The other day, while my husband and I were both trying to conduct work calls with 2 young boys at home, it happened. That little right of passage for many kids. My little one, the 6 year old, he took the scissors to his own hair.
As he bounded outside to show my husband his handy work, he wore a wide grin on his face. A grin, which immediately faded when my husband saw him and and said “What did you dooooooooo?”. He quickly burst into tears.
The cut, was actually quite incredible. He must have taken the scissors at an angle to his long waves, leaving a sort of layered affect with an unbelievable amount of volume. He looked straight out of the movie “Dumb and Dumber”. I couldn’t even look at him without laugh-crying. I love his long hair. I Iove that its always messy and tangled and seems to preserve his little boy-ness in a way that fancy tight cuts never will.
I had no choice, this was the day I would finally have to learn to do haircuts myself. We grabbed the clippers, and set out for the driveway. With borrowed barber scissors in one hand and a You Tube tutorial in the other, I set to work. My husband buzzed the sides and I attempted to “blend” the top. I was really impressed with myself until I made one bad cut that there was no coming back from. We had to shave it all.
Hours later, as I was thinking about how ridiculous this day had become I remembered that he’d been complaining about this for weeks? months maybe? He had told both of us repeatedly that his hair was getting in his eyes. He begged me to take him for a haircut, or to just cut his bangs and I had explained to him many times that a real haircut wasn’t an option right now. We had to stay home, to stay safe, and to keep others safe.
I realize now that all of us have our limits, even 6 year olds. We can ignore the hair getting in our eyes hard for a while, maybe even while we repeatedly ask for help. At some point, though, we have to take matters into our own hands. Clearly on this day my little guy had no choice but to do just that. The results will go down in our family history books. Just one more Coronavirus Isolation story. The day that all this become too dang much for him.
scroll down to see the original cut……
