Rasta Girl

My hairdresser told me once that I have perfect hair for dreads. It’s so fine, it would bunch together easily. I’ve stored this information away, in the event that I ever want to drop out of society. Otherwise, it’s irrelevant to my life. Or is it?

When I was a child, my hair was short. There was a brief period around grade four when it reached below my shoulders, but until grade eight, after I’d seen Jennifer Grey in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and said “I want that” (really?) and my mom decided I was finally old enough to have an opinion about my hair, it was for the most part brutally short. Braces, glasses, boy hair. Winner! So of course, after my hair started to creep its way to my shoulders, thanks to Jennifer Grey, I never looked back. Except for a notable period after Cookie was born, when all she was doing was puking in my hair. Plus, we were showing our home in order to sell it just when my hair started to fall out post-pregnancy, so every day, in addition to tidying toys and dabbing puke stains and hiding the microwave, I had to sweep up giant roaming hair balls. While nursing pretty much constantly. I opted to cut my hair rather than abandon my child or pretend we had enough counter space for a microwave. So in light of my relative hair freedom now, I always wondered why my mother made me have short hair, why I had to pin a tea towel to my head to pretend I had long hair when I played dress up, and why my mom endured epic screaming matches every time she took me to get my hair cut. Why not just leave it?

So I vowed that I wouldn’t cut Cookie’s hair. She’s been for one haircut, where we had the frazzled ends that she’d been sleeping on since birth trimmed, but other than that it’s long. It’s not stylish. Suri Cruise would not approve. It’s just a mop, now two distinct layers thanks to the earlier cut. But it’s long, and that’s what both Cookie and I want.

Except…well, when Cookie’s hair was starting to grow out in her second year, my dad told me a story. When my sister was three — Cookie’s age now — she had soft golden curls that were just beginning to stretch down her back. And every time my mom tried to brush her hair, they fought bitterly and fiercely. Tears were shed on both sides. It was a never-ending battle. And then my mom went away for the weekend, and my dad decided to take matters into his own hands. He got my sister’s hair cut. Problem solved, right?

When my mom returned from her girls’ weekend, she was horrified. What had he done? Why? How could he do such a thing? My dad was confused. Hadn’t he actually fixed the situation? But guys just don’t get it.

The curious thing about this story is that my sister is younger than me. My mom took the easy way out with me, but when my sister came along five years later, apparently she chose vanity. I kind of take heart from that, because my mother is not a vain person. But even she had her weakness in that regard, and that was my sister’s hair.

The other curious thing about this story is that I didn’t learn anything from it. Not at first, at least. But trust me, I’m learning now.

Cookie and I have fine, thin hair, her even more so since she’s a toddler. Pictures of my sister at that age look much the same, so I imagine her hair was also fine and thin. I know lots of other moms who have worse problems with their children’s hair. I just spent a weekend with a four-year-old with tight, wiry red curls that are almost impenetrable. But Cookie’s hair doesn’t tangle, it mats. You could make felt from it. Or, of course, dreads. When my sister’s cat gets that matted, she takes it to the vet and gets something called the “lion” cut. They shave off all its body hair, leaving only its face and tail untouched. They have to sedate the cat for this procedure.

Brushing Cookie’s hair is an ordeal that involves screaming and restraints (kidding!) and bribery and coercion. TV is almost always involved. We are all sticky with detangler by the time it’s done. We can only do it every other day, for our sanity, but that’s probably not helping the situation. The back of her head resembles that of a beginner Rastafarian’s by day two. I’m proud to say that I’ve only once broke out the scissors, and that was after two weeks when we couldn’t brush a patch of her hair because she had staples in the back of her head. But if I could legally sedate her, I would. I’ve tried brushing it when she’s sleeping. Needless to say, it didn’t work.

Part of the coercion is the threat of cutting. She wants long hair, she wants to be able to swing it, and she hates pigtails because she can’t feel her hair move. I want her to have long hair because I wasn’t allowed. So my threats to cut are empty, but they are effective. I don’t know how many times we’ve gone past the “three strikes and we’re going to the hairdresser” limit, but who’s counting? She will be soon, I’m sure. Crap. Till then, I can only hope that she understands that the limited pain is worth the gain in length. Or pride and vanity. Ha! I’m sure there are positive lessons here, but right now I just want long hair.

By the way, every time I brush Cookie’s hair, I can’t help but wonder how those moms on Toddlers & Tiaras do it. I bet there’s sedation involved. I don’t want to know, I swear I don’t.

East End Mama