By Leslie Watson

A recent Monday morning dawned sadly at our house, with Helen in despair over the haircut she’d had two days before. Over toast left sodden by a slow leak of tears, she insisted that she could not go to school with such short hair because all the kids would laugh at her. I was less certain that her fellow kindergarteners–who usually sport their own collection of self-snipped bangs and untamed snarls–would be so pitiless, but she would not be consoled. She had survived the weekend with a stocking cap yanked tight below her ears. But with that option closed to her on a school day, she plummeted into the abyss of buyer’s remorse. “Please, can I get a haircut down to here?” she begged, gesturing to her knee in a fit of silly sadness. 

She didn’t even have the comfort of blaming me, since she had actively campaigned for the haircut in a wave of sibling jealousy. Just a week before, my wheedling and offers of a cash reward to Ned had finally paid off, and he had agreed to the removal of his own mop of hair. After two years of growth and neglect it had gone beyond our family’s collective ability to manage it, and I think he was secretly glad to give in.

Ned had emerged from the salon a different kid. Face newly visible, eyes bright and filled with self-satisfied humor, he glowed like the winner of a makeover reality show.  He even seemed taller. Happily pocketing the ten-buck bribe, he spent the next few days basking in the universal approval of grandparents, classmates, neighbors, and even the co-op cashier.

For Helen, the lure of such attention was irresistible and she began insisting that she wanted her own trip to the salon. I was dubious.

“Helen, are you sure you want your hair cut?” I asked. “Normally you don’t really care for short hair.” 

“I do, I really do. I want to cut it short,” she insisted. “Not really short like Ned’s, but pretty short.” 

I should have read the warning imbedded in that little clarification but I was lulled by her certainty, so off to the salon we went, Helen skipping all the way. Composed and mature, she climbed into the booster seat and confidently explained the geometry of the proposed ‘do.’ When it was all over, the stylist twirled her to face the mirror and asked what she thought. “I like it,” Helen said convincingly. But her tread was leaden and lifeless as we walked back to the counter to pay, and I knew that we were in trouble.

Helen is a child whose internal life weaves itself completely into her external reality. When her heart is light, her gait is an effervescent gallop; when she pores over a clothing catalog, she will visibly shimmer with the prospect of imagined transformation; when she holds a favorite stuffed animal, her shoulders curl around it with protective tenderness. So it came as no surprise that she crumpled when the haircut didn’t deliver on the dream.  As I held my quaking girl in the car afterwards, my sympathy battled silently with my pride over how well she’d hidden her intense disappointment from the stylist. “I don’t like this haircut at all, but I didn’t want her to feel bad!” she wailed.

We had a tough weekend, made tolerable only by the aforementioned stocking cap. Helen’s best friend Frannie came to play on Saturday and not even her delighted compliments were enough to lift Helen from her remorse. The hat remained jammed firmly over her stubborn little blonde head.

I’ve learned that there is little I can say or do when Helen’s in the midst of a battle with her inner demons, so I resigned myself to another week or two of anguish before she decided to no longer care about the haircut. But in the midst of Monday morning’s drama, an early reprieve arrived unexpectedly. Frannie, whose family is part of our carpool, had come to the door to fetch Helen during pickup. Smiling, she called out a cheerful greeting from behind a curtain of freshly-shorn hair, cut at just the same angle as Helen’s. Bless her little best-friend heart if she hadn’t gone and gotten a solidarity haircut. Helen didn’t say much, but the flow of tears stopped and her mouth showed the tiniest upward curve as she shouldered her backpack and climbed into the waiting car. 

So many times when I reflect on these small episodes with my kids, I am rewarded with all kinds of insights that enrich my understanding of what it means to be a mom. This time, though, I’m afraid that the underlying lesson has more to do with the power of the peer than with wise and careful parenting.  As we look ahead to teenagehood, I sense a new adage emerging:  “Choose peers and barbers wisely, as they can cut both ways.“

Leslie Watson is a freelance writer who trims her own bangs in Minneapolis.  She can be found online at www.thebusypen.com.

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