just about poverty; they marked me as someone who didn’t belong in the polished spaces. And like you, I internalised that.
Thank you for writing this. It left me feeling seen in a way I didn’t know I needed.
Matt, I want you to know how much I value what you shared here. It was vulnerable and honest. You said so much without saying it all, especially about how your “hobble haircuts weren’t just about poverty, but they marked me as someone who didn’t belong in polished spaces.”
Wow.
Just wow.
That says so much. I’m grateful my essay touched something in you that needed to be seen and validated and honored. Thank you for being here.
When I went through my shaman elder initiation, the final ritual was to shave our heads. My shaman teacher explained that we needed to "scramble our frequency" and to cut off our old identity so that we could grow into our new skin, and that the way to do that was by shaving our heads. One guy had 18yr dreads. I had locks down to my waist that I'd worn in tight french brains for the whole month long initiation process.
What I learned in shaving my head was that hair, for sensitive souls at least, is our antennae. It's essential to our intuition, to our ability to sense and feel. I suppose I learned this too when i was a synchronized swimmer and I didn't shave my legs so that I could better feel the height of my leg out of the water. Hair is about that sensitivity, and the ability to process that. so now, I wear hats or scarves when I have over-sensitive days. and it explains why I had shaving so much. it feels like I am cutting off my sensory percpetors and I feel naked in different ways.
shaving my head was one of the most physically painful experiences of my life. everyone else was laughing. or having emotional breakdowns, but I just kept waiing "it hurts...it hurts!" first the scissors, then the clippers, and finally the straight razor. It hurt a kind of pain I can't ever explain to anyone.
That’s an incredible story, Teri Leigh. I can imagine the symbolic nature of shaving one’s head to represent that shedding of the old and embracing the new. At the same time, your sensory explanation also makes sense, both with perception and neurological functioning. I have never in my life thought of anything like this, from this angle. As usual, you have opened me up to some new way of viewing this issue.
I always appreciate your unique viewpoint, friend. Thank you so much.
I tell ya, I will never shave my head again if I can help it. And, this brought a whole new sensitivity awareness to why women get their hair cut/done when they are going through major life changes.
Well, how kind of you to say that, Sandy! Now I am wondering if, when I bumped into an old grade school friend who knew me at that age, she was right when she said I looked the same!
Oh the 'bird's nest' comment, I remember that too! I wonder if every curly haired person has heard that one?! I also remember my dad forcibly cutting my hair himself. I was in my early teens, trying to grow out my fringe (bangs) and the hair was hanging in my eyes. He got angry about it and took to the scissors... absolutely mortifying.....
Oh, Dr. Vicki, I’m so sorry to read about your traumatizing haircut experience…in your TEENS! Wow. That makes it doubly devastating, because what an awkward time of life, anyway, and to make it even more so with a bad haircut. I don’t think parents should ever chop their kids’ hair off out of anger. It seems, the more I read people’s horror stories about bad haircuts, the more I believe that parents should give their children agency over their hair. It’s such an intimate and personal part of us and to have it taken away can truly be humiliating.
Yes I agree Jeannie, we need agency over our body even in childhood (within reason - if I chose something really outrageous they might have intervened, but this was definitely not the case!) And yes, there is a particular cruelty to this in the teenage years!
Beautiful essay, Jeannie! I enjoyed the balance of research and personal narrative. I love the photo of you as a little girl.
I also had many bad hair episodes when I was a child, so I can totally relate. My mom had my hair cut short sometimes, just because she found it unruly -- and it was straight!
It's interesting that my daughter and I are going to a salon for haircuts today!
I used to have long hair, but now I like it short. No matter how one wears their hair, we can all agree that these locks are important.
Thanks for sharing this, Beth. I always appreciate hearing your stories and experience. It’s such a gift that we found each other in this Substack space. I truly enjoy getting to know you more and more, and I hope you and your daughter enjoyed your trip to the salon!
I am very grateful we found each other in the Substack space, Jeannie. Your essays and poetry are beautiful, and I'm happy to get to know more about you through time.
You know, reading your essay, I began thinking about hair as a form of storytelling. Not just the stories we tell about ourselves, but the stories our ancestors told. If you think about it, hair is one of the few physical things that persists, even after death. It’s in old photographs, preserved locks in family heirlooms, even found in archaeological digs. Each strand holds a history, a connection to the past. And maybe, just maybe, those stories linger in our own hair, influencing how we perceive ourselves. I wonder if the way our hair responds to different situations is tied to the history of all the hairs that came before it. What if we could unlock our hair's story and find meaning? It sounds strange, I know, but what if?
