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Last night, I gave Katie her first haircut.
Before I get demands for before and after photos or a
blow-by-blow description of the grand event, let me clarify. I didn’t give her
bangs, or trim off inches of length. All I did was cut off her annoying little
rat tail, the one remnant of her newborn hair that stubbornly refused to fall
out with the rest of its kind.
Why did I do it? For one thing, because it ruined the line
of the rest of her hair, kept getting stuck in her collar, was straight next to
the rest of her cute curls, and was the only part of her hair long enough to actually
get tangled. But the other reason is that it just reminded me too much of the
bad hairstyles that ran rampant when I was growing up.
I was born in 1968, which meant that I spent my younger
childhood in the fashion black hole of the 70s, when hair was long, straight,
and limp, and I spent my more fashion-conscious years of high school and
college in the 80s, when the popular styles were big hair, bigger bangs, spiral
perms, mohawks – and rat tails. At the time, we all (myself included) thought
they were totally cool and fashionable. I recall a classmate with beautiful
thick curly hair who cut it crazy short but grew a braided rat tail that by
graduation must have been 18 inches long. Boy was I jealous of her coolness.
My own hairstyles were rarely the height of fashion, even at
the time. I had a pixie cut as a toddler, long straight hair in my early
childhood that I cut off into a Dorothy Hamill cut in first grade, grew it long
again with bangs and the occasional disastrous home perm, cut it all off again
in 7th grade, somehow ended up with a few tragic femullets through
junior high and high school, and eventually settled into a semi-fashionable
short cut all through college. I think my wildest hair thought was a passing
desire in 9th grade to dye a single lock of hair on the side of my
head magenta –my mother, to her dying day, was convinced that I had wanted to
dye my entire head of hair magenta.
It makes me wonder what horrific hairstyles my kids will
come up with over the years. My husband probably doesn’t agree, but hair cuts
and colors aren’t a hill I care to die on. Hair grows back, after all, unlike,
say, piercings and tattoos. No matter what a girl does to her hair, it can’t be
overly revealing or sexualized. No matter what a boy does to his hair, it can’t
be anything that can’t be remedied with a razor (or a hat). The most unfortunate haircut in the world won't lead to infections or hepatitis. The worst result
of a hair tragedy (whether accidental or by choice) is a class or yearbook
photo. And don’t we all have those anyway?
My 1983 (failed) attempt at 80s big hair
So it Katie wants to grow her rat tail back someday, so be
it. And if Ryan was to chop off his glorious curls into a Mohawk or a flattop,
that’s his choice. I’ll be standing by with the camera.
