Haircut Trials and Tribulations

“I cut my hair so it looks like I just woke up all the time, so that I can be like, what year is it? I’ve been asleep since the 80s.” ― Jarod Kintz

After a very emotional, weepy session of hair brushing for Maeve, I decided it was just time.  Time to cut her hair so short that these tangles would just be a memory.  It made her so miserable to deal with me brushing her hair, and it needed huge, painful brushing sessions all the darn time just to keep up with the tangles.  And I am not really the kind of person or mother who's overly concerned with her child's appearance... as you may have noticed.  So it seemed purely mean-spirited to keep brushing the child's hair and causing her all that pain.  The solution was at hand, so I asked her, Maeve, would you like to have short hair like Mommy?  Then you wouldn't have any tangles anymore.

She responded with a very resolute yes, that she wanted "long hair like Mommy's" which I clarified with her, and yes, she did mean short.  So I opted to take her back to Cool Cuts for Kids, the place we got her hair cut last time, because we had such a good experience there.  Oh boy.

Here, I think, was the essential problem with Maeve's stylist: she was kind of a perfectionist.  And not all that sensitive.  Because to get Maeve's hair even at the nape of her neck, she needed Maeve to look down, to kind of tuck her chin.  Which I could just about get her to do, but then Maeve felt the back of the scissors on her neck and freaked. right. out.  And despite the freaking out, the stylist continued to cut her hair in just the same way, although in retrospect I think she could have put her finger or a comb behind the scissors and Maeve would have calmed down. 

Not only did she not modify the way she was cutting hair in a way that would have helped my daughter, she also trimmed the back of her hair for what felt like twenty minutes.  It went on and on.  It was awful.

Now, Maeve's haircut looks adorable and I love it, but I'm going to have a serious think about going back to that salon.  Certainly, next time I will advocate for her beforehand and tell her stylist that the scissors thing freaks her out, now that I know.  But I'm kind of worried at how hard it's going to be to drag Maeve in to get another haircut, which she will need much more regularly now with short hair.  But I am terribly pleased with the result!