Wow. That’s profound, Alex. You’re right—hair remains even after the rest of our bodies decay. Now you have me thinking about why we, as parents, keep a lock of our baby’s hair and put it in a baggie to secure in a baby book.
I did this before our sweet pitbull mix, Lily, died, too—I snipped just a lock of her hair to keep.
Hair does tell a story, doesn’t it? Thank you for adding so much texture to this, Alex! I wish we’d had this conversation before I wrote the essay. I think it’s a really valuable addition.
I read the title of this and gave it a ❤️, but i wont be reading it. Age 5 My mother told me during a cookout with family, that my aunt was going to cut my hair (mom usually did it) I was excited for the special attention and plunked myself down in the chair. Not knowing what was about to happen. They cut off ALL my hair. It was long and gorgeous one minute and the next i had a bowl cut. I cannot begin to explain how ticked off a 5 year old can actually get. I wouldnt speak to either of them. I still have hair cut issues.
As the son of a Marine I will let you guess the kind of haircut my brother and I were allowed to have. We were the only kids in 2nd and 3rd grade with buzz cuts…it was embarrassing. And done at home in the old high chair on Sunday night. I can still feel his hand on the top of my head growling “don’t move.” We finally convinced mom to let us grow a normal haircut, but not without being chided that he would buy us a dress too. Later when I joined the Navy losing my hair in boot camp was no big deal, but I couldn’t wait to get out to grow it long again. 23 years later I realized I no longer had the hair to grow out. Such is life. Still only an inch on top today, I don’t want to be a comb-over guy. I guess I really didn’t miss hair after all.
However I did have the joy of experiencing my little girl and her long hair and having to comb it out! I- or she- felt your pain, and we could never get her to comb it regularly, she just dealt with the tangles. Though it did get caught in the mixer once making cookies- not fun! But she was okay. Ruined the cookies.
Wow, R.Z. Thank you for this story. I could feel the humiliation of you as a child, especially the “growling ‘don’t move.’” That cut my heart. I’m sorry you and your brother went through that. I think it’s important for us to hear these stories, and I want you to know how much I appreciate you opening up about this.
As for combing your daughter’s hair, it sounds to me, the way you wrote it, that you did it with such love! That makes all the difference, regardless of whether she had knotted clumps or not.
Once again, you write so wonderfully about a topic everyone can relate to. We all have spent a lot of time thinking about our hair, dealing with our hair, complaining about our hair, and on and on. Men do this, too. At least my husband does, and it's really frustrating at times the fact his hair is and always has been super thick. Not fair.
Your story brought up memories of my short-hair days. I was daughter #3, and my mother kept all our haircuts short, understandably, as we were age 4 and under. Yikes. Anyway, my hair was short until I got old enough to have a say in the matter. I always hated it. In addition to being short, I had terrible colics. Think Dennis the Menace. (Are you old enough to remember him?) That's who I always thought I looked like.
Next, I think about the seventies. All the girls had long, straight hair. Finally, I fit in. Then came the 80s and perms - big hair was on. But the biggest hair story for me is hair loss during cancer treatment. I hated it when people said, it's just hair, or it'll grow back. I hated being bald. Everything you wrote about what our hair symbolizes is true.
I wrote some hair stories on my old blog. I might have to revive a few in a new piece here sometime. Thanks for sharing your hair story. I think you looked very cute. by the way.
Oh, wow, Nancy. I really was struck by what you said people commented when you lost your hair during cancer treatment. Isn’t it incredible how callous we can be to each other sometimes? “It’s just hair, it’ll grow back” is hurtful. It’s MORE than “just” hair. It’s a part of us. I do believe it’s a huge part of our identities, because hair symbolizes so much and is a part of us for so long. And, like we ourselves, it changes over time. But to lose it abruptly, there is grief in that. I am glad you wrote about it.
My father cut our hair, whether we liked it or not. It was traumatizing for me because I identified deeply with the long hair of the seventies, and so much wanted to both fit in, and be one of those cool flower-children. I actually have a picture of my father cutting my hair while I'm crying.
And then of course on the bus in the morning, anyone with a new short haircut got made fun of. I think I was deeply hurt that my parents didn't care about this.
