To wonder what to make of this?

[Thistledew]

Or rather, was DH BU in not knowing what to think or do?

He was in the barbershop earlier getting a haircut. There was a woman in there with two DCs, aged about 4 and 5, all of African ethnicity (may be relevant in terms of the haircuts they were getting).

Both DCs, when they were sitting in the barbers chair having their hair cut with clippers, were crying in apparent distress, and having to be restrained by the mother and the barber. They both displayed the same behaviour, but the second watched his brother impassionately, before displaying the same hysterics once in the chair. Both boys immediately stopped crying as soon as the hair cut was finished.

What would you make of it? DH felt that the boys were genuinely distressed, and was concerned that they were persisting with the haircuts, but, given that it was an odd thing to cause distress, didn't quite know whether he should have said something.

What would you have done?

BRB - I can see now why you have got so wound up by my post if that is the response you thought I was after.

If you take my post at face value and don't impose your own interpretation, then surely it becomes more obvious that I and DH were both genuinely surprised to see children reacting in that way to something that appeared to be quite innocuous, that we were genuinely wondering why that might be, and how other people would have reacted at seeing what appeared (to DH) to be a genuinely distressed child.

The other motives you have read in to my post are entirely of your own making.

BitOutOfPractice - Pot, this is Kettle. Colour check. Over.

Eh?

Anyway you didn't "see" anything. Your dh did.

And your op was not asking why the child was crying. You were asking if your Dh should've intervened.

Your question wasn't "why were they crying?". It was "what would you have done?". All asked with the sort of supercilious 'concern'

H took ds1 today and half way through the cut, was told it was just too dangerous to continue due to how distressed ds1 was. We try everything (bribery etc) nothing works, but he needs his hair cut - so what do we do? Let it grow or deal with the hysterics? We are exhausted of options :-(

OP I too would have been shocked. I've lived to half a century, visiting hairdressers every six weeks, and never witnessed a meltdown by a child. I haven't a clue why you've had this pasting.

(Returns to my own bubble)