Hey Mom, Can I Have A Mohawk?

A 5-year-old's Mohawk with flower clips

You know you have a good Mohawk when styled down, it looks like this.
I'm well aware that most mothers would have a stroke and promptly shut down that line of thinking if their five-year-old daughter came to them with such a request. And it was my knee-jerk reaction to do just that, but my husband was in the car at the time and I'm pretty sure he said something like, "fuck yeah!" but probably not that exactly because he doesn't really say "fuck" all that much. He's got a cleaner mouth than me. Oddly enough.
But with his response, I quickly got on board with the idea. My husband loathes "faux-hawks" and insisted that if she was going to do it, she was going to go all out. So, the very next day I called up our salon and explained to them that my five-year-old daughter wanted a Mohawk and could they please hook me up with the best person for the job.
And I got just that.
Look at this hair.
Day 1 Mohawk, salon products only - did not do what M had in mind but still looked super cute

First day I got to put up her hawk... she found Pops' safety goggles for a total hipster look.
We have limits - the hawk only goes up on bath days (3 times a week - TOPS) because all that product is terrible for her hair and has to be washed out at the end of the day. So far I love it more each day... and that says a lot because I'm pretty sure I was head-over-heels as we walked out of the salon.

I worried a lot about the way M would be treated with her hawk honestly. The first real test came at her ballet class. She wore it up and it looked awesome (see first picture) but it's not exactly stereo-typical ballerina hair. And the girls she goes to class with are, well, 5-to-7-year-old-girls. Fortunately, I saw no nastiness. A bit of curiosity, a remark or two - but when one of the teachers came through the class she commented how she had seen M's do on the salon instagram account and thought it was the coolest thing she'd ever seen. And today at the library a woman lost her shit over M's hair (she was wearing it down w/ a headband), calling M a little fashionista.

This whole haircut experience has just taken me another step further on my journey to get over feeling "judged" as a parent. Being a young mom took its toll on me and I worried during M's early years constantly about how I was being perceived by others. It didn't help that we were dirt poor and I feared constantly that someone would think (perhaps realize) that we really didn't make enough money to support a child and turn us into the authorities. This fear nagged at me constantly eating away at my happiness. And it wasn't until Micah joined the Air Force and we stopped having to go over to our parents' homes for dinner because we didn't have money for proper groceries that I realized just how heavy a burden that shit was. Shedding that weight was so freeing, but it's not like you can just drop that sort of worry and paranoia like that.

I was physically nervous going into that dance studio last week. There's only one mom there that I have ever said more than three words to - and while everyone else seems all right, they also seem different than me. I can't say, because I don't know them, but I'm assuming none of them are twenty-five and I assume none of them make below poverty wages. I'm pretty sure none of them homeschool their children and none of them live blatantly alternative lifestyles. I felt like there would probably be mass disapproval of my daughter's hairstyle and probably some mutterings behind my back.
And you know what?
We ran into one of the families right after class at the sub shop next door and the dad absolutely RAVED about M's hawk. He loved it. Or if he didn't, he made a big show of loving it for M's sake.

I don't know why I still worry about people judging my parenting decisions. Perhaps it's because my best defense for most of the "why's" people might ask is "why not?" I'm not an eloquent debater when thrown in the spotlight. I mutter and mumble and generally hate defending my choices. But you know what? "Why not?" Is a valid argument most of the time.
And so is "Fuck off."
I've brought two children into this world. I make mistakes, I screw up. I lose my temper and let them get away with shit that they probably shouldn't. I make up my own rules and set my own boundaries. They're not perfect. They weren't gleaned out of Dr. Spock's Guide To Perfect Child-rearing (or Dr. Sears' for that matter)...
I love my kids in ways that I never had fathomed possible before they came along... and everyone says that's what's important.
Nobody is sitting down with a notebook keeping track of what I'm doing except me. Nobody is giving me any more thought than I'm giving them. And because of this, I'm free to live my life and let my daughter cut her hair any way she sees fit.


1 comments :

  1. she's too cute with her hair "à lo garçon". i don't know how would i act if i were you, but really it doesnt matter what the others say, i mean, it doesnt dammage her health...
    nice to read you again!

    ReplyDelete

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