Children are the Heirs to our Hair

I confess I watched a portion of the Royal Wedding last week. I turned it on shortly before the ceremony began, and as I watched the footage of Prince William and Prince Harry waiting at the altar for Kate Middleton, one thought kept cropping up in my mind.

Prince William is seriously going bald.

Standing next to Harry with his enviable head of thick, red hair, it was obvious to all that William had inherited his father’s balding pattern. My thoughts turned to my own children and the ways that they have become our “hair heirs”.

As a child, I absolutely could not stand my hair. Thick, curly and unruly, I favored my mother’s follicles while my sisters had the same smooth, straight locks as my father. The neighborhood bullies nicknamed me “Brillo”, a name that still brings a shudder forty years later. I suffered through long hair, short hair, a brief period when I tried to curl it into “wings” (thanks a lot Farrah Fawcett) and then settled on what could only be described as an afro throughout my high school years. College wasn’t much better and it wasn’t until my twenties that I discovered the value of a good conditioner and some serious hair control products. After experimenting with hair color (blonde, brunette, redhead, I’ve been them all), I’ve pretty much reverted to my natural brown in a more styled, controlled version of my high school afro. Other than the grey that is creeping in here and there, I don’t foresee a radical change in my hairstyle anytime in the future.

My husband has very straight, fine hair. Growing up in the sixties, he was encouraged to grow it as long as he liked (both his parents had long hair). The only bump in the road was his yearly summer visit to his grandparents in Williamsport NY. Though his parents were borderline hippies, his grandparents were straight out of “Leave it to Beaver”. A career military man, his grandfather’s first order of business each summer was to march my husband straight to the barber for a buzz cut. If his grandparents had known that my husband would start losing his hair in his late twenties, perhaps they would have been inclined to let him keep his lush head of hair during those summers.

Fast forward a few decades to my own children. My older son seems to favor his mother’s hair type. Born bald, his white blond curly toddler locks have settled into a thick nest of coarse light brown curls. He prefers his hair long and while I wouldn’t classify it as an afro, I can see that without proper grooming and hair product it could eventually evolve into one. Long gone are the days of the “boy’s regular” cut he received as a child. The stylists at Just Hair Cuts know him by name, and sharpen their hedge clippers when they see him coming. The result is a somewhat manageable mane which typically gets mashed down due to the baseball caps he insists on wearing at all times.

My younger son, on the other hand, favors buzz cuts and Mohawks. While we try to convince him to let his hair grow in the cooler months (it keeps his head warm) as soon as the weather turns he’s clamoring for a buzz cut. Given free reign, he’d take the shortest setting on the hair clippers. Though he has a lovely scalp and I do enjoy the feel of his “peach fuzz”, the “1” setting makes him look like a post-chemo patient, which unnerves me. I urge him to let the stylist use the “2” or “3” setting on the clippers. For months he has been asking for a spiky Mohawk. My excuse has been, “not till after the school talent show.” Of course, the day after the show, he convinced me to bring him to the hair salon whereupon they shaved his sides down to peach fuzz and waxed the middle till he looked like a rooster. He loves it and I’m getting used to being poked by his spiky points when he leans in for a hug.

So be it short, long, thick, thin, curly or spiky, I’ve learned to let my children express themselves through their hairstyles (within reason). The important part is that they enjoy their hair. Because they need only look at my husband to see their potential future:

Hair today…gone tomorrow.