Why am I struggling to cut dd's hair short?

BlameItOnTheBogey that hairdresser sounds very annoying.

Hope mornings are a bit less stressful now she has shorter hair.

Good post Emmeline. I am finding it a bit odd that in the feminist section there are suggestions for beauty practices for a 2 yr old rather than the practical and sensible option of cutting it short as she had stated vociferously she wanted on a number of occasions.

Well done Bogey. And well done your DD for standing her ground. The hairdresser was a bit . Now it's already short maybe next time the hairdresser won't be as reluctant to cut it to the length your DD wants.

Hi Bogey - good for you and your daughter.

reddwarf - Exclusion is horrible. And I think there is nothing wrong with looking like a girl. What frustrates me is that, at three years old the acceptable marker for looking like a girl isn't being a girl, but growing hair to such a length that it will make her cry every morning. I think that a society that goes along with that idea is not one that likes girls by much.

My ds had let his hair get longer, probably almost shoulder length, and the hairdresser reacted similarly, didn't say he would look like a boy obviously, but was ver wary of cutting it off. Not necessarily to do with entrenched gender roles etc etc, but more to do with drastic cut.

I mean I was at the hairdressers with ds yesterday, he wanted his short hair shorter (becasue the hairdresser successfully put his off getting it too short the 1st time) and even then, at the thought of cutting 2cm off, she was very cautious and tried to warn him.

YOur dd is clearly very confident and brave to not waver, but i think this is just normal hardresser caution, as they must have experienced a million times people who ask for big change who are then shocked or disappointed.

i also don't think there's anyting wrong with girls and boys looking different. There's nothing wrong with a girl looking like a girl or wanting to. I was mistaken many times for a boy and it got me down. I felt embarrassed by it.

I remember getting 10 inches cut off dd1's hair when she was about 5. You would have thought I was actually asking the hairdresser to commit infanticide, not give a kid the haircut she wanted.

That said, dd1 did refer to her new short crop as 'princess hair', so lord knows who was the winner really.

Let her go shorter next time, bogey.

Well done bogey and bogey's dd. sorry it wasn't more straightforward...

Bogey, I remember my own first drastic haircut, at 14; the hairdresser reacted in exactly the same way. Part of it is they don't want a scene, and to lose custom if the customer really doesn't like it, but part of it IS down to society's expectations about, and obsession with, women's and girls' hair.

Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith have both expressed how I feel about it quite eloquently. Good on them, and on Willow.

This article and Facebook posting by Jada Pinkett Smith about her daughter's hair is somewhat relevant I think.

Damn, must remember to think ahead with links.
farm9.staticflickr.com/8067/8201822734_d7813a233e.jpg

dykestowatchoutfor.com/blog

Just by coincidence, the cartoonist Alison Bechdel was just visiting London, and look what she found at the first place she stayed:
farm9.staticflickr.com/8067/8201822734_d7813a233e.jpg

Here's the whole story:
dykestowatchoutfor.com/blog

On the hair washing front - I didn't use shampoo on my hair for years; it didn't 'stink' it just smelt of nothing much rather than the smell of shampoo. Left to it's own devices hair really does sort itself out.
DD has only once had shampoo on her hair when my mum used it on her and then waited until it was dry to brush it. Bouffant frizsbal doens't even get near. It took weeks, and a some applications of olive oil, to get beack to anything resembling normal.

Mini I don't think we need to know. But plenty of children do seem to care, I assume because they've been socialized to. Doesn't stop it feeling alienating to a 3 year old if they are targetted by those children for not comforming.

SGM, those people then come through my airport and have the irritating habit of having stuff on them of concern to my department. I'm feeling a bit sensitive to this kind of thing this week, after an incident involving lice. Bleurgh.

Not shampooing and not washing your hair are also two different things - the examples I was thinking of are mainly women with "set" hairstyles, mainly ones who smoke, and men who habitually wear hats and don't wash their hair. Also bleurgh.

Anyway, I am going to stop derailing Bogey's thread now.