Wow, Don, thanks for opening up about this here. I am learning that hair really is this intimate part of us. We each have our own ideas, feelings, and connections to our hair. I cannot believe there is a photo of your dad cutting your hair while you’re crying! How awful to have a visual reminder of that humiliation.
What struck me most was this: “I was deeply hurt that my parents didn’t care about this.” How true. I am now thinking about my own kids and letting them have agency over what they want to do with their hair, which did not happen when I was growing up, either. It was like, basically, suck it up and deal.
I’m so glad things are changing, though. Thanks for being here with me and being my friend!
Yeah, I don’t think you can add photos or images in comments of essays—only under a Note. Weird. Maybe one of those glitches that Substack (hopefully) will correct?
Weren't the '80s a delight?! I had a similar tragic haircut as a child and was mistaken for a boy. I have lots of hair-related stories, too many to mention! It's never *just* about the hair but all the meaning (cultural and otherwise) that we ascribe. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for saying that, Julie. Yes, the 80s were a trip. I have a lot of fond memories of growing up in that decade, but also a lot of humiliating ones.
Powerfully written. Hair for me since childhood, especially as an African American definitely has had in impact. Embracing our texture of our hair and letting go of this image that straight hair is “good” hair has been a powerful shift in our community. I love how you bring up all cultures and the impact it has had.
Oh wow, Sherry, YES. Your perspective about hair is such a vital component to this conversation. I hear you and I am humbled and grateful you wrote this. I would love to learn more about your personal experience with embracing the texture of your hair as an African American.
I relate to both you and your mom. I had my hair kept short as a child because my mom didn’t want to deal with my super thick hair. My childhood photos are atrocious, my daughter is the one who is most humiliated for me.
However, as a mom of kids with special needs and who was also dealing with her own health problems I found as much as I desired to keep my own daughter’s hair long according to her preference, the hair had to be sacrificed at one point.
She inherited my thick locks and she didn’t have the wherewithal to deal with them in the second and third grade. But we managed. I made sure she didn’t have to go through the humiliation and shaming of a bad haircut.
I researched how to achieve a cute bob hairstyle that allowed her to have longer hair around her face and kept it short at the nape of her neck. She still looked cute and very girly but we avoided the humiliation and hard feelings. There are no horrible photos to prolong a bad memory.
My daughter grew out of her neglectful phase regarding her hair and by high school had long lustrous locks that she continues to keep healthy and well kept.
I encourage exasperated moms to find similar solutions so we don’t set our daughters up for humiliation. Hair does matter.
Wow, Ruth. What you wrote here is such a loving demonstration of what can be done in these kinds of situations, rather than succumbing our daughters to this kind of humiliation.
As a mom myself, I do understand my own mother’s exasperation with my thick and unruly hair. I get it. My own daughters don’t often brush their hair and then I am the one who needs to get the tangles out. In my mom’s defense, we did not have detangling hair spray in the 80s. We do now.
I am just in awe of the way you figured out a way to help your daughter still feel good about herself but also have a stylish haircut that could be more easily maintained. Thank you for sharing that.
Oh my heart. My heart!!!! Being a child can be so harrowing and our toxic beauty culture makes it even more so. I came of age in the 80's with similar traumas and I want to give that little girl in the photo the biggest hug. What a powerful essay this is, you touched my heart. And my soul.
You are so kind, Stephanie! I was born in 1981. I remember most of the 80s very well. I felt your love.
Jeannie, you hit a topic that all of us have some sort of experience with…good, bad or indifferent. You had a terrorizing experience and were treated cruelly during your terrible haircut time and the way your chronically pained mother treated you during hair brushing sessions. Sounds like the historical perspective you’ve found around your mother’s illness has given you understanding of your mother during that time. And maybe some forgiveness softening that harsh memory.
Back to the importance of hair…..for me I found the way my face was framed crucial to how I judged if I was attractive or not attractive. Still do. It’s a human thing I think for many of us. Also, as a kid I wanted my hair to look like Audrey Hepburn’s in The Glass Slipper and then Debbi Reynold’s in Tammi where she lived in a houseboat, wore jeans, a yellow shirt and a rope belt which, of course, I had to copy!! So, for me hair has been mostly a vanity thing though hard to admit that. A horrible haircut would do me in. To this day a dear friend and I always first ask when we talk across the miles: “How’s your hair?”
Thanks for raising this hair splitting subject.
