Luckily, TheKid never dabbled in self-barbering.
My grand-neice, she of satan spawn, did. She had below shoulder length hair with bangs to eyebrows. The day before her 4th birthday she decided she no longer liked her bangs, so she cut them off. To approximately 1/2" in places, scalp in others. And she removed a chunk from the back.
(She has also turned the refridgerator off and no one noticed until over 12 hours later when ice cream seeped out, tried to jump out a 2nd floor window, turned the heat up as high as it could go- also not noticed for a while, tried shoving a pair of pants she markered all over down the disposal… I could go on…)
WhyNot - her new 'do looks cute and whispy. In 6 months only you and hubby will remember it.
I didn’t even get a rotten little kid to blame, as one of my kids cut the other one’s hair. I called the hairdresser and said “I have a problem” and she asked which one had cut the other one’s hair. I asked how she knew and she said, “It’s vacation, the kids are bored, this is my fourth call like this this week”.
Which is how we found out that my own golden haired youngest looks good in a high and tight.
But I think it must be a gender thing, it never occurred to me to be upset about it. Dearly Beloved thought it was hysterical.
One of my co-workers is a single dad, and his 6YO cut her own hair (which was in French braids at the time) so she could look more like Daddy. You can imagine how bald she was, since the hair was in two pigtails, braided from front to back down both sides, and she cut UNDER the braids to cut them off. It grew back, but man, was he upset. She thought it was great.
My dad has naturally curly hair. Not tight frizzy ringlet type curls, but certainly some absent-minded professor potential, especially if it gets a little long.
He got a professional haircut three days before his wedding. The stylist cut off all the curls. It wouldn’t neccessarily be a bad look on someone (unlike your story), but it made him look kind of shorn, and right before the wedding. My mother, the bride, was horrified.
So Dad didn’t get his hair cut again until November or December (wedding in July), when the newlyweds went to Dad’s parents for the holidays, and Grandpa spent lots of time muttering about Dad’s now too long and shaggy–maybe even girly-- hair. So finally, in the interest of peace, Mom cut his hair in the kitchen. She’s been cutting it ever since.
One other funny story, someone once asked my mom how she could let him get all his pretty curls cut off. Mom didn’t like to explain that she’d cut them all off herself. Frankly, even under Mom’s guidance, Dad still tends to go from shaggy to shorn and back to shaggy again–especially as it’s gotten lighter in color and thinner overall. But he’s still got more hair than his brothers combined.
I’ve been thinking about the little kids I’ve seen getting professional haircuts. Most of them have screamed bloody murder and acted like they thought the hairdresser was trying to maim them. But you give another kid a pair of scissors, they don’t put up a fuss when the locks begin to fly. Kids are weird.
Oh the memories. I remember when my son cut his sister hair.
She slept with a pony tail in her hair when she was younger as it was very long and it kept it from getting all tangled at night. We got up as usual and as I was getting her ready for the day I always took out the pony tail and brushed her hair all out and then put it back in a pony tail or a clip.
That day was different as when I took out the rubberband a bunch of hair came with it. I freaked and asked her who cut her hair. This of course freaker her out and she starting crying and grabbing her hair.
Evidently her brother had cut the side of her hair while she was asleep but of course it stayed the pony tail so it was not noticed until I remove the rubberband.
Letting it grow back out was really the only option as her hair was past her waist. It was not all that noticable as long as she wore a ponytail.
I think to this day that is why she still prefers her hair that way after wearing it like that for almost a year from age four to five.
Her brother was known from then on as the “Barber of Seville”. We never got a straight answer from him why he did it. I think it was just one of those dumb things that kids do. We still laugh about it from time to time.
When my husband was 2-1/2, his five-year-old sister dragged him into a closet with a pair of their mother’s scissors and started chopping off his hair. When MIL realized the kids were too quiet, she found them in the closet. My husband had a dejected look on his face, and when MIL asked him why he didn’t call for her, he said that his sister had told him if he called for help, the scissors might “accidentally” slip and cut off his head. :eek:
This reminds me of the cutest story. My best friend Alan is bald over the top and down some of the back of his head, so he basically has a brown fringe around his head. (I consistently thank him for not getting a combover.) Another couple’s son got a hold of scissors and proceeded to cut the top of his own hair off–“What are you doing?!?” “I want a haircut like Alan’s!”
Poor WhyNot. It hardly seems fair, when you always post such fantastic, sensible posts on child-raising. (Maybe you should change your username to WhyMe?)
Honestly, when I clicked on the first pre-hair-cut pic, my first thought was “oh, that kid would look just as adorable with her hair cut off. It’s not going to hurt her looks.” Which proved to be the case.
I had a teary moment one time that was probably a little bit like what you are feeling, although (unlike the unwanted haircut) it was an inevitable part of my son growing up:
I was not a sentimental mom in any way (still am not), but was nonetheless anxious to see my son’s first tooth come in. Naturally he was very late doing so, and didn’t get a tooth until 9 months. And do you know…when I saw that tooth and realized my son’s toothless grin was gone forever, I wanted to weep buckets. Maybe that’s similar to what you felt, though I hope now that it is starting to sink in, you are feeling better.
The niece has been really sick for a week. The first day she can leave her house, she gets into the basket of crayons at ma’s. I see she has these big brown scabs on her lips, and I ask if they’re from being sick. I ask because I’m suspicious. No is the answer. Well then she had a marker in the crayons was my reply. She had brown hands, brown lips, and brown on her pants when examined. At least she didn’t marker the light colored carpet yet. I went through the basket of crayons, like ma should have before giving them to her. It contains hundreds of them from when we were kids, and a few other odd bits now removed like a brown marker.
Or a fabric dyer. Or a veterinarian. Or a tanner. Or a demolition expert…