I think children are quite good at knowing their own minds their minds have not been shaped by the thinking of others. Children are not born ready socialised to conform to gender stereotypes, that is something we foist upon them.

With girls esp I think parents need to listen, women spend a great deal of their lives trying to get people to focus on what they are saying and not what they look like!

Anyway do we really need to look at a child and quickly decide what sex it is? do other children really care that much? if they do, is that not because their parents and society have already been socialising them to think in this way?

I had a short back and sides, just like my brother, until I hit 9 and wanted to grow it. Occasionally I got mistaken for a boy, which would make my week. I don't remember giving any thought at all to my hair except for whinging when my mother washed it once a week.

That was in the 80s and I knew quite a few other little girls with short hair too. It is terribly dispiriting to hear that little girls' hairstyles are now so closely regimented by society.

My two 3 year old girls have very short hair. One of them a pixie cut, the other a short bob. The have the shortest hair of all the girls in their nursery class. They do get mistaken for boys most of the time. When it's other kids who won't accept their assertions that they are girls (this happened a fair bit at the playground until they started choosing pink wellies etc., but not in more controlled settings like nursery) they do dislike it.

But they don't cry everyday because of it. So I'm sticking with short (though the pixie cut is going - it really doesn't look very pixieish, just a mess).

I find it amazing in this world where the merest hint of physical chastisement is so strongly rejected by so many parents, that the idea of a three year old being made to wince or cry from pain every morning (which even with well "managed" longish hair appears to be the case for a lot of girls) is seen as just fine. It really isn't. It's vile to think it's OK for her to hurt so she conforms to an image of femininity.

I know the dirty hair smell -bit like a sheep

however curly hair is much less oily and it takes a long time for that oil to travel along the hair shaft so it doesn't look greasy

it also doesn't smell

I have 2 dcs, one with curly hair and 1 with a slight wave

if the wavy hair one doesn't wash her hair every other day we know about it

curly once a week, no smell

TheSmallClanger

No Im not lying and No I don't stink.

Sauagesandwich is right, lots of people with curly hair don't wash their hair that often, as it strips healthy natural oils and makes it dry and can give you an itchy scalp.

Im actually laughing here that you took that line and were so rude to me about my hair washing habits TBH.

Im thinking it makes you look like a bit of a hypocrite on this thread.

There is a particular nasty smell which correlates to "unwashed hair". If you only wash your hair once every two weeks, how do you avoid it? I'm genuinely interested, although this is veering off-topic.

I think this is demonstrating the rigmaroles and "routines" that we get into with hair, and how almost-obsessed we are with it. I bet men with curly hair don't go through this amount of soul-searching (and I've smelt some of them , they don't.)

It's a tricky one. Part of me thinks why the hell shouldn't a girl have really short hair - there is no reason why not. From a women's rights view - of course we shouldn't feel pressure to have long hair to fulfil some feminine ideal. But the reality is often not so simple.

However, when I was young (6 or 7), my mum (who is of the practical 'it's not a fashion parade' school of thought and is actually a keen feminist) cut my hair VERY short. She encouraged me to keep it short for quite a few years, as it was easier to manage (she also refused to let me near pink/pretty dresses etc as blue jeans and a red jumper were much more suitable for active children). I repeatedly got mistaken for a boy and teased about it at school. I do believe it is part of the reason I don't feel attractive or feminine as an adult - the knowledge that actually it is only my hair that stops me looking masculine. Sounds silly, but there you go!

Saying all that, many women and young girls look lovely with short hair (I dream of the sort of pixie features that can pull it off!).And the main thing is what your DD wants. I never wanted short hair, but it seems like your DD does, so go for it. It will always grow back.

DD3 is 2.3 and has very short hair, grade 8, after her 4 year old sister decided to play hairdresser. I have had very positive comments from all but 3 people and what they said made me so I didn't pay any attention (supposedly girls should have bunches and she is going to be a lesbian!). She does get mistaken for a boy quite a bit but she doesn't notice.

I am going to keep it like this until she asks to grow it long. It is easy and quick plus she really suits it. I have a picture on my profile if you want to have a nosy :)