Today, I have a humour column in the Neighbours’ section of The Calgary Herald. I somehow manage to time travel and make reference to both Miss Piggy and Edward Scissorhands, not in the same metaphor (I hope). Click the link below to read it.
**Kids and the Chaos of Haircuts**
What haircut horror stories have you lived through?
Is your stylist on speed dial?
Do you cut your kids’ hair?
I would have thought you stole one of my slanty-banged pictures from my youth.
Except you are much cuter and have smaller teeth. In a good way.
Ha. Somehow I doubt the cuter part!
MY biggest tip for cutting a kid’s hair is to make the first cut a bad one. Then all the pressure is off.
You. Are. Brilliant. And funny.
We have three boys and decided that I would start cutting their hair to save time and money (half their haircuts never turned out right, anyway). Researched and bought a clipper set with two guards of different lengths, adjustable settings, etc. Researched videos on how to cut boys’ hair.
Well, I was a nervous wreck the first few times – didn’t want to cut off an ear or traumatize them for life. But it was going okay until I got a little too confident. I was in a hurry one time recently and distractedly grabbed the shorter guard…ziipp, right across the top of the head. “Mom, isn’t that REALLY short?” the 10-yr-old asks. *Cue horrified look in the mirror*
Oops.
Had to finish the job, of course; didn’t want to give him a reverse mowhawk. He looked like a raw recruit from VMI. Ah, well, it’s growing out. The upside is that I STILL haven’t needed to cut his hair since.
The You-tube version of a modern mom. Impressive!
And I’m laughing at the story (“cue horrified look”). Funny. At least in hindsight!
I have recounted the tale of my hair before. I finally had to change hairstyles after going with the same flop for, um, about 23 years.
I get that. I just change colour. After the latest round of colour, a good friend of mine told me, “It looks like your stylist couldn’t make up her mind.” I think I hit him.
Happy post-flop-due.
Nice. Mark’s dad took the clippers to Theo’s hair; in other words, a man with dead straight Asian hair though he could cut a toddler with an Afro! Mark spent three days fixing it.
Ha. Did you know your father-in-law was planning this?
Sorry about that haircut, Leanne, but I didn’t do it myself…if I had, it would have been much worse!!!!
Love Mom
Ha. I’m busted for a faulty memory. Can’t I blame you for anything? 😉
Nope. <3 (That’s a heart!)
I have never cut my kids hair. I think it would be a disaster. But, I do love a summer buzz cut on my boys. Now that my older boy is 13 he has a different opinion. Unfortunately for me, the 7 year-old has developed his own opinion about buzz cuts as well. I found out about this much too late this summer. Let’s just say that he ended up with short hair and the family ended up with a new dog. I blogged about it here:
http://www.lifewellblended.com/2011/06/a-hairy-situation/
Poor Diego. But that kid’s a cutie, in any haircut. Thanks for sharing that fab story.
Fun stuff and great ending! I like the incorporations of DH.
Oh, and my worst hair story came when I chopped and permed this super-straight hair of mine. The result? An untameable frizz ball. Which didn’t help my already dorky appearance, complete with big-frame plastic glasses and high-water pants. Miserable. No more perms for me.
Oh. Perms. I can’t even go there. We can share this misery together.
My Dad used to use a bowl and scissors until he sent away for the Sears-o-Matic electric razor. Then we all looked like army recruits…
Ha. I can imagine. Was the razor ordered from the catalog?
That’s so cute, you should see some of mine, gosh!
I think my head was crooked and my bangs were straight.
My dad, being in the Army Air Corps back in the late 40’s, insisted that my mom start cutting his hair. She did shakily at first, then steadied out. When my turn came (finally) my hair had grown to shoulder length because she didn’t want to cut it the first time. Anyway, she dove in and did the deed. Mine turned out like a haystack with random clumps of straw poking out at odd angles. My dad got the giggles, then the chuckles, then the guffaws, then fell on the floor. Mom wasn’t happy. She did continue cutting hair all the way up until I went into the Navy (where they took over in Boot Camp and shaved it all off anyway).
