Cutting Your Kid's Hair, or "Don't Worry, It'll Only Look Weird For a Little While!"

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This week, I’ve had to give both of my children haircuts.

Now, I can’t cut a straight line if it’s perforated, okay? But now I’ve got to bring sharp objects close to the heads of my beloved, but incredibly wiggly children.

My 11-month-old son looks like I put half a bowl on his head & cut around it. Yes, half a bowl. One side is quite obviously shorter than the other. While I don’t relish the idea of fixing it, I know I’m going to have to. I did it while he was in the bathtub, and he really likes his bath. It’s impossible to get him to sit still.

My 3 1/2-year-old daughter is another story. The only way I can get her to sit still is to tell her to jump up & down like a maniac. Did I do that? Nooooooo. I told her to sit still. Just as I was clipping her bangs, she tilted her head. So, she got a nice straight diagonal cut. Did I learn my lesson? Nooooooo. I told her to sit still again. Just as I was trying to trim the diagonal line to a straight line, she moved again. AAAAAAGH! I eventually got her bangs fairly straight, but they’re pretty damn short.

Get a bad haircut from your parents? Give a bad haircut to your kids? Share it with me! Make me feel just a little less bad…please?

2

Mom coughed useing the buzzing thingo, i had this line accros the side of my head!! i know there was other ones too, but i can’t quite think of them right now… when they come to mind i’ll write more

ur definatly not the only one :slight_smile:

3

When my brother was in second or third grade, he decided to give himself* a haircut. On school picture day.

They did what they could, sweeping it off to one side, but you could tell.

4

My friend gave himself a haircut with an electric razor, in tenth grade. It looked like he cut it with a weed-wacker. He ended up wearing a touque(sp?) for a little over a month. And this wasn’t in winter. :smiley:

5

I was the wiggly kid getting my bangs cut diagonally when I was small… Mom would just keep cutting 'em again until i was left with about a quarter of an inch, my hairline looked like the bottom of a pair of frayed Levi’s.

For about two years I’ve had my hair cut in a men’s style. Really short, like Winona Ryder’s. Last year I decided to try growing it out and for a while I had these wings over my ears. Mom offered to trim them for me so theyd look more normal… THAT backfired… we ended up taking me back to the hairdresser’s and getting my hair done back in the boy’s cut. I lost two inches worth of hair growth.

I’m growing it out again and I just got past the wingy stage, I refused to let Mom touch it this time…

6

I just cut my own hair this morning.

I LIKE it crooked.

(I wonder what the back looks like? No one said anything…) :0

7

Damn. Can never figure out the smilies.

8

iksova, just click on the “Smilies” link at the top of the composition page if you forget them while you’re writing a post. Another window will pop up showing you the different usable smilies on the board. :slight_smile:

9

If it makes you feel any better, my mother used to butcher mine and my brother’s hair our entire youth. But now that I’m all grown up (24), and I’ve been to a couple of hair cutter people - she still cuts it.

At first when I hit school it wasn’t very “cool”, but now that I’m older, I’m proud of the fact that she’s the only one who cuts my hair.

10

I always cut my boys hair with clippers as they have it very short and it always looks good. But when I was young I remember my mother cutting my hair and it looked like someone had put a bowl on my head and cut around it. I got ribbed about it for ages and vowed and declared my mother was not going to touch my hair again.

11

:smiley: :confused: :cool: :eek: :frowning: :o :rolleyes: :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks, not so silent after all rob!!! :wink:

12

I remember my mother cutting my nephew’s hair, and listening to his pleas “Please don’t make me bald-headed, Grandma!”. She ended up trying to convince him that mohawks were cool.

StG

13

Heheheh.

Here’s a story. My son, now 4 absolutely hates having his hair cut. He’s had 4 cuts over the course of his whole life, if that. Anyway, the dreaded time was here. Hair-cut time; so people don’t think we rescued this little urchin from the jungle or something. I have to confess I’d been putting it off, while I tried to come up with something that had a chance.

I hired a student this summer (to help with fences and decks) and my boy took to him right away. Named him ‘Dood’. Anyway, Dood was 17 and kind of punkish. Short, spiked, bleached-blonde hair when I hired him. About half way through the summer, he came into work with blue hair.

My son thought this was the absolute coolest thing he had ever seen and started asking if he could have blue hair too. :rolleyes:

For about two weeks this went on. Then it hit me. “Ok,” sez I, “let’s do it.”

We went to the local ‘party supplies’ shop and bought some of that kid-safe hair color spray. Heheheh.

I brought him in the kitchen, set him up in a chair and set out the scissors and stuff. At first he saw the scissors and comb and started to kick up the expected fuss.

