The other morning, my fifth grade daughter woke up and realized she didn’t like the length of her bangs. She decided to go ahead and give them a “little” trim. Then she didn’t like that her bangs were crooked, so she trimmed them some more. Then she thought they were a bit too short, so … she trimmed them some more. The bangs were still crooked, so she went at her hair with the scissors and a vengeance. When she was done, the bathroom counter was covered in hair, her forehead was covered with a crooked set of super short bangs, and her face was covered with tears. After this display, I had to ask myself: Who isn’t smarter than a fifth grader?
All of this went down while my wife and I were still in bed. We were making spoons, and I was breathing morning breath over my wife’s shoulder into her nostrils. She’s a lucky lady. Our daughter, the impromptu hair stylist, came crashing into our room, sobbing. My wife took one look at our daughter’s bangs—or what was left of them—and jumped out of bed.
“Honey, what did you do to your hair?!”
Our daughter couldn’t answer. She just cried and cried.
“Why did you think it was a good idea to cut your own hair?”
There was no answer from our little angel, just harder and sadder crying.
It was a bad situation. I could see that my wife and daughter were about to begin an epic battle. I went to my tried and trusted move and used my possum defense by faking I was asleep. I didn’t need to get involved in this nightmare of scissors, tempers, and bang length. I figured it was a “girl thing” and I would let my wife, whom I love, handle it. The two girls headed into the bathroom and what little patience my wife had began to dissolve.
“Look at all of this hair on the counter. Why did you think this was a good idea?!”
My daughter tried to answer, “I don’t know, I just wanted to fix my bangs.” The word bangs was more of a slurred, drawn-out wail that segued into an endless crying fit: “Baaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaangs!” I could hear the snot and the tears from my bedroom. I lay as still as possible and tried to slow my heart rate so no one could see my breathing. The pitch of my daughter’s crying and my wife’s endless questions of “Why, why, why?” made it impossible for anyone in our house to actually be asleep. Regardless, I stayed in my bed. My son did the same in his room. I’ve taught him well.
I heard my daughter and wife begin to strategize how to fix the bang debacle before school started that day. My wife said she could trim her bangs a little more to try to straighten them. I thought this was funny since, from my experiences working with wood, I’ve known for years that you can cut and re-cut the same piece of wood three different times, but if it was too short to begin with, it’s always going to be too short. My wife and daughter were learning this the hard way, and it was getting closer to the time to leave for school.
More hair fell onto the counter, and so did more tears.
“Stop crying! You did this to yourself.”
“I want to stay home from school today,” my daughter pleaded.
“Your hair will still look like this tomorrow.”
“I want to stay home from school for a month, then.”
“You’re not staying home. You will go to school. Nobody is going to notice your bangs.”
Of course nobody was going to notice my daughter’s bangs, because after my wife “fixed” the hair, she no longer had any bangs to notice. The two girls debated different hair accessories to try to disguise the lack of bangs. Some sunglasses on the forehead, a bandana, a hat, a Hannah Montana wig? None of the ideas were satisfying my daughter. No matter what, she couldn’t be consoled. Based on her emotional breakdown, it was obvious that her bangs were going to destroy her life socially for the rest of her days. She probably wouldn’t get a date to the prom seven years from now due to that one fateful day in the fifth grade when her bangs were goofy.
Guys never have this sort of problem. We get a bad hair cut? No sweat: Shave the head. Obviously, shaving my daughter’s head was not an option, unless we were looking to get some sympathy from people who thought she had cancer.
“I don’t want to go to school! Everyone is going to laugh at me!”
“You’re going to school! Nobody is going to notice.”
I really didn’t want to get involved in this, but I had to go to the bathroom so badly that I couldn’t fake sleep anymore. I tried to sneak into the commode but couldn’t get there quietly enough. My wife caught me and said, “Tag, you’re it. You handle this.” I took care of my morning business and then headed into my kids’ bathroom, where my daughter was still staring in the mirror and crying. I knew that no matter how bad it looked, I couldn’t openly laugh. I had to be a reassuring and supportive parent. My wife had already played bad cop on the hair issue. It was my place to play good cop. I walked in and saw my little girl. Her bangs looked like she had given herself a bowl cut, only after taking a bowl and breaking it on the floor first. Her bangs were a complete disaster, the poor thing.
I asked my little girl, “Is there anything I can do to make you feel better, a new outfit or something to distract from your bangs?”
My daughter stopped crying and quickly answered, “An iPod Touch would distract from my bangs. People would probably just look at the ear phone cords instead of my hair.”
“Uh, okay.”
“Thank you, Daddy! I want a pink one!”
Rob’s daughter wants to grow up and go to beauty school.
This article appears in Apr 29 – May 6, 2010.