It’s summer buzz time at our house. The last week of school marks the time that hair standards are drastically relaxed, we’ve got teen and tween girls are picking the colors for their streaks while the little boys choose extreme styles or grow out their curls. Repeating last year, the (now) 7 yr old opted for a mohawk.
It’s amazing the difference a haircut can make in the way you perceive someone. His normally soft and childish features become harder to me. He instantly looks grown up and, I hate to admit it, a little mean. I even noticed his own facial expressions changing as he watched it form in the mirror sitting in the barber’s chair this year (a side note, I finally let go of my Mormon mom pride and paid the ten bucks to have someone else do it instead of hair all over the patio in my amateur attempts with the clippers). He went from playful to serious, in what looked like his best efforts to look “tough.”
I wasn’t the only one who saw him differently. I was fascinated by the reactions he got and I got. Some people saw it for what it was, a kid trying to show his autonomy and coolness through his hair. Others, asked questions leading to my lack of responsibility as a parent, “so you’re going to let him keep that all summer?”
Most notably was an experience we had at church. He had a new teacher that day, someone neither of us had met. I walked him in and introduced ourselves and, as is typical of any new person caring for my child, explained that he had a severe peanut allergy. Before I could finish the words, the teacher looked at me with disgust and said in his most holier-than-thou tone “we don’t snack in Primary.” I felt like pulling out my church resume to prove that I wasn’t illiterate or “less active”, all the years I spent leading organizations and my own Mary Poppins reputation as a primary teacher.
My son sat down next to the 3 other boys on what was clearly the “boys” side of the room, separated from the girls by 4 empty chairs. The teacher immediately said, “I don’t trust all you boys together, Steve get your chair and move over there by the girls.”
Maybe it wasn’t the mohawk, but there wasn’t much else to go on. I don’t really blame the teacher. I can think of plenty of assumptions I’ve made based on someone’s grooming, and I can think of plenty of other times I’ve seen hair be the issue for an LDS boy – where passing the sacrament or representing the ward at a stake level was subject to removing color and/or cutting hair. Isolated incidents for sure, but in my experience, typical of the culture as a whole.
I also can’t forget that part of the reason he wants the haircut is because he wants to make a statement.
And then there’s the whole issue with summer. I make my children return to “normal” looking haircuts and colors at the end of the summer lest their teachers make these assumptions at school. And later in life, a mohawk isn’t likely to impress on most job interviews or in the corporate world.
But part of me wonders if church can or even should be different? Can a general authority sport a goatee or dreads and still be respected?
So, with the K&S summertime casual dressing and now this … your family is SO going to hell!
Much better to act out with harmless hair styles than in some other way. And, it’s fun! Just like they can only run around naked when they’re 1-2 years old and get away with it, now’s the time they can wear their hair this way and get away with it. Keep rockin’ the parent hood.
He looks adorable! As the wife of a long-haired, visibly tattooed man and the mother of a stubbornly long-haired nine-year-old, I feel you. I agree with Ed that hair and clothes are fun and harmless way to express individuality. It also tends to show people’s true colors — if you are a cool, non-judgmental type, you won’t bat an eye at my long-hairs. If you are judgmental, not so much.
That’s an interesting idea – I wonder if we all have something like that we use to see whose opinions really matter in our lives.
I LOVE THIS MOHAWK BOY !! He is so crazy looken, In a good way that is :))
Oh, wow, Mel, I love this post. I confess here that it would REALLY push me if my son wanted a mohawk. Why? I don’t know . . . probably out of fear of the judgments people would (wrongly) make about him.
But on the flip side, I have had no problem at all allowing him to go to school with pink fingernails, a hot pink sequined belt, taking ballet lessons, or any other number of things. And I’m sure people DO judge him.
So my reactions don’t really make sense.
I would love to be the fun mom that would let my kids let loose for the summer, but I feel like I just don’t have it in me. I wonder if my kids would jump at the chance, or would they, like me, say “no way”?
My kids aren’t quite yet old enough to have much of an opinion, but I hope I’ll be fine with however they want to express themselves. Hair & dress were important tools for me, I aged through that period of life, and came out fairly unscathed. I do still have an unfulfilled dream for hot pink hair, but my professional life doesn’t have that much give. I love it though, and am always envious of people who have enough self-confidence to do and wear what they want.
