Monday 25 January 2010

Where's your afro?

On Saturday I felt like the worst mum in the world.

My son's hair has been an issue for a while. With his combined parentage there was little chance of him ever being born with manageable hair. Generally, the front tends to go into tight curls which increase in frizziness for each day they go unwashed while the back tends to lack curl and verge towards 'matted dread' type sprouting. At times he can pull it off and it looks kinda cool. But most of the time it just looks like he needs a hair cut. However, this is the look we've been used to for a while.

On Saturday we went for a 'trim', except I got carried away and for some reason the words 'just a little bit shorter' kept coming out my mouth. The end result was 'a lot shorter'. In fact, all of his 'curls' had gone. It looked nice though-and it showed off his stunning blue eyes. My son appeared ok with it, if a little quiet...

We got home and the first words my ever so sensitive boyfriend said to him were: 'What have you done THAT FOR??'

Well that was it.

My son burst into tears. He didn't want anyone to see him. He was never going to leave the house. Why did I make him do it? It was all my fault. He wrapped himself in his dressing gown, covering his head, and declared himself a hermit for the rest of his life (or at least until it grew back)-He later calmed down and said he wasn't angry with me, he just hated not having his curls anymore, and felt like he wanted to cry every time he looked in his mirror-if there was ever a time I felt like a bad mother it was right then! His hair may have been a mess before, but to my son his big out-of-control-not-quite-afro was part of who he was. It was his identity. He was also a good few inches shorter without it which I'm sure didn't help! The next morning, after realizing he would have to face civilization at some point, he eventually agreed to go to football. When he got back I tentatively asked how it went...

"Well, at first everyone shouted where's your afro, then they said it looked better...then some people said it looked stupid before'

13 yr old boys can be mean but also very honest.

My son seems to quite like his hair now and was thankfully ok to go to school this morning, which means I no longer have to feel like the worst mum in the world. Phew!

1 comment:

  1. Bet he looks gorgeous bless him! If he has any idea who ziggy stardust/david bowie is, tell him I had the most horrific haircut once (my friend did it - some friend!) and ever since my sister has changed the ringtone on her phone to "Dance Magic Dance" from the labyrith and sings "Ground control to major tom" at me every time she answer her phone! To make matters worse my daughter had taken to calling me David in public now too!

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