My First Haircut
I remember being four. That age will forever stand out in my memory. There are days when the memories of that time of my life come back, and I get lost in the midst of what happened then. What I went through back then; my thoughts, how I felt, are still very much a part of me today. I reminisce, and think about wanting to do so many things that were constantly being denied to me. Perhaps I wanted so much to do certain things because my mother was so strict with us—her five children. Being the middle child with two older brothers and two younger sisters—I was the most defiant, and was in need of some extra attention. My mom had her hands full, but still managed to maintain control–even over me, the child who most openly resisted her.
My mother would repeatedly tell me, “You will belong to me until the day that you get married, and even then, you will belong to me.”
At times I would like when my mom would tell me I was hers–it gave me a sense of belonging. And then there were times when that comment would drive me crazy. Couldn’t she see that we were separate beings? I would fight my mother and say “No, I belong to me.”
So many instances come to mind when thinking of all the times I wanted something so badly and my mother would take it away from me. We were in a constant state of tug a war, and she was always winning; slashing my ideas and rejecting my aspirations. I longed to chew gum like the other kids, but my mother wouldn’t allow it. She would say that I didn’t need the sugar, and that it wasn’t “healthy”. What was healthy? I didn’t understand the meaning of the word. Whatever it meant, I knew one thing, that I did not like it. When I asked why gum wasn’t “healthy”, my mom would say “Stop asking so many questions. It just isn’t.” My mom didn’t like the fact that I asked so many questions. At times I wouldn’t talk at all, because I knew that my mother didn’t like that I talked as much as I did. I didn’t want to upset her.
I loved to play with my two older brothers, Eli and Mark, but they didn’t like to play with me. I was a girl, and wasn’t capable of playing like “a boy”. Mark was especially cruel to me, though he didn’t mean to be. We were a year apart. I looked up to him, and wanted to be around him all of the time. Mark couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want a girl, let alone his little sister, following him around. He used to push me away, but I would insist on staying. I suppose I was stubborn back then. Something about him pushing me away– his not wanting me to be around, made me want to stay all the more, just to stick it to him. It got to the point where Mark would really hurt me, but I continued to endure his abuse. I don’t know why.
One day Mark pushed me off his bed and then up against the wall. He was upset because I had sat on his bed. It wasn’t my fault. My mother had put me there. She had told me not to move, to “stay put” and wait for her to brush my hair. By the time my mom returned, my head was bleeding. It turned out that I needed stitches. My much adored and favorite brother had cracked my head in half. I didn’t inform my mother as to what happened; she would not know that my brother was the one to hurt me until sixteen years after the fact. After the incident I didn’t speak for a month. I don’t remember not talking, but my parents constantly talk about the time when I was four, when I simply refused to speak.
After that episode, I felt that I had changed. A new initiative consumed my thoughts. I came to the realization that I needed a haircut. All the other kids were getting haircuts, and their different hairstyles had made them look unique. I wanted to be unique. I had always wanted a haircut, but my mother refused. My mom tried to convince me into thinking that I didn’t want a haircut, but she couldn’t fool me. She instructed me to take the idea out of my head. My mom said that short hair was ugly—that my idea was “silly”. For the first time, in the memory of my life, a thought took hold of me. I wanted that hair cut and no one would stop me. I was motivated; something about getting that haircut was driving me to get it.
Night after night, I would go to bed and sit up for hours contemplating as to how I would pull it off. I had to figure out the perfect scheme. How would I defy my mother? Who could I ask? I realized that it would not be easy. Everyone I knew–knew my mother. I couldn’t trust them—if any one of them were to snitch on me I would be in big trouble. The trouble part didn’t bother me as much as not having the haircut. If my mother would find out, she would put on end to the haircut, and I would have to bear the consequences—the punishment. Of course, once I had the haircut, I wouldn’t mind getting the punishment—so long as I had successfully gotten it I would be satisfied. I considered giving myself the haircut, but feared that my mother would catch me. In all honesty, I must admit, I wasn’t brave enough to pull it off.
