Great advice! My parents told my brother the same thing about his hair. For a few years, he wore it long. It was beautiful, thick and wavy golden honey blonde and he kept it immacutely clean. Over time, tho, he discovered that it was a huge time sink and cut it off when he was about 21. I have a couple of photos of him that I plan to drag out to show his grandkids when they’re old enough.
My folks were more conservative with me, especially about clothes. I, unfortunately, develop quite a bit of bosom at a relatively early age. My father was especially uncomfortable if I dressed in anything to tight. He said he’d been a young man once and knew how they were about “some things.” The unintended consequence is that I’ve been self-conscious about the size of my chest ever since.
That stupid chin diamond is called a “soul patch”? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard today, and I’m sure will turn out to be the dumbest thing I hear this week, maybe this month. My brother-in-law calls them “douche tags.”
I pretend to take offense to my children’s hair choices. Not because I actually care much, but because I specifically want to give them something to rebel against that is safe and impermanent. My step mother discovered that if you ignore the hairstyle you don’t care about and draw the line at hygiene, then hygiene is the battle you will fight over and over and lose.
Just remember: we all made terrible fashion faux pas in our youth. My mother let me make mine, and said no matter how much she wanted to criticize some of the stuff I wore, she kept her mouth shut. It’s kind of a rite of passage.
Really, I didn’t - for a lot of the reasons stated above: I saw pics of my older relatives and decided that wasn’t a road I wanted to go down. The family hates how smug I am that there are no pictures of me with a afro or jeri curl (both styles pushed heavily by family in my teens). My biggest sin was glasses frames and that wasn’t my fault - my grandmother went for whatever was cheapest, so plain black nerd glasses for me. And now that they’re “in” I seem ahead of my time.
A friend of mine had the worst teen 'stache, and still has it in his 50s. He’s never been able to get more than a dusting of hair over his lip but damned if he doesn’t insist on keeping it. My job as a teen and 20-something didn’t allow facial hair so I was in my 30s before I tried any and I quickly learned I need a full goatee - a moustache simply doesn’t work for me.
One of my brothers does that several days a week; on one hand he doesn’t want to grow a beard, on the other he’s got sensitive skin and prefers to shave relatively little. I found it strange at first but it’s true his skin is better, so it’s a case where I consider it justified. He normally shaves on Mondays and Thursdays.
Where it kills me is in ads. Saw one last Monday where the two black-haired male models (probably Spaniards given the brand and the magazine; many men here get 5’o clock shadows by mid-morning) had the kind of leg and forearm hair which leads to questions about ursine parentage, midnight o’clock beards… and no torso hair. OK, so you’ve waxed or lasered your torso, but the periphery still has more hair than skin - you look like a mismatched action figure, man.
You want the kid to get rid of it? Just show him the picture you showed us. When I was a teenager I stayed as far away as I could from any kind of boy band looking crap.
It’s wrong to make someone shave any of their hairs, at any time, at any age. And, aside from coercion, it’s rude and mean-spirited to harass anyone for not shaving any of their hairs.
They grow there naturally. Refraining from removing them is not a “behavior”.
Hell, I’m 48 with all-European ancestry, and I still can’t grow a decent beard. I can stop shaving for two weeks, and end up looking simply “unshaven”.
