Hair length/style as behavior control

People will frequently change their own hairstyles for many reasons.  They want to look younger, to look older, to try a new fashion, to blend in with the crowd, to stand out from the crowd, to make a political or rebellious stance (hippies, skin heads, punk rockers, roundheads (old school but a good historical example), etc.), and so on.

People will also frequently try to force hair styles on others to force a mode of expected behavior.  When I was growing up, it was fairly common for parents to insist that their sons not grow their hair too long.  Males frequently get subject to this.  Certain Muslim countries have rules about requisite short hair and beards.

But sometimes this happens to females as well.

I had a friend in college who was cute - okay looking.  She is what I defined as an apricot blond.  She had short, tousled hair.  When I got to know her, it turns out that she had once very long hair.  I saw a photo, and my god the difference.  It was waste length, thick, and wavey - to die for.  And it turned her from looking sort of 'meh' to 'youza'.  I asked her why she had cut it and she told me that her father and stepmother literally nagged her into cutting off all her hair.  They gave her no peace until she did it.  She regretted it badly and was growing her hair back out.  But I found it rather strange that her family did that to her.  Maybe they did not want her to date a lot and curb her behavior and impact upon people?

Another friend of mine told me that when her mother married her father, he insisted that she cut her waist-length hair off to a bob, which she did.  I see this as a form of control as well. 

And I wonder if short-hair women get the reversed treatment.

Tyranna wrote:   People will also frequently try to force hair styles on others to force a mode of expected behavior.  When I was growing up, it was fairly common for parents to insist that their sons not grow their hair too long.  Males frequently get subject to this.

That was me, I was made to have a "high & tight' style throughout the 60s and early 70s when it wasn't even one bit cool. It made me quite self-conscious about my hair, which later turned into something of a fascination, so I suppose it turned out ok in the end. It's ok people saying "fight it", but you can't always fight your parents, can you?  My advice would just be, put up with the control if you have to and get what you can out of it.

I think parents can sometimes nag or pester their children into things but ultimately the kid makes the decision. 

However, this scenario is far different than the stories posted here from time to time recounting an experience where a parent or evil step-mother forcibly chops, hacks, buzzes, shaves, perms the kid's hair against his or her will.  Usually its a girl with hair to her butt who is forced to get a flattop or something equally ridiculous.  I suspect that the majority of these stories are works of fiction or fantasy.

I believe it is reasonable for parents to dictate standards for grooming and appearance to their children.  In my experience, when the child is very young, Mom decides how the hair is cut.  As children approach their teens, the children are permitted to make more of the choices themselves within the guidelines established by their parents.

In all my time in the salon, I have never (yes, never...) witnessed the type of brutal treatment portrayed in many of the stories here.  I have witnessed parents who'll bring in a son badly in need of a haircut and get a cut that conforms to their standards in spite of his objections.  However, I have never seen a child tied to a chair or receive a brutal shearing like a high and tight, flattop, poodle perm or other hairstyle that falls outside the bounds of normalcy, given prevailing fashion trends.  This is surprising!  Given the number of people who share either personal accounts or know someone to whom this has happened, I should be seeing this happen on a regular basis.

I can recall two occassions where Mom forced a daughter to get a haircut she didn't want:

On one occasion, a 15 year-old girl had hair to her butt that was very unhealthy, split and breaking due to neglect.  Mom demanded that she cut a bunch off (about a foot as I recall) because it looked bad.  Mom did not make the girl shave her head or act in any way out of malice.  She just needed a haircut.

In the other case, the young girl was also 15 with very long hair.  It was beautiful and this young lady spent literally hours primping and doing her hair as girls this age are apt to do.  It showed...  Consequently, she was frequently late for school and other events because of the amount of time she spent getting ready.  Mom suggested on several visits that she cut her hair shorter (not short) to reduce the time it took to dry and make it easier to manage.  On one visit, she told her Mom, "Just shut up..." which, of course, didn't sit very well.  Mom did not fly into a rage and snatch up a scissors and start chopping but demanded an apology which she promptly received.  She further commented that she needed to find another way to style her hair that would allow her to get to school and church on time without holding up the family.  Braids, ponytails and various up-dos were mentioned.  Nothing about a cut...  She asked if I could show her how to style it.  The girl smarted off again and told her mom, "I'm not wearing a stupid braid." or something like that.  Mom gave her the look and explained that any more tardiness would result in a more manageable haircut.  Sure enough, on the next visit, Mom instructed me to cut it to just below her shoulders.  The girl threw a fit but Mom remained calm and did not waiver, telling the girl she had been give plenty of chances.  The girl shed a bunch of tears but she survived and, I believe, was un-scarred.  Mom was not a control freak nor was she unreasonable, in my opinion.  The girl needed a reality check and Mom provided her with one.  She did not drag her into the salon kicking and screaming.  Nor did she rage at her daughter or belittle her in front of others in a display of dominance.

This young lady remained a client and came to the salon alone after she was old enough to drive herself.  She even asked me to cut her hair quite short on a subsequent visit.  No part of her head was shaved or clippered, however.  Isn't that how these stories are supposed to end?  Do you suppose she has a hair fetish resulting from her 'controlling' mother or do you think she simply decided she wanted something different?

 

So, by this philosphy, Duke, your 5 year-old would be able to demand a mohawk and receive it without objection?  What about your 6 year old blonde daugther wanting to become a brunette?  Would you color her hair?

Parental guidance and authority is a delicate balancing act.  It is a trust realtionship.  Parents and children must not abuse that trust. However, there are no hard, fast rules and many variables affect your decisions as a parent.  However, when things are out of balance, it's plainly evident.  You know it when you see it... 

You say: "I believe that the law should strip parents of the power to enforce just about any rules they see fit. If I wrote the law, you would certainly be able to stop your child from doing things like stealing, hitting people, making a mess, playing music too loud, name calling and all other things that go against being a good member of society."

From this, I suspect that you are not a parent.  How, precisely, do you expect parents to stop their children from doing objectionable things when they are limited in their recourse?  Who decides what things qualify as going against being a good member of society?  Would there be a book to refer to?  Do parents and children go to court or some other arbitor when they have a dispute?

In my opinion, children earn independence and trust by fullfilling their responsibilities. ( i.e. getting good grades, respecting others, telling the truth, using good judgement, staying out of trouble, doing chores assigned to them) 

As a simple example of this...  When my kid learned to ride a bike, he was not permitted to leave the driveway.  Over time, he earned the right to go in the street provided he looked for cars and used good judgement.  After demonstrating his ability and willingness to follow the rules, he was permitted to ride his bike within the neighborhood.

I think this same principle can be successfully applied to other areas as well, including the child's appearance.  In the examples I cited, I think both girl's abused the right to decide how to wear their hair and lost the priviledge 1) by not taking care of it or  2) by neglecting other responsibilities.  In these cases, there is a direct cause and effect relationship and a lesson learned.

I would permit my child to wear dreads, for example, because his choice to wear dreadlocks could be a simple expression of self.  However, a child's hair and clothing choices sometimes reflect a larger attitude of rebellion.  If his style choices were accompanied by unacceptable behavior like poor grades, gang activity or drug use, then the dreadlocks would come off and he would be required to wear what I told him to wear.  He would have lost that priviledge because he abused the trust I had given him to make good choices.

Likewise, parents can abuse the trust by being unreasonable.  What's reasonable?  That's a moving target but I would conclude that Phil's parent's making him wear a high and tight simply to flex their parental authority muscle is unreasonable.  If Phil did something else to bring it about, that's another story. 

Kuroneko's parents requiring long hair seems pretty unreasonable.  If she was 10 years old and requested a crew cut, my answer as a parent would likely be no unless accompanied by some very compelling, rational reason for the request.  If she simply requested a short hairstyle, I would be inclined to agree to it.  I might also use the priviledge of choosing her hairstyle as a reward for good behavior if behavior problems existed. 

 

Edited by Rocky

 
-- ...whether I would pay for her to get it done is a different story. It depends. I never said the parent would have the duty to give the child anything they wanted...

Does a 5 or 6 year old typically have the cash to pay for salon services?  In my experience, they do not.  Therefore, for very young children, Mom get's to decide how they wear their hair.  But you say this is wrong, even when children are very little.  This is all getting very complicated yet when you explain it, it seems so simple. 

And what about parents who do abuse this trust? I can give you countless examples where parents do and society and law do nothing about it?

There are even more examples where they don't.

As I stated, you know it when you see it.  What you proposed in your first post was: ...your role would be that of a guide, and you could not stop your children from making their own decisions. Certainly not about things like this. People who control their children's appearance are behaving like dictators.

I disagree because this is not true in the vast majority of circumstances.  I think you will agree that there is reasonable and unreasonable. However, the unreasonable parents seem to be all you're willing to recognize in stating your position.  I would submit that most parents are quite reasonable in allowing their children a fair amount of latitude in making their own decisions.  This includes, their hairstyle...

Parents exist who would agree with me and certainly those who are more lenient than you, yet their children have grown up into good members of society.

No doubt...  However, you didn't answer my questions.  Who decides what constitutes a good member of society?  Who makes these rules of which you speak that would determine what is and is not permissible?  Ideally, your "Wouldn't it be nice if..." scenario sounds great.  The devil, however, is in the details of which you've provided few.

This is a classic excuse, "don't tell me about raising children when you are not a parent".

Your inference is off the mark.  I'm suggesting that each situation is unique as is each child.  They each have their own personality.  What works for one child is often completely ineffective on another.  Unfortunately, some children require medication to function but there are others who would insist that these types of medication are completely wrong and kids should never be medicated.  Who decides what is permissible/acceptable?  Are you seriously suggesting a social worker would make these decisions?  Would you clog the courts and social services agencies with cases to decided if a kid should get his or her hair cut?  I thought you stated parents were supposed to be the child's guide.  Which is it, parents or social workers?

I by the way am not the first person to advocate such ideas. I know they are radical, but once, so was giving women equal rights.

Being radical does not make an idea valid.

There can be reasonable consequences for bad behavior, but not a prior denial of rights until the child "proves" itself.

We disagree on this fundamentally.  I'll cite my simple example again since you chose not to address it. 

"When my kid learned to ride a bike, he was not permitted to leave the driveway.  Over time, he earned the right to go in the street provided he looked for cars and used good judgement.  After demonstrating his ability and willingness to follow the rules, he was permitted to ride his bike within the neighborhood."  It works...

I don't think 1) abused any right. I believe it is her right to have damaged hair on her head if she wants to. 2) could have been disciplined with more natural consequences. For example, her parents could have denied her money for hair care products.

Perhaps something like... "You are forbidden to wash your hair."  There are those who would say this would compromise the child's right to good hygiene.

Her mother could have refused to do something she normally did for her until she was more polite.

Being impolite was not the issue.  At issue was her constant tardiness.

She could have refused to drive her with the rest of the family if she didn't show up on time, which would have been a REAL cause and effect lesson, I.E. I won't wait up for you if you're not reasonable.

Leaving the child home instead of taking her to school is irresponsible on the parent's part because it's the parent's responsibility, legally, to ensure she attends school.  Others were forced to wait or the parents would need to make additional accommodations to deal with her, extra trips.  By doing this, her parent would have been accommodating the behavior instead of correcting it.

And then the girl would have had to deal with the consequence of being late wherever, which would also teach her a REAL life lesson.

Not really...  She already didn't care if she was late.  It wasn't a priority for her.  Being late didn't bother her at all.  That was the problem.  Would taking television privileges away from a kid who doesn't watch TV be very effective?  No...  The privilege that is revoked needs to be something of value.  In this circumstance, cutting her hair shorter was an effective choice.

What the mother did was tied to the act (I.E. having her hair cut because she over-did hair styling) but it was otherwise more like direct punishment, and pretty brutal punishment in my opinion.  Justifying it through a "lesson learned" is Machiavellian.

I disagree.  Her hair was still long after the cut and looked beautiful.  Had she instructed me to cut the girl's hair very short, it would have been brutal.  Had Mom's motive for cutting the girl's hair been jealousy of the girl's long hair and youthful beauty but used her tardiness as an excuse to cut it, that would have been Machiavellian.

Normal parents would punish a child in more lenient ways for far more serious offenses (maybe not where you live, though?) I resent referring to the right to wear one's hair long as a "privilege", by the way.

What's a normal parent?  I will certainly agree there are many ways that a child can be disciplined.  This is one of many things this girl's mother could have done.  Which of the others would you or someone else object to?  In addition, I didn't refer to long hair as a right...  I said: Her right to decide was a privilege.  The privilege was revoked in much the same way a parent would take away any other privilege the child values.  The privilege was restored when the behavior was corrected. 

--This philosophy is based on a faulty yet classic premise that some parents have. A mixup of cause and effect. In the cases you describe, the dreadlocks would maybe be a result but not a cause. You would need to address the cause and not the hair. Cutting his hair would not stop him from using drugs or getting poor grades. In fact it may incite him to further rebellion. This is actually a typical thing that happens, yet some parents just don't get it.

Undoubtedly, there is not a direct cause and effect.  I did state, "...his choice to wear dreadlocks could be a simple expression of self." but again, you chose to ignore it. I maintain, it is the parent's role to make that determination based on any number of other factors which could be observed.  "Were his style choices accompanied by...?" (Again, you've chosen to ignore this point.)  Is he wearing gang colors?  Are there signs of drug use?  Has the group of friends he's hanging out with contributed to this decline in behavior?  Will changing his appearance (making him less cool) cause him to stop associating with them?  Who better to make that judgement that the parent?  There is no book and there are too many factors for you to say "never".

Would you care to explain to me how a high and tight haircut could EVER be necessary for ANYONE?

I think I've already explained it.  See above... It would NEVER be "necessary" to give anyone a high and tight haircut.  However, it may be a reasonable punishment under certain circumstances.  Would passing a law that forbidding it be reasonable?

Have a look at this picture of me:
this is how I look like. I have hair that's longer than on most guys. By the standard of some of the parents you have described, I "needed a haircut" ages ago. But am I a drug addict? No. I haven't even tried a joint or a cig in my life, nor do I want to.

Oh, is this about you now?  I didn't bother to look at the photo because it isn't really important.  I've had long hair too.  That isn't the point.  I did not suggest that all kids with long hair are drug users, dealers, etc.  (Another invalid inference.)  I don't have anything against long hair or short hair.  I'm certain there are lot's of short-haired criminals.  Does that make short hair good or bad?  No, it's immaterial.

My point, which I've made again and again is this.  I maintain that parents have the right to set the parameters related to their child's appearance, as well as numerous other things in their life to (hopefully) influence their behavior positively.   I would concede that parents sometimes abuse their rights.  However, I do not agree with your view that it is NEVER permissible...  I maintain that, in some circumstances, its perfectly reasonable to do so.

 

 

 

 

Well, we simply have different ideas that can surely never be reconciled. Therefore, it is pointless to argue further on the first point.

As you've pointed out, we will not agree.

But on the point of parents abusing their rights, don't you think there should be some mechanism for effectively stopping them from doing so?

If such a mechanism may consider any unwanted haircut given to a child abusive, then, no.  I wouldn't want to be subjected to any mechanism that would have that sort of absurd control over a parent.

Including when a parent is simply too strict and treats a child like a slave?

Again...  It' unlikely I'll be able to relate to your definition of "too strict".  So I'll say no... 

Slavery?  Please!  Do you REALLY equate an unwanted haircut to slavery? 

Children should be good citizens in their homes and communities-- they must be legal, cooperative, and do their fair share (Does this constitute slavery in your world?).  Children can control how much privacy and freedom they enjoy by teaching their parents to trust them.  Freedom and privacy is not something to which they are automatically entitled. Privacy and freedom is awarded to those who express maturity and earn trust.  Fair-minded parents reward children who earn their trust and discipline children who violate it.

Parents who abuse the trust do so at their peril.  It is in the parent's interest to treat their child fairly because they will be rewarded with a respectful, compliant child who trusts what their parents tell them.  If they abuse the trust, they risk a rebellious child who does not listen to or trust their parent.  In this way, the trust relationship is self-governing.

Again, you and I will undoubtedly continue to disagree on what constitutes a fair-minded parent. 

 

 

You know as crazy as this may sound, I think the next great revolt will be children upon parents.

It will only take one or two high profile court cases where children will sue their parents or legal gaurdians so that they may make the decisons grown ups do, and it will rattle societ's very physce.

Children have no rights in todays society. In other countries it's even worse , so luckilty if you are an american child it isnt as bad as some other places on this planet. But I do not susbcribe to the notion that children should be seen and not heard.

I think children are far more intuitive and observant then they are given credit for. Yes they need guidence , but they do not need control. And that is where some parents cross the line. Parenting isnt about controlling every aspect of a child from cradle until they move out.

In many cases ive know children who were more well rounded and had morals then some of their parents, yet had to listen and follow the rules of their parents. Just because a parent is older thrn their child doesnt always mean they know what's best for their own child.

Children dont send other children into therapy when they get older parents do.

Children who hurt bully and bother other children and as a result cause another child mental trauma and visits to a therapist, are unfortunately emulating what they see their parents do to them and others around them.

I hope one day there will be a civil rights leader who will do for children what Martin Luther King did for all colors and what woman's activist did for woman's rights.

 

Ever read _Lord of the Flies_?