Jon and I get along so well it’s kind of embarrassing. Seriously, when people hear me talk about the harmonious groove that our relationship inhabits 99.9% of the time, they probably think I am overcompensating in order to mask the reality of frequent fistfights and flying dishes. But no, we just get along quite famously. Jon is very, very easygoing, and he’s also super smart about picking his battles and compromising – those key relationship skills you’re always reading about. His sensible approach to life centers me in a way I never was before; I am a better wife, mother and person simply because I get to soak up his sweetly calm way of going about his days. Also, as both of us came to our marriage with painful relationship failures behind us, we both really value what we have together. We rarely disagree about anything too strenuously, and when we do,we usually find a way to split the difference so that both of us feel okay about the outcome.
Lately, however, we have been facing our first NON-negotiable disagreement – one upon which we cannot seem to find a happy compromise – and it’s over a parenting issue. Jon feels very strongly that his way is THE way, and I feel just as strongly that he should bend to my will on this one. What’s this big, important issue that’s got us sniping at each other? Well, it’s about whether our two year old should have bangs or not. Yes, it’s just that serious.
Some of you may recall that C was born as bald as Mr. Magoo, and that when she finally did start to grow some hair, at about 13-14 months old, it sprouted on her nogginin the shape of a “baby skullet.”
Bald as an egg at one week. (She was actually only 37 weeks gestation here, as she arrived at 36 weeks. You can see that she was clearly an undercooked egg at this point)
Still mostly bald by the time she could sit up. Here she is drooling all over 8 week old Leo.
Just a little blond fuzz there by one year old.
Here she is at about 21 months. You can see that her hair clearly has the tendency to grow all
party in the back and business up front (the aforementioned skullet).
In order to counterbalance the developing mullet, I kept trimming the back over the many, many months it took to get the front’s growth to catch up with the back. Now that C is 30 months old, I have finally succeeded, she now has a head full of gorgeous blond curls, of a similar length all the way around. Which brings us to the problem at hand; her hair is now SO long in the front that it gets in her eyes all the time. The obvious solution as far as I am concerened is to cut her hair into a cute toddler bob – a curly one in her case – just as I did with J when she was about this age. I think it would look just adorable, and it would solve the problem of her hair getting into her eyes all the time.
Jon, on the other hand, is ADAMANTLY opposed to me giving C bangs. He is quite passionate on this subject, saying that bangs would “look just terrible” on her, and insisting that only the kind of people who would, say – (shameless plug hyperlink warning alert!) upholster their sofa in denim would give their toddler daughter bangs. In order to bolster his anti-bangs position, he’s gotten vocal support from both my sister Betsy AND from C’s 14 year old big sister, J, both of whom back him up 100%. They are all ganged up against me on this issue, three against one.
So far I’ve acquiesced to Jon’s strongly held views on this parenting issue, but I am frustrated. Jon believes he has solved the problem of C’s hair constantly getting in her eyes by using little barrettes to hold it away from her face. I agree that the hair clippies look cute…for the entire 6-10 minutes they stay in place. But he’s tried several brands now, and all of the barrettes seem to slip out of her fine hair, eventually hanging from the ends of the chunk of hair they were supposed to hold back, smacking her in the face. Jon patiently replaces the clippies when this happens, while I tend to start in on how much I wish he would agree to let me get her a haircut with bangs.
So we are at an impasse; I would never go get a haircut of any kind for C when I am so well aware of the fact that her father is adamantly opposed. On the other hand, I know that Jon has never been a girl with long strands of stray hair falling into his eyes when he tries to look at a book or color in a coloring book. But I have, and I remember how annoying it was. Plus, I think she would just look SO cute with a classic little bob with bangs. Alas, her father just doesn’t have the same vision on this that I have.
Sigh. Maybe we’ll have to mud-wrestle over this one.
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Mud wrestling, like chess, should be used to settle all disputes.
You CAN have it both ways on this one, you know. Hair grows back. Give her the bangs, and if Jon hates them, when they grow back in go back to barrettes.
Love this post Katie. I was so ready for the big drama and to chime in with some conflict resolving wisdom. LOL.
Btw, do I know you from somewhere other than Twitter? Where? Your name and style seem so familiar to me, but from a context I can’t place.
Alexis
You could put him in charge of keeping the hairband/barrette in her hair.
My daughter, also a C, has the classic bowl cut with bangs. She gets compliments everywhere we go. My MIL didn’t want C’s hair to be cut, but I also didn’t see anyone else volunteering to come take care of the mass of tangles.
i’ve gotta agree with Jon here, Katie. Knox’s mom gave Jaden bangs without asking me, and i hate them..something about the curly hair + bangs make it look like a perpetual mullet. and i’d bet it would be the same with Charley.
and, about how J used to have a cute bob: her hair’s always been straight, right? that makes a big difference.
I like Allison’s solution!
I’m with Jon on this one, but I understand (sort of – I have boys) the barette problem. So put him in charge of the barettes and if he gives in to bangs in a few weeks, so be it!
If your husband feels so strongly I’d probably just invest in a whole assortment of headbands and clips and ponytail holders and let him go to town. She’ll be old enough soon to have her own say about it, and then it won’t matter what either of you want anyway.
