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Hair Brained Ideas
Every so often, I meander through the plethora of kooky parenting message boards that seem to dominate the interwebz. My reasons for poking around in places I don’t really belong are usually nefarious, and mainly involve seeking out examples of badly named infants for the purposes of mockery, or seeking documented examples of willful ignorance/completely batshit insane parenting practices. These parenting boards, in all of their various incarnations, always have at least one frequent flier that seems to have escaped the set of Toddlers & Tiaras. These are usually women that desperately wanted a daughter, but gave birth to babies with penises over and over again. Finally, after 3 or 4 boys, they managed to coerce their husband into trying one last time, and squeeze out that darling pink bundle they’ve been praying for. After years of dressing little people in shirts festooned with trains and footballs, they finally get to indulge in hardcore ruffles and puffed sleeves. Wearing only colors of a hue that unicorns might shit, these living dollies are swathed from tip to toe in bubble gum pink and sport hair bows that are roughly the same size as Lithuania. All day. Every day.
In the typical style of illiterate internet denizens everywhere, the neurotic pink mommies always fill the boards with endless posts like this:
“maddicyn-belle is such a PrinCes$ Lol! she real likes two dress like a ballyrinA an luvs it wen i brush her hare! LOL for real! she gets sad wen i dont put hr hare inna fancy bow. wat can I do rofmlamo!! she is my tiny queen!!!111!!!”
Back that train up, Patsy Ramsey.
Your daughter ASKS you to brush her hair? She LIKES having her hair styled?
I call bullshit, you liar.
You see, I have two daughters.
Both of whom have hair.
Long hair. Straight hair. Fine hair.
Hair that needs to be pulled back or put up lest it become snarled into an unholy, evil, sadistic ball of knots.
Every morning – before we can get on with our mundane daily lives – it is my job as The One Who Is Mean and Hates Kids, to brush and style their hair.
Before I even take the brush to their heads, they scream like pteradactyls going through a wood chipper. Have you heard the sound effects in the background of dinosaur movies? Those are my kids.
Once I begin to comb out the night’s collection of snot crusts in bangs and knots at the base of the neck, they begin to flail and hurl themselves towards the floors, in a psychotic attempt to escape the hell torture of grooming. This usually leads to the brush in my hand staying up in the air, but being ensnared in their locks, and nearly ripping it out of their skulls. They begin to cry and whimper, beg and plead. “I HATE HAVING MY HAIR BRUSHED! I NEVER WANT IT BRUSHED AGAIN! WHY DO I HAVE TO HAVE MY HAIR BRUSHED? NOBODY ELSE HAS TO HAVE THEIR HAIR BRUSHED!”
Then, as I do every morning, I advise them that the solution to their problem is to have it all shaved off…like a boy.
“NOO! I DON’T WANT TO SHAVE MY HAIR! *SOB* I WANT LONG HAIR! I JUST DON’T WANNA BRUSH IT EVER AGAIN!!!”
To which I reply, “Then make sure you LEAVE THESE FRENCH BRAIDS IN SO IT DOESN’T GET KNOTS IN IT, OKAY?”
Then I proceed with the 30 minute ordeal of braiding it out of their face. When we’re done, I move on to the other kid.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
When cross examining my friends, it seems their daughters demonstrate similar reactions to hair brushing and grooming. None of us produced a little girl who actively seeks out a date with a round brush and blow drier.
Strange Pink Mommies, it’s time to come clean. Either your child has recently undergone a DIY frontal lobotomy and can’t fight you, or they do fight you, and your nutty ass gets off lying to invisible internet strangers.
Bite me.
Add me to the pile who feared getting my hair combed and dried, especially when my DAD had to do it (shudder). If and when I have girls who have hair like mine (long, baby-fine but LOTS of it), I will have no qualms about using leave-in conditioner to help with the onerous task of combing it out.
I firmly believe these women are lying liars who lie. Have you watched Toddlers and Tiaras? Most of the time, the girls are screeching and pitching a bitch about not waaaaaaannnnting to get their makeup done. Not waaaaaaannnnnting to have their 10 lb wad of a hair piece attached to their heads. I especially love the mothers who talk about how much little Madyssssyn-kayleeeeeeigh loooooves pageants, and as soon as she says she doesn’t want to do it, they will no longer make them. Then they show the kid “I don’t waaaannna be in the pageant!” These women are a strange breed. Tia, I feel you with the hair brushing thing. My 13-year old will brush her hair, but be damned, she will NOT pull it back into a pony tail, wear barettes or anything else. No. It just hangs there. So be it.
My sister and I learnt how to wash and style our own hair as soon as we could so we could put an end to the torture that was having our mother do it. Please note that my sister’s the girliest girl who’s ever girled, so it wasn’t just me and my tomboy-ish ways.
These women lie. Or their daughters are actually robots and not real children.
So much of this article made me laugh! Great writing Tia, and the picture truly captures the creepiness of the whole spectacle…hah, hard core ruffles…unicorns…..just these 2 descriptions alone will most likely keep me smirking for most of the day…..
@ Elizabeth —> Oh my dear doG. You just brought back memories of 1988, which was The Year My Father Did My Hair. My mother went away to nursing school, and he got stuck alone with us. My hair was down to my arse, and needed constant upkeep. My mother had endured my screaming and hysterics on a daily basis when she brushed it. The torch was now his. Poor guy.
1989? The Year I Got A Chin Length Bob. I’m not sure if there was leave-in conditioner in the later half of the 80’s, but I do know that one afternoon, I got the brilliant idea of using Vaseline as cream rinse, and it was as spectacular as you may imagine.
@Angie –> Maybe it’s secretly a good thing that she’s into low maintenance hair. Otherwise she’d be parked in front of your mirror all day. I think the irony here is that you had The Biggest Mall Bangs Ever, didn’t you?
@ Luna –>There is nothing quite like the early morning sensation of having your hair ripped out at the roots, eh?
@ Suz –> Thanks, Suz. My day is brighter knowing someone got a laugh. Smirk on, good woman. Smirk on.
Somehow I came across this by searching for “pre-schoolers and ballet” having read that post of yours from last June, led me to this one. Thanks for the laugh (desperately needed on the week I simply titled “FTW!?! Where’s my coffee cup?”).
Its good to know in a world where people consistently lie about the pure, angelic genius of their prodigy….you have the courage to tell the truth