If your daughter spends two days begging you to cut her hair short, and several hours looking through short hair pictures with you before, and even if you extract a promise beforehand that she WILL NOT CRY, even if you VIDEOTAPE SAID DECLARATION, it doesn’t matter.
She’ll cry.
Just so you know.
Oh noooo! I’m sure it looks great – and short hair will show off her pretty face! If she needs more consolation, maybe you should tell her to be thankful that her hair isn’t curly….
Poor Chickie. At least hair grows…
They will do this until adulthood. I know because even if I trim off some ends on my icky hair and said icky hair ends up all frizzy because of the new shorter length, I cry. Or if I say I want bangs and I know that bangs look like crap on me and I get some whispy bangs anyway, and it looks icky…I cry. And I’m…um, not a teenager…
AW poor little ‘roo. But not crying after a radical hair change? It is like saying to lungs, “Okay, you can inhale, but DO NOT process the oxygen into carbondioxide.” I am afraid the lungs, and the preteen girl, have no choice. These are autonomic functions.
ANYWAY…That child is SO pretty, I bet the short hair makes her glossy eyes look HUGE.
Oh, but what a way to find out; good luck.
I do it even as an adult. I love my shorter cut, but I got teary when I saw all the hair on the floor. I am sure she looks beautiful.
…..and it will be your fault, too… just so you know.
Oh, dear. My daughter and I BOTH want to go for shorter hair, and pretty different styles. This does not bode well.
Aren’t you a girl? What were you thinking? I always cry, too. I’ll have to videotape myself. She’ll like it soon enough. I think. In the meantime, get her a cute, expensive clip for her bangs. And maybe a scarf for her neck. And some wine to drink (for you).
Better that she make the mistake now, when she’s younger. I cut my hair absurdly short in ninth grade, hated it, and have had shoulder-length hair for 25 years now. Girls who are six-two need not also have pin heads.
One bad Dorothy Hamill cut in my early teens, and that cured me of radical haircuts.
My 11 y.o. did EXACTLY the same thing as Chickie, and of course she looks adorable. It took her a few days, but since her friends tell her how chic it is, she has grown into it. She now wears it quite confidently.
Or if your daughter begs to have streaks in her hair and you pay $75 for said streaks she will not like it and will color over it because it is “too blond”. Happened a couple of times. She learned her lesson last time when she tried to do it herself and still didn’t like it. At least she was an adult by then and I didn’t have to pay for it. Now if she says something about getting streaks I just remind her she won’t like it. So far so good.
I cry when my ends are too frizzy and the hair on my head looks like “kind” hair…the kind that belongs around a dog’s butt. I cry when I get it trimmed and end up looking like a boy. I cry when I get it cut to my shoulders.
Hair and women don’t mix. Who the heck ever decided short hair was keen? Who thought long hair was luxurious?
I agree with everyone. I think you are supposed to cry with a big hair change, even if you eventually love it. You need time to get used to it, time to see if you can make it look nice yourself, time for your friends to tell you how fabulous you look (or at least to judge their faces on whether they really think you look fabulous). I think you are supposed to as an adult and I’m pretty sure teenage girls have a tear quota to meet anyway.
I am a girl and I don’t get this at all…so here’s hoping my daughter doesn’t ever do the same thing because I will have no sympathy. It’s hair, it grows back, just like fingernails. It’s all dead cells.
Good idea on video taping the promise…I’ll have to remember that as a justification ignore the cries, if this ever happens to me (as for now she’s 3 and barely has enough hair for a little pigtail, and if it wasn’t so fine and curly I would keep it cropped in a pixie.)
Wait. You cut it yourself? This, my dear, takes true talent. Seeing as I had trouble cutting paper in a straight line during Christmas-present-wrapping season, I am bowled over by such skill. I’m sure she looks great…
Sorry about the drama but I’m sure she looks adorable! My favorite thing about hair is that it grows back. I had boy-short hair for about 3 years. (It was great!@ I wore it all spiky like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket. My mom called me her “thistle-headed girl”.) It only took about 4 years to grow it out.
Oops. That wasn’t exactly encouraging. Sorry!
Also: When you pay $75 to have lovely blonde and reddish foils put into your junior-high aged daughter’s hair and it looks lovely, by agreement of all, she will allow her friend to badly apply bright, brassy blonde drugstore dye to it all less than a week later.
I nearly cried that time.
My Daughter must be an anomaly because she begged to have her hair cut short and I let her. (And though I was very proud she donated her hair, I still cried.) SHE did not cry. I bawled.
The same day I had yesterday only it was to color a small portion underneath darker (my daughter has blond hair). You can hardly tell a difference and of course it’s all my fault!!! :)
If my daughter knew your blog address and could read this, she would tell you how I gave her a mullet at 18 months while trying to trim her bangs…. She will never forgive me even though she was too young to remember…. This is also the child who asked for extensions after a trim of less than an inch…. Darn kids!
It is so hard to be The Mom. You just can’t win. But, the last time my daughter went from long to short it was a success. 1 year ago, she had 10 inches of hair cut off which she donated to one of the wig making charities. I was ready for the tears, but she was so proud to be helping someone else they never came. She is a year in to growing it long again with no end in sight. She did say it would have to be longer before she donated again so she didn’t have to go so short next time.
I hope you are “forgiven” soon as I am certain this is somehow your fault.
Of course she cried! I mean, she’s a preteen girl, she has to cry and really, really hate something at least a couple times per week!
Poor Chickadee! I hope she gets used to it soon and loves it as much as she thought she would. Change can be surprising.
Blame it on the hormones. Tough age. I remember. And now…thanks to you…so will she. ;)
Boy-short hair here too…don’t really get the long hair attachment thingy. I’ve wanted to give Crystal Gayle a drive-by hair cut for years ;-)
Trust me…she’ll learn to LOVE it. It’s easier to take care of meaning she can sleep later. I’m just sayin’…that’s why my hair is short. =)
I know.
Be happy she was crying at the hair and not at you! Wait – she was crying at you, too, wasn’t she. And probably yelling. You could offer to straighten it with your fancy-schmancy straightener to make it look longer…and she might see it as a peace offering (for something totally not your fault, but still).
Thanks for the tip!
P.S. Happy birthday, Monkey!
P.P.S. No, I’m not some crazy stalker. The only reason I know/remember is because I’ve been reading your archives and because it’s my birthday too! Yup, I’m the ripe of old of 27!
*ducking and running as Mir throws things and yells at me to get of her lawn*
Anyway, Happy Birthday Monkey! I hope it’s a good one.
I could have told you that…:'(
I’m 32 and even when I spend months and months wishing for short hair, holding it up to see what it would look like and surfing the internet for the perfect picture to show the stylist.. I cry. been doing it for years.