Yehva has been asking for a haircut for weeks, and I've been sort of putting her off, not sure whether it would be a good idea. Yesterday I finally promised I would cut her hair, so I spent some time googling around for instructions on cutting an afro, and watched a couple of videos of little boys having their hair cut (from which I learned that some black boys wear their hair in braids until they get their first haircut at about 4. Who knew? Probably lots of people who aren't me. Some of those kids had amazingly long hair--Yehva's must be kind of on the slow side, growth-wise).
And this morning I got out the clippers, chose the second-longest blade guide, and buzzed it all over.
It looks a little uneven in places, but I think it's hard to tell for sure until we wash it and comb it out. I warned her we might have to do a touch-up in a couple of days. And I wish she had let me trim it a bit shorter over her ears and at the nape of her neck, but she says she likes it as it is.
Many thoughts and feelings arise.
I wrote a few months ago about thinking about cutting her hair because my health problems were making it hard for me to keep up with it, and the extremely negative reactions I got when I went looking for advice on how to do it. I can't pretend not to feel that pressure to keep her hair long. Especially because I find myself worrying that people who see her will think I'm a clueless white mother who doesn't know anything about the importance of hair in Black culture and couldn't be bothered to learn to care for my black daughter's hair.
On the other hand, as a parent I've always had a philosophy about my kids' hair that goes like this: It's only hair. They can do anything they want with it. I think parent/child fights about hair are about the stupidest fights parents choose to have with their kids, and I'm not looking for any extra or unnecessary conflicts. So, when it switched from being about me and my energy level to being about Yehva's wishes for her hair, and when her desire to have her hair cut persisted over a number of weeks, I thought I had to respect that, as I have respected it for the boys, or I'd be a rotten hypocrite. "White boys get to do whatever they want with their hair," I'd be telling her, "but you don't because you're a girl, and you're black. So even if you hate having it long, and it hurts to have it combed out, well, that's the price you have to pay."
Another piece is that a lot of people tell me Yehva is beautiful. I've always thought so, but I'm the mom and hardly objective. But people say things to me like, "She's the most beautiful little girl I've ever seen." I posted some new pictures on Facebook, and a friend commented on one picture, "Holy smokes, that kid is model-gorgeous!" (It was an especially good picture.) I feel surprisingly ambivalent about the prospect of her being beautiful; on the one hand, I like to look at beautiful people; on the other hand, I think being beautiful may be hard for women in certain ways. I've heard beautiful women talk about not being taken seriously, about not having their other qualities being appreciated. Some friends in my Quaker meeting have an adult son who is unusually beautiful and has been since childhood, and his mother has told me that one way it has been a problem is that people let him get away with things. So, in my usual way, I have fretted some about how to help her know she's beautiful without being over-invested in it; I've hoped that I and other people will also help her see her many other qualities; I've appreciated her beauty, and enjoyed the attention and praise she has always gotten for it, and yet I have seen it as a minefield as well.
And yet, in cutting her hair, one of my fears was that she would no longer be beautiful, or that people would no longer be able to see her beauty. I shouldn't worry; she always wears jeans, and old t-shirts of her brothers' (I gave away all her pink t-shirts with flowers on them earlier this summer because they were just taking up drawer space). Even with her hair in braids or puffs, she is often mistaken for a boy, so with short hair, I suppose I shouldn't worry that people will judge me for cutting her hair or no longer see her as beautiful; they're not going to see her at all. Everyone is going to think she's a darn cute little guy.
2 comments:
I'm looking at her right now and she's just as cute as ever. The cut looks pretty good, and she is clearly proud of it! :o)
I understand the ambiviance about her beauty. I had the same reaction when Brianna was a toddler and preschooler. She was more cute than beautiful in the more grown-up way that Yehva is, but she was pretty darn cute. (Like you, I'm biased, but the reaction of strangers was so often over-the-top that I think it was true.) I was struck by how everyone seemed to want to give her things. Cashiers at Subway would offer her a free cookie, seemingly because of her cuteness: "Oh my gosh! She is the cutest little girl I've ever seen! Can I give her a cookie?" The clerk at a gas station offered her a doughnut; strangers in line would offer her trinkets; it was amazing. I worried about how she might react to all this fawning and what message it might send to her. What happened in reality is that as she grew older, her looks became less striking to people. She's still a pretty girl, especially when she smiles, but she's not *unusually* beautiful. Whatever she heard early in life did not seem to go to her head. She's much more identified with her self-image as a "smart kid" (not sure how great that is either, but that's how it's shaken out) than as a cute or pretty girl, or even as a girl, really. (She identifies as a girl, clearly, but being a girl doesn't define her as it seems to for some girls if you KWIM.)
Who knows how it will go for Yehva. If she remains extraordinarily beautiful (as she may, since her face is already so mature looking for her age), then it may be an issue you have to contend with. But if time smooths out the extreme nature of her looks, then probably not much will come of it. The pro-beautiful bias in our species is so largely unconscious that I'm not sure how much we can do about other people's reactions. It's probably more up to the beautiful person (and her parents, in the case of a child) to recognize the bias and learn to respond in a way that is healthy for both themselves and others.
Su, as always I appreciate the mindfulness you bring to parenting, and the gift you give to those of us who read your reflections.
One of the roles of little children is that they bring the grownups joy - through their outward and inward beauty and in many other ways. Sounds like Yehva is doing her job :-)
There are so many pitfalls in life... and so many opportunities... it's all about balance, right?
What a delightful photo!
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