{i}Until* I reminded him that Dood’s hair was short. All of a sudden, no problem. He sat there as quietly and motionless as could be expected of a 4yr old and watched tv until I had finished properly butchering his hair. (which had more a quality of general ragginess than crookedness- not so bad)

I then spay painted his head until it was a deep purple.

He was happy. I was happy. Dylan was… was… er… surprised. The neighbours were perplexed.

We kept the paint in for three or four days; it washed out with the first shampooing. It was pretty fun.

I’ve got nothing at all against blue hair, and said sure but I was concerned that the chemicals in hair dye might be a tad harsh for a 4yr old.

14

That last sentence was part of a paragraph that got cut in an attempt not to bore anybody to death.

Please kindly ignore it.

15

I just happened to have given my 3 girls a trim today. We’re getting ready for school, so the older 2 needed their ends neatened. The little one, though, has that fine, wispy, flies-everywhere blonde stuff. I finally gave in and gave her the first real haircut of her life (yes, she’s 2 and hasn’t grown anything past her collar yet.) She has an adorable little bowl cut now. It actually looks much better, as the blunt cut gives it more body. My husband will go over our son’s head with the clippers tomorrow.

Now for horror stories. My husband attempted to surprise me (well, actually, he did) by trimming our oldest daughter’s hair one morning. Unfortunately, while trimming her bangs he included the wispy bits around her ears that were finally growing in, so she had bangs nearly halfway around her head. A full years worth of growing-in lost. Aargh. This same girl cut her own hair when she was 4, resulting in the remedial bowl cut she wore to kindergarten.

My husband’s then-girlfriend once cut his ear badly with clippers while giving him a trim.

Finally, when I was young, my mom accidentally shaved a large swath through my father’s hair with the clippers. She made the mistake of laughing at her blunder, which sent him into a rage. The next day, still angry, he went off to his job as a high school teacher, refusing to explain to anyone why he now sported a large bald spot on the top of his head. Rumors were briefly spread that he had brain cancer.

16

Part of the fun of my job is fixing haircuts that parents did. The funniest part is that usually they won’t let me cut what it needs and then wonder why it still was uneven.

Me: Well, to fix it I need to do this…
Mom: NO! Don’t do that!
Me: Well, how about this…
Mom: No! Don’t do that either!

And on and on until you get to a compromise. I tell them if I do what they want it won’t be fixed and they say ok and they’ll cut it more next time. That is, until I’m done.

“Why is this side still longer?”

“You wouldn’t let me cut it shorter.”

“Why is it shorter in this spot?”

“I told you that it’s about 4 inches shorter than the rest and if I even it out it will be a butch haircut so you said you’d let it grow out.”

And on and on and on!

17

Ahhh, MaryAnn! I’d forgotten that you were a stylist!

I promise never to be that way when my kids do get old enough to take them to a professional! I promise!

My son has what I think they call “unruly” hair. It’s not wiry, but it’s pretty thick already, and very curly (chicks are really going to dig his hair when he gets older). He’s got this cowlick on the back of his head that I just don’t know what to do about. I didn’t mess with it. I just tried to get rid of the stuff that was hanging in his eyes and winging around his ears, because he was starting to look weird. Not that I helped fix that problem.

I’ve never cut the back of my daughter’s hair. It’s just so pretty. It’s almost down to her waist now, and the ends have the neatest little ringlets, on their own. I just try to keep the bangs out of her eyes. This is the first time I’ve ever really screwed it up.

Oh, and are their stylists that specialize in working on kids? If there are, do they charge as much as regular stylists, for hazard pay? At least that’s what it would be with my children…:smiley:

18

Well, my mom did a number on me in 5th grade, I think…

You know that episode of Gilligan’s Island where they did a musical version of Hamlet? Remember the wig that Gilligan wore to play Hamlet? That’s what it looked like. Guess what the kids in my class called me for a while? :rolleyes:

19

I used to cut both my daughters’ hair, but then the younger one decided to grow out her bangs (this was AFTER the short haircut she gave herself on her 4th birthday) and the older one decided she wants to cut her OWN bangs. I must say, although they’re usually a little choppy (and sometimes she even lets me fix them a bit), she doesn’t do any worse than I used to.

I went through childhood with 1-inch bangs because my mom was trying to get them straight, so I swore I’d never do that to my kids. Now THEY’RE going to tell stories about how they went through childhood with bias-cut bangs.

Ah, the Great Circle of Life.

20

Bad hair cut? Nah… Perms from Hell, Oh, they are the foundation of my therapy. And I won’t even talk about the dye jobs my mom did on me until I finally said," NO, I can ruin my hair myself." (Which I never did.)