One Sunday morning, while watching Sesame Street with my brothers, I witnessed Bert get a haircut. It looked so simple. The barber cut his hair, Bert brushed himself off—and poof; he had shorter hair. I was fascinated. That was my dream! A haircut. I couldn’t understand what my mother would think was wrong with that. If Bert could get one, why couldn’t I? Bert was well behaved, he never got into trouble, and looked so nice and refreshed after the cut. I turned to my eldest brother, Eli.
I smiled at him, just about as much as I could, and asked him in extraordinarily nice way, “Do you want to give me a haircut? It would look sooooo pretty…”
I stretched the truth a bit. I told Eli that my mother would approve, and that afterwards we could show the cut to her. Eli was a mama’s boy and needed some convincing. After a minute of my maneuvering Eli into thinking that this was the perfect idea, he looked excited, and agreed to cut my hair. He was almost as eager as I was. I searched the house for my mother. I had to be sure that she was out of the premises. My mom was sitting on her bed, she appeared to be relaxed, and was deep in conversation. The timing seemed right. I went into the drawer where my mother kept the scissors. I didn’t know that they were not the correct scissors, because I had never gotten a haircut before. I chose the largest scissors I could find. They were big and black. I figured the bigger the scissor, the better. I ran to give Eli the scissors.
Mark observed the situation. He was jealous that I had asked Eli, and not him. He wanted to be like the barber guy on television. But I couldn’t allow it; Mark was constantly being mean to me. He incessantly hurt me, and would tease me all the time. I wouldn’t give him, the meanest brother in the entire world, the privilege of cutting my hair. The task was too important. It gave me a sort of satisfaction, to turn Mark down. He went off, and I didn’t care—I was happy to be rid of him.
Eli began to cut. He didn’t ask questions, nor did I. The task seemed simple. We didn’t need to discuss it. All he needed to do was take the scissor and cut. I sat there, as Eli chopped off my long hair, feeling so content. My dream was materializing. Eli snipped. I loved the sound of the scissor. I felt so proud. I thought about how I would surprise my mother. She thought that short hair was ugly, but I knew that it wasn’t. My haircut would show her that short hair was beautiful.
It took Eli about a minute or two to finish the cut. When he put the scissors down and looked at me, I knew that my mission had been accomplished. Eli looked at me in awe. He was so proud of his work.
As Eli looked at me with a sense of pride, he said, “Go show Mommy. She will love it!” I felt a little guilty right then, because I knew that Eli wasn’t aware that short hair had been forbidden. He didn’t know how livid my mother was about not cutting my hair. But then, I told myself that it was alright, because once my mom observes my new haircut—she will realize how important getting it really was.
I ran to my mother’s room. As I walked in, I noticed Mark sitting on the bed. Did he try to squeal on me? Mark smiled at me in a sarcastic way. I didn’t care. Now, I needed show my mother my stunning hair. My mom didn’t notice me. She was busy talking to my dad on the phone. My mom never answered me when I called her name, this time wasn’t any different. I would have to get her to notice me.
After standing at the door, for what was about two minutes, I yelled out, “Mommy, look at my beautiful haircut!”
In the matter of seconds, I heard a loud scream come out of my mother’s mouth. “Aaaaaaaahhhh,” she shrilled. The sound still resonates in my ears to this very day. Why was she screaming? I didn’t understand. Mark was laughing. Why was he laughing? I didn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t comprehend why she was so upset.
Once my mother concluded her screaming tantrum, she informed my father what happened, and hung up. My mom was really angry and was crying. I thought she was being really silly. What was the big deal? What was wrong with getting a haircut? My mom found Eli and yelled at him. She was screaming, crying, and told me that she didn’t know what to do with me. My mother’s reaction made me really upset. I was so excited and proud