♥️
Thanks for this, Tina. I wonder, though, if what you were describing isn’t vanity but wanting to be beautiful as you perceived beauty, based on the cultural lens in which you were immersed during that time of your life? I mean, we women tend to be incredibly harsh with ourselves, quick to assume blame for anything: in this case, wanting to look beautiful (whatever that means to us) and then quickly rushing to call it vanity.
I do believe there are vain people. In my experience, you are not one of them.
You’re right—I’m moving toward forgiveness and grace with my mom. She has done so many loving things in my life, but it’s all so complicated. I wish it weren’t, but it is.
Now that you say this, Jeannie, I’ve started to think about this more deeply. It has to do with looking “cute” in order to gain, what I esteemed, love from others. More like “mother love”. There are dynamics arising from this one! Oh!
Thanks for opening my heart!
Wow, Tina, so so happy to hear this opened something up in you! That’s awesome and I appreciate you sharing it with me.
Your Mom’s voice is my mom’s as well. The nest at back, the visit to the hair cutter, the whole thing.
I was 7 probably in 1st or 2nd grade so very similar to you. The difference is, my extreme haircut was in 1972. It set the tone for my entire school experience. While everyone was doing Farrah Faucett wings, I was attempting to grow out curls that no matter how long it got were a bowl.
Thank you for putting this together. Hair history and psychology is important to understand!
Thanks for sharing this story, LaMonica. It seems like, no matter what we tried to do with our hair during our coming-of-age years, by the time we felt we were fitting in, there was a new hairstyle to take over!
I bet your curls are gorgeous.
You are right, the race was always on.
You are sweet to say that. I was told years later by the girl who sat behind me in homeroom every day (another L name) she would be mesmerized and jealous of the curls on the back of my head! Go figure!
We were actually just all more critical of ourselves than we had to be. The tragedy was there was no one telling us that!
Isn’t that something, LaMonica? It seems like no one likes their own hair! I now have curly hair (after having five kids), and my 14yo daughter with stick straight hair tells me, “I love your curls!” While I am looking at her gorgeous natural highlights and thinking, “Wow, I love how beautiful your hair is!”
Human nature, I guess! 😂
This piece brought back a visceral ache for me, not just because of the haircut (though I winced in solidarity), but because of everything tangled up in it. What struck me most in your story was how early we're taught that our hair isn’t just ours. It becomes a battleground for control, shame, identity. That moment in the salon, being talked about but not to, rang so true. My hobble haircuts weren’t just about poverty; they marked me as someone who didn’t belong in the polished spaces. And like you, I internalised that.
Thank you for writing this. It left me feeling seen in a way I didn’t know I needed.
Matt, I want you to know how much I value what you shared here. It was vulnerable and honest. You said so much without saying it all, especially about how your “hobble haircuts weren’t just about poverty, but they marked me as someone who didn’t belong in polished spaces.”
Wow.
Just wow.
That says so much. I’m grateful my essay touched something in you that needed to be seen and validated and honored. Thank you for being here.
When I went through my shaman elder initiation, the final ritual was to shave our heads. My shaman teacher explained that we needed to "scramble our frequency" and to cut off our old identity so that we could grow into our new skin, and that the way to do that was by shaving our heads. One guy had 18yr dreads. I had locks down to my waist that I'd worn in tight french brains for the whole month long initiation process.
What I learned in shaving my head was that hair, for sensitive souls at least, is our antennae. It's essential to our intuition, to our ability to sense and feel. I suppose I learned this too when i was a synchronized swimmer and I didn't shave my legs so that I could better feel the height of my leg out of the water. Hair is about that sensitivity, and the ability to process that. so now, I wear hats or scarves when I have over-sensitive days. and it explains why I had shaving so much. it feels like I am cutting off my sensory percpetors and I feel naked in different ways.
shaving my head was one of the most physically painful experiences of my life. everyone else was laughing. or having emotional breakdowns, but I just kept waiing "it hurts...it hurts!" first the scissors, then the clippers, and finally the straight razor. It hurt a kind of pain I can't ever explain to anyone.
That’s an incredible story, Teri Leigh. I can imagine the symbolic nature of shaving one’s head to represent that shedding of the old and embracing the new. At the same time, your sensory explanation also makes sense, both with perception and neurological functioning. I have never in my life thought of anything like this, from this angle. As usual, you have opened me up to some new way of viewing this issue.
I always appreciate your unique viewpoint, friend. Thank you so much.
I tell ya, I will never shave my head again if I can help it. And, this brought a whole new sensitivity awareness to why women get their hair cut/done when they are going through major life changes.