I like how your dad “insisted.” My husband tried to convince me to cut his hair. His three sisters all cut their husband’s hair. I said no. I won.
And regarding boot camp? I guess hair (or lack of it) is the least of your concerns. Thanks for the comment, Bill.
I once had a haircut so bad and so uneven that I went back to have someone else from the salon finish it. I think I had originally spent six bucks on the haircut. I don’t do that anymore.
Ouch. Well, not ouch on the pocketbook, but ouch on the outcome. Scissors can be weapons.
You should have saved that picture for Halloween! Just kidding!
Great work.
I zombie-fied that picture, actually. (And in case you’re wondering, that’s not the zombie version 😉
But wasn’t that haircut specifically designed to distract attention away from your shirt?
Ha. I think I had that shirt on when I got my hair cut. It was the diagonal lines’ fault!
Rat-tail. 3rd grade. Nough Said.
Ha. And you probably begged your mom not to cut it.
Slanted bangs then eh.Although longer in the front now, sometimes the more we wish to change, the more we stay the same. We all have to learn and evolved in life as we grow up, and hairstyles change with the wind, especially for a women. As a guy, I never much was concerned with my hairstyle for fashion sake. I get the comedy in your comment though, but really, even the best movie star hair, back in those days doesn’t make the grade today.In that comment,I may have just writen your next spin off article….MH#1
Ha. I suppose I do still have slanted bangs! And you’re right: I suspect Julia Roberts had horrible hair in the 80s too. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
I accidentally got The Dorothy Hamill in middle school.
It looked great blown straight in the salon.
Then I went home.
Oh. My. Holy. No.
I have really curly hair.
And so it curled up.
And then I had a Jew-Fro. 😉
Not good.
You would think I would have remembered that when I gave myself a brush cut in 11th grade. Wore a fishing hat to Jr. Prom.
For real.
Hilarious. I’m sure you still looked gorgeous. But short curly hair is hard to pull off. I know: my sister and brother both have curly hair. Not sure what happened to me…
When I was 8, I was so PO’d that the salon said I was too young for a perm that I demanded they just “cut it all off!” The resulting ‘bowl’ haircut was something I had to live with for quite a while (including school picture day).
I love how you were (already?) opinionated by age 8. No wonder why I like you.
When I was a kid, one of our neighbours, who had a salon in her basement, used to cut my hair. That was the era of the Pixie Cut, the Short Shag, and the Long Shag.
I dyed my own hair once, from its natural brown to my youthful blonde. But made the mistake of not reading the instrux properly. My hair came out yellow. I was twenty-ish. Ever since then, I’ve had a strict “professionals only” policy.
Ha. Yes, I too have a professionals only policy. And I’m deathly afraid of basement salons: ever since my ears were pierced crookedly in one.
My own childhood hair traumas are still too blisteringly shameful to enunciate Because of them, I will never cut my son’s hair. Ever. I do not want the responsibility. No, Andrew’s social failings will be his own making, not mine. He won’t ever be able to claim a bald spot, a bowl cut, a suspicious gap in his bangs, or a crooked-looking head are my fault. If his future high school dates ridicule his old school pictures, it will not be because his hair was 2 inches shorter on one side, or his scalp gleamed through his attempt at a child comb-over. But, really, none of this happened to me. I didn’t have any high school dates. I wonder why?
Thanks for an awesomely funny column,
Rebecca
I love how you phrase that: his “social failing will be his own making.” That’s all we can ever hope, isn’t it? 😉
Aren’t uneven bangs a rite of passage? My mom accidentally burned my forehead with a curling iron once, too.
Maureen, Alison and I sported what were then called ‘shag’ cuts. Picture David Cassidy in the Partridge Family. Sigh. Like I needed help being socially awkward.