Hair dressing is the ultimate style icon in recent times. If you style your hair according to your facial expression, it sometimes really makes you the star icon. Hair and cloths are two factors i always mind that are the reflection of any indevidual and here the hair cutting images of the children reflects it with a lot of sense.
Ahhhhhh hair! Good question regarding how the Church views hair. While I think it’s hard to override people’s natural inclination to judge people based on looks, I think the Church ought to be a place where people can just be. And won’t get judged for looking one way or another. However, clearly that’s not the reality in Church. I’m glad you let your kids do that though. I think church members can learn to be less judgmental when given the opportunity to meet people who may not “look” righteous, but are indeed good people.
I had pink hair/dread locks/nose ring and all as a teenager. And people at Church were initially shocked, since my dad had been everything from bishop to stake president to area authority and what not…Such looks for a faithful member certainly caused some dissonance for a lot of people. But, I think a lot of them adapted and realized that you cannot judge a book by its cover. I didn’t go inactive. I didn’t start smoking/drinking or wind up pregnant. I kept being the faithful girl I had been all along – it really was just looks. And I think the fact that a prominent member of the Church (my dad) let me do this, really helped change some attitudes. :) So, I think you’re doing important pioneer work here. :)
What cool parents you have Fran. Loved that story.
Thanks…I should maybe add that my mom would have done anything to keep me from running around the way I did. I know she was constantly embarrassed at how I looked and very concerned with “what people would think/say”. My dad was the gracious one who said that he didn’t care how I looked at long as my heart was in the right place. And so he’d let me run around like that. And, my mom simply wasn’t able to tell me what to do… (we didn’t have a very good relationship – partially because of my always feeling that what others thought about me mattered more to her than who I actually was).
But, with all those facts aside – I do think it’s a cool story. I think we need parents/members who’re able and willing to push things a bit and allow people to realize that not all that shines is gold and vice versa. And apart from that, I think your son looks supercute with that mohawk!
You should really find me on Facebook ! I’m a big Photo editer ! And I would like to edit a photo of this boy if you don’t mind :D
My son has tons of issues with fabric, texture, chairs, sitting still, expectations, the lot. He hates buttons, for example. So church clothing for him has always been a polo shirt, khaki or navy pants and slip on dress shoes. Honestly, it looks like the uniform at a local private school, NOT the typical LDS young man church costume. His hair is very shaggy and his bangs hang into his eyes. His scripture bag is an old lunch bag with metallic silver lining.
And it’s been incredibly liberating for me to let go of my ideas about how my children should *look* at church.
I know it bothers some of his teachers & I am SURE some people in the ward think I am far too lenient, but I’m (mostly) okay with that. :)
When I was 11 I spent a good part of the summer with relatives in another city, where my 16-year-old cousin Susie dyed my hair blond. Something went terribly wrong, though, and I ended up with a bright yellow-orange mop (of which, nevertheless, I couldn’t have been more proud!). At the airport after returning home, Mom was horrified when she finally recognized me. She eventually got over it, and after a few haircuts I was back to my normal brown.
Wish I’d thought of getting a Mohawk instead, but back in those days the only Mohawks to be seen were in illustrated history books and Western movies.
I think your son looks great!
I thought about this post last night as I remembered waiting in a salon to get Stuart’s haircut. There was a boy there who looked to be about 12. He had very long hair. He looked very sad and mad as he awaited his turn. Meanwhile, his mom kept badgering him and saying, “If you had just gotten better grades, we wouldn’t be here” and “I TOLD you” and “I warned you.”
I watched with horror as the boy sat in the chair and the mom told the stylist to cut off all his hair. That was the punishment she had warned him about. I get chills even thinking about it.
It was obvious to me (of course, it’s always obvious when you’re on the outside, right?) that this was a battle that the mom had NOT won at all.
I’m cringing right now, that’s a hard story to hear because I know when my kids are old enough to get really bad grades and have it matter, and I am desperate enough to think there’s a lot I can do about it, I can picture myself there. Ick.