YES. I think there’s more to this conversation again, Teri Leigh. You’re getting me thinking more deeply about this.
Fabulous lovely post
I can see you in that second graders face
I knew it was you before seeing your name
See - you still have
your youthful looks 🤗
And glow
❤️
Well, how kind of you to say that, Sandy! Now I am wondering if, when I bumped into an old grade school friend who knew me at that age, she was right when she said I looked the same!
Yes of course
You still look the same kid
Way to go 👍🏻
Oh the 'bird's nest' comment, I remember that too! I wonder if every curly haired person has heard that one?! I also remember my dad forcibly cutting my hair himself. I was in my early teens, trying to grow out my fringe (bangs) and the hair was hanging in my eyes. He got angry about it and took to the scissors... absolutely mortifying.....
Oh, Dr. Vicki, I’m so sorry to read about your traumatizing haircut experience…in your TEENS! Wow. That makes it doubly devastating, because what an awkward time of life, anyway, and to make it even more so with a bad haircut. I don’t think parents should ever chop their kids’ hair off out of anger. It seems, the more I read people’s horror stories about bad haircuts, the more I believe that parents should give their children agency over their hair. It’s such an intimate and personal part of us and to have it taken away can truly be humiliating.
Yes I agree Jeannie, we need agency over our body even in childhood (within reason - if I chose something really outrageous they might have intervened, but this was definitely not the case!) And yes, there is a particular cruelty to this in the teenage years!
Oh, yes, totally agree, Dr. Vicki—within reason.
Beautiful essay, Jeannie! I enjoyed the balance of research and personal narrative. I love the photo of you as a little girl.
I also had many bad hair episodes when I was a child, so I can totally relate. My mom had my hair cut short sometimes, just because she found it unruly -- and it was straight!
It's interesting that my daughter and I are going to a salon for haircuts today!
I used to have long hair, but now I like it short. No matter how one wears their hair, we can all agree that these locks are important.
Thanks for sharing this, Beth. I always appreciate hearing your stories and experience. It’s such a gift that we found each other in this Substack space. I truly enjoy getting to know you more and more, and I hope you and your daughter enjoyed your trip to the salon!
I am very grateful we found each other in the Substack space, Jeannie. Your essays and poetry are beautiful, and I'm happy to get to know more about you through time.
Thank you, Beth. :)
You know, reading your essay, I began thinking about hair as a form of storytelling. Not just the stories we tell about ourselves, but the stories our ancestors told. If you think about it, hair is one of the few physical things that persists, even after death. It’s in old photographs, preserved locks in family heirlooms, even found in archaeological digs. Each strand holds a history, a connection to the past. And maybe, just maybe, those stories linger in our own hair, influencing how we perceive ourselves. I wonder if the way our hair responds to different situations is tied to the history of all the hairs that came before it. What if we could unlock our hair's story and find meaning? It sounds strange, I know, but what if?
Wow. That’s profound, Alex. You’re right—hair remains even after the rest of our bodies decay. Now you have me thinking about why we, as parents, keep a lock of our baby’s hair and put it in a baggie to secure in a baby book.
I did this before our sweet pitbull mix, Lily, died, too—I snipped just a lock of her hair to keep.
Hair does tell a story, doesn’t it? Thank you for adding so much texture to this, Alex! I wish we’d had this conversation before I wrote the essay. I think it’s a really valuable addition.
I read the title of this and gave it a ❤️, but i wont be reading it. Age 5 My mother told me during a cookout with family, that my aunt was going to cut my hair (mom usually did it) I was excited for the special attention and plunked myself down in the chair. Not knowing what was about to happen. They cut off ALL my hair. It was long and gorgeous one minute and the next i had a bowl cut. I cannot begin to explain how ticked off a 5 year old can actually get. I wouldnt speak to either of them. I still have hair cut issues.
I hear you, Heather. This can be a triggering topic, and I appreciate your honesty here and also what you shared from personal experience.
As the son of a Marine I will let you guess the kind of haircut my brother and I were allowed to have. We were the only kids in 2nd and 3rd grade with buzz cuts…it was embarrassing. And done at home in the old high chair on Sunday night. I can still feel his hand on the top of my head growling “don’t move.” We finally convinced mom to let us grow a normal haircut, but not without being chided that he would buy us a dress too. Later when I joined the Navy losing my hair in boot camp was no big deal, but I couldn’t wait to get out to grow it long again. 23 years later I realized I no longer had the hair to grow out. Such is life. Still only an inch on top today, I don’t want to be a comb-over guy. I guess I really didn’t miss hair after all.
However I did have the joy of experiencing my little girl and her long hair and having to comb it out! I- or she- felt your pain, and we could never get her to comb it regularly, she just dealt with the tangles. Though it did get caught in the mixer once making cookies- not fun! But she was okay. Ruined the cookies.
Wow, R.Z. Thank you for this story. I could feel the humiliation of you as a child, especially the “growling ‘don’t move.’” That cut my heart. I’m sorry you and your brother went through that. I think it’s important for us to hear these stories, and I want you to know how much I appreciate you opening up about this.
As for combing your daughter’s hair, it sounds to me, the way you wrote it, that you did it with such love! That makes all the difference, regardless of whether she had knotted clumps or not.
Hi Jeannie,
Once again, you write so wonderfully about a topic everyone can relate to. We all have spent a lot of time thinking about our hair, dealing with our hair, complaining about our hair, and on and on. Men do this, too. At least my husband does, and it's really frustrating at times the fact his hair is and always has been super thick. Not fair.
Your story brought up memories of my short-hair days. I was daughter #3, and my mother kept all our haircuts short, understandably, as we were age 4 and under. Yikes. Anyway, my hair was short until I got old enough to have a say in the matter. I always hated it. In addition to being short, I had terrible colics. Think Dennis the Menace. (Are you old enough to remember him?) That's who I always thought I looked like.
Next, I think about the seventies. All the girls had long, straight hair. Finally, I fit in. Then came the 80s and perms - big hair was on. But the biggest hair story for me is hair loss during cancer treatment. I hated it when people said, it's just hair, or it'll grow back. I hated being bald. Everything you wrote about what our hair symbolizes is true.
I wrote some hair stories on my old blog. I might have to revive a few in a new piece here sometime. Thanks for sharing your hair story. I think you looked very cute. by the way.
Oh, wow, Nancy. I really was struck by what you said people commented when you lost your hair during cancer treatment. Isn’t it incredible how callous we can be to each other sometimes? “It’s just hair, it’ll grow back” is hurtful. It’s MORE than “just” hair. It’s a part of us. I do believe it’s a huge part of our identities, because hair symbolizes so much and is a part of us for so long. And, like we ourselves, it changes over time. But to lose it abruptly, there is grief in that. I am glad you wrote about it.
And yes, I remember Dennis the Menace. :)
My father cut our hair, whether we liked it or not. It was traumatizing for me because I identified deeply with the long hair of the seventies, and so much wanted to both fit in, and be one of those cool flower-children. I actually have a picture of my father cutting my hair while I'm crying.
And then of course on the bus in the morning, anyone with a new short haircut got made fun of. I think I was deeply hurt that my parents didn't care about this.
Thanks for this wonderful writing, Jeannie!
Wow, Don, thanks for opening up about this here. I am learning that hair really is this intimate part of us. We each have our own ideas, feelings, and connections to our hair. I cannot believe there is a photo of your dad cutting your hair while you’re crying! How awful to have a visual reminder of that humiliation.
What struck me most was this: “I was deeply hurt that my parents didn’t care about this.” How true. I am now thinking about my own kids and letting them have agency over what they want to do with their hair, which did not happen when I was growing up, either. It was like, basically, suck it up and deal.
I’m so glad things are changing, though. Thanks for being here with me and being my friend!
I’ll share the picture with you, Jeannie. That just doesn’t seem to be an option for it here.
Yeah, I don’t think you can add photos or images in comments of essays—only under a Note. Weird. Maybe one of those glitches that Substack (hopefully) will correct?
It’ll be a fun note :-)
Weren't the '80s a delight?! I had a similar tragic haircut as a child and was mistaken for a boy. I have lots of hair-related stories, too many to mention! It's never *just* about the hair but all the meaning (cultural and otherwise) that we ascribe. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for saying that, Julie. Yes, the 80s were a trip. I have a lot of fond memories of growing up in that decade, but also a lot of humiliating ones.
Powerfully written. Hair for me since childhood, especially as an African American definitely has had in impact. Embracing our texture of our hair and letting go of this image that straight hair is “good” hair has been a powerful shift in our community. I love how you bring up all cultures and the impact it has had.
Oh wow, Sherry, YES. Your perspective about hair is such a vital component to this conversation. I hear you and I am humbled and grateful you wrote this. I would love to learn more about your personal experience with embracing the texture of your hair as an African American.