Would You Let Your 6 Year Old Daughter Shave Her Head?
I try not to be Sanctimommy. I try not to preach, shake my head or “tsk tsk” when someone else’s way of momming doesn’t marry up with my way of momming. As a matter of habit, I don’t let the words, “I’d never do that” fly outta my pie hole. Because karma.
When it comes to choice in hairstyles I’ve been known to say, “it’s just hair… it grows back” on more than one occasion. I’ve had every hair color naturally occurring in nature. I had green hair for a couple of days back in 1994 but that was an accident. I’ve been straight and curly, short and long, everything in between.
As a mom to a grown daughter, I was hands-off when it came to hair:
“It’s your hair. Do what you want. If you don’t like it, it’ll grow back or grow out.”
Maybe this deterred her from doing anything extreme. She has thick, long, shiny blonde hair. We survived the teen years with nothing more extreme than red highlights and one really bad perm. She never expressed interest in dying it electric blue or shoe polish black. She didn’t ask for a Mohawk or dreadlocks. If she had, I like to think I would have said yes.
All that said, I read something on the internets this week that kinda bugged me and made me think:
Mom’s dilemma: Should I let my six-year-old daughter shave her head?
A mom who literally wrote the book on gender neutral parenting, was faced with her own Sophie’s Choice. Does she follow through on beliefs? Or does she prevent her six-year-old daughter from shaving her head?
I’m pretty live and let live. For the most part, I don’t care what other people do. I have enough to worry about minding my own beez than to be overly concerned about what other people are doing… and don’t start me on those Kardashians.
But I’m going to speak up on this one and respectfully say I think this mom got it wrong. I’m going to go with the rarely used, “I’d never let my kid do that.” Not my six-year-old kid, anyway.
The internets were fairly supportive of this mom’s decision to allow her young daughter to shave her head. In addition to the “it’s only hair” mantra, there were also these types of supportive comments in response:
“Hair isn’t a defining characteristic. Good for her for expressing herself.”
“Her body, her choice.”
There are plenty of ways a six-year-old can express herself: Music. Art. Sports. Wearing rainbow legwarmers with a plaid sweater in July. And while it is just hair and it does grow back, that doesn’t happen overnight. I say a child of six isn’t old enough to make that call or handle the backlash. I say a child of six isn’t old enough to make the call on a lot of things.
You want to wear your Princess dress to school? Okay. You want to have ice cream for breakfast instead of cereal? Maybe. But for me, “because she wanted to” isn’t a good enough reason to agree to allow my six-year-old to shave her head.
I say there are societal norms to observe, although I know not everyone would agree. I’m pretty conservative by nature and I think there’s a balance between conforming and standing out. Regardless of what you believe about conforming, a six-year-old isn’t emotionally or socially mature enough to know if they want to push the envelope… or to even know what the envelope is.
If my daughter wanted to shave her head at age 10? Maybe. At age 13? Probably. I wouldn’t jump for joy to have her rocking the Sinead look, but there comes a time when parents have to let go and let kids decide stuff for themselves. What age is a good age to understand consequences for your visible, enduring actions? I don’t think its six. Is that just me?
When we see a little girl with a shaved head, we think cancer. Or lice. This little girl’s parents have made her a target for curiosity and ridicule both on and off the internets. Her head wasn’t shaved for a fundraiser or to show solidarity for a friend who’d lost her hair from illness or chemo. As far as I’ve been able to tell, the locks of hair were thrown away and donating them to a child who lost her hair but didn’t want to, wasn’t on the table.
They shaved this child’s head because she wanted it to happen, maybe in the same way a kid wants to stay up late or have an extra desert. I’ve read a lot of articles this week about gender neutral parenting and allowing kids to be in control of their own bodies. Obviously, I disagree with this mom’s views on parenting, and that’s okay. This isn’t my kid. But reading all of this “news” has caused me to examine my own parenting. So far, I’ve managed to evade labels like “helicopter” and “free range” believing I am neither. (Besides… free range reminds me of chicken and I’m not a chicken.) But, in spite of the progressive era we live in, I am not a fully progressive parent. I’m okay with that.
I’m okay with androgyny to a point and some things are better gender neutral – like sunglasses. But my kids are not gender neutral. I have one girl and two boys. Each identifies with the gender they were born with. If ever they don’t, I guess I’ll figure out how to deal with that.
But the whole gender neutral card isn’t why I head shake at the head shaving. As the parent, I do think I’m in control. Not forever, but while my kids are small, there are certain decisions that are mine. Making the rules doesn’t necessarily equal stifling their self-expression. There comes an age when a person should be in full control over what happens to their bodies. I don’t think six is that age.
But as they say, it’s just hair. It grows back.
Jill Robbins writes about adoption, motherhood and midlife on her blog, Ripped Jeans & Bifocals. She has a degree in social psychology that she uses to try and make sense out of the behavior of her husband and three children but it hasn’t really helped so far. She enjoys dry humor and has a love/hate relationship with running. Her work has been featured on Babble, Scary Mommy, In the Powder Room, and Blunt Moms. You can also find her in the December print issue of Mamalode. She willingly answers any questions that end with “and would you like wine with that?” You can follow Jill on Facebook and Twitter.