My male cousin had thick naturally wavy blonde hair when we were in the high school, in the 1970s. He was extremely cool with that hair, but his parents, and most of the rest of our family badgered him about it all the time. He was a very very good kid, and the constant disapproval over his hair caused a needless division between him and the older folks in our family. At the time, I made the vow that I would never argue with my children over hair. And, then, when my boys got old enough to have a preference, they both had it all buzzed off. It about broke my heart. I hadn’t even thought of extremely SHORT hair before. It reminded me of the way the poor farm boys up in Cache Valley always looked when we were small. I had to bite my tongue quite a bit.
Paula, but doesn’t one of your sons have really long hair now?
Yes, he does, and I envy it. Even my mom has decided that it’s gorgeous. He was only about 8 when he insisted on the buzz cut for a year or so.
I’ve always had crazy hair and loved sporting it to church. My thinking was, they already treat me like a freak because I’m a minority and my mom is single, I might as well dye my hair green and have some control of their prejudice. That was in high school. The same attitude lead me down the road of getting tattoos and piercings. Even though I was a pretty righteous guy in most respects, I could not let this issue go, even for a mission.
I had never wanted to serve a mission. I didn’t have any examples of missionaries in my family. My dad was a convert and he wasn’t around anymore anyway. My Grandpa was serving our country in World War II when he would have served a mission. I did have one uncle that went on a mission, but he had left the church long ago. But, when the guitar player in our band dropped out to his papers in, I started considering the Prophet’s call that “all worthy young men should serve a mission.” Well, I didn’t look the part, but I was worthy. Anyway, I answered that call but I would not back away from my aesthetic. I actually had a tongue ring my entire mission. A lot of people knew about it, but nobody ever told me to take it out. In one city that I served in, the Young Women pooled their money to buy me a new tongue ring for my birthday. Kinda weird, I know, but besides these small rebellions, I was a pretty good missionary. At least, we did a lot of service and helped a lot of people in meaningful ways.
By the time I got home from my mission, my reasoning for my punk rock style had morphed into a missionary effort all it’s own. I wanted people to see that someone could look like me and still be a faithful member of the church. Sure, I got a few raised eyebrows over the purple streaks through my hair when I was teaching Elder’s Quorum, but there I was, week after week, teaching Elder’s Quorum. Finally, about two years ago, I got a call from the Stake. They wanted to call me to the Elder’s Quorum Presidency. First, I’d need to cut my hair, wear a white shirt, shave my beard, and (above all) remove any piercings I might have before they would extend the calling. I found out later that the Stake President and Stake High Councilman were both against this ordination but that the Elder’s Quorum President had fought hard for me because he thought I could “reach less-active members.” Finally, I decided to tow-the-line because I wanted to serve the community and I wasn’t going to let my pride stand the way of the good work I knew I could do in that calling. So, I shaved my beard, wore a white shirt, and removed my piercings.
I’ll go ahead and say for myself that we did a mighty fine job as a Presidency for about two years until the Quorum got split in two because we had too many Elders. Both of us counselors would now, based on boundaries, be in a different quorum than the President, so we had an automatic release from our positions. We gave our testimonies the last week we were in the Presidency and, afterward, that same Stake High Councilman came up to the Elder’s Quorum President and said, “You were right. He is a man of God.”
That next weekend I debated my hair. Should I grow my beard back? Should I get a cool haircut? I’m free! My wife counseled against it. “If you do it, you’ll never get a calling again. This was your chance for them to take you seriously. If you go back to how you were, that’s it.” Well, that was the worst thing she could have said to me. “The last two years should have proved that I’m the same person, with or without facial hair, with or without a white shirt,” I said as I defiantly grabbed the clippers and shaved a stark mohawk into my head. Sure enough, the next day at church, our Stake High Councilman spotted me and shook his head sadly. I could almost hear his inner-monologue, “I guess I was wrong about him.” Then, last week, a Counselor in the Bishopric came over to me and asked if I’d be willing to co-teach a CTR class with another brother. “I have a mohawk,” I said, pointing upward, now enjoying the idea that I might get a little break from doing any real work. “It might take awhile to grow in,” I said. “That’s okay,” he replied, pointing to his own balding, closely-cropped head. “Just shave the rest and you’ll have a BYU-approved haircut like me.” That really spoke volumes about the arbitrary nature of all this and it got right up under my skin. But, in my usual conflicted way, as I seethed about this ridiculous corporate PR campaign that I keep choosing to be a part of, I knew that my heart was singing, “I’ll go where you want me to go.” To be continued…