My husband and I had the same disagreement for a long time. He did most of the hairbrushing, and was getting sick and tired of trying to comb out fine baby hair tangles every morning, compounded by the fact that her hair was in her face so much that she frequently got food in it. I finally acquiesced when our daughter was a little over 3, and we all LOVED the bangs. We trimmed the back of her hair also, and it is less curly now, but thicker, which actually helps with hairbrushing. And now, she doesn’t have her hair in her face all the time. My husband felt that the hair was interfering with her ability to play and do lots of things since it was always in her face and she developed almost a permanent neck twist in an effort to keep her hair out of her eyes. She also never kept in barrettes, so that was pointless. We were all happy in the end. I agree that you can try bangs, they will grow out anyways if you don’t like them.
My mother-in-law and I have this same disagreement (and it gets VITRIOLIC), where she insists that my 3 year old needs bangs and I say it’s taken her too long to grow what hair she has and no way am I going to cut it (it’s a little shorter than shoulder length on her now). We also use a variety of clippies and ponytail holders and headbands, plus it’s gotten long enough that she can tuck it behind her ears. One thing about the clips and fine hair, try gathering up all the hair you want pulled back plus a little bit more and give it a twist. That will give it a little more bulk for the clip to hang onto. It works for my fine-haired child anyway. Learned that one from my ever-so-experienced nanny. One question: does C want her hair cut? My daughter has been pretty vocal about not having hers cut, which I feel gives me the upper hand in my ongoing battle with my MIL. Good luck working it out, whichever way it ends up.
Your father absolutely refused, pitched fits, when I wanted to get Betsy’s hair cut because it would get so terribly tangled at the nape of her neck that Gun and I would have to work together on it for painfully long periods of time. I did it one day while he was at work, which wasn’t very nice, I suppose. He was not a happy camper, but got over it. And Betsy didn’t have to endure detangling anymore. It was a horrible haircut though.
DON’T YOU DARE GIVE THAT CHILD BANGS. And this pains me horribly to say, your husband is right.
You are wrong in one instance. Jon has had hair long enough to get in his face. It is part of the Hickman head that the hair grows forward from the back of the top of the head. Look at some of the pictures of Jon in his teen years and his twenties.
I have bangs, Love my bangs, but you have seen my child. Bangs should be a personal choice. When C is old enough she can choose bangs or no bangs.
Bangs are high-risk. I vote no bangs.
I have to side with your husband. I don’t think it’s easy to let bangs grow out if you hate them. It takes forever to and it is a miserable experience for all involved. I vote for the ponytail on top of the head. My oldest had really fine hair and I could never find a barette that worked.
if she’s going to do the pony hunters, no bangs. nothing worse than trying to get bangs (or, even worse, LAYERS) neatly under the helmet. nice all-one-length do will become perfect hunter hair in 15 seconds or less.
A finally put some chunky layers around her face when she switched to jumpers… she wears it in a pony tail (with blue streaks which match the piping on the coat she wears for jumper classics!)
I vote for bangs. I’m not generally a bangs person, but we have the same issue w/ my 2.5 year old’s hair, and she doesn’t like keeping in barrettes or headbands. And none of us likes hair in her eyes. I decided I wasn’t going to fight with her about barettes–that’s just ridiculous. Anyhow, now she has bangs and they are SO CUTE (even with her curly hair). When she’s old enough to decide how she wants to keep her hair out of her face, she can do whatever she wants.
Because your husband is as good as he is, let him win this one.
Who is L? Because THAT is the PERFECT answer!
I think little kids shouldn’t have to worry about their hair — and that includes girls — so I vote for bangs.
Of course, my 3 year old adamantly refuses to wear any kind of barrette, ponytail, or clip of any kind, so it will be bangs and a bob for her until and if she comes around on that front.
Bangs are okay for straight hair, but curly hair not so much. And, with warm weather coming, soon, she’ll be all hot and sticky with bangs stuck to her forehead.
I like her side part thing in her most recent pics.
I would settle it by having Jon take her for a haircut/trim.
He can deal with the stylist creating a practical cut that is out of her eyes.
What about those super-thin ponytail holder thingies? I’ve been using them in my daughter’s (very fine, always gets in her eyes) hair ever since we started growing out her bangs, and they are pretty much the only things that stay in. I part her hair on the side and give her a little ponytail in front every day … booooring, but effective. Not only do they not fall out on their own, she is able to pretty much ignore them and leave them in, unlike every other clippie I put in there.
I actually WAS a little girl with hair in my eyes at one point and while it drove my mother INSANE, it didn’t bother me one iota. I vote “No Bangs” on this one.
And on a mostly unrelated note, I have a dear friend whose Mother-in-law took his daughter to a hairdresser without his permission and had her chop off the kid’s long blond, curly, hair to just below her ears. Both child and father were horrified. There is little wonder for anyone why this is now a FORMER mother-in-law…
What ever you decide, it might not matter. My daughter recently decided that she did not like the hair in her eyes and cut her own bangs. Now all the hair in front of her head is cut almost down to the scalp. So I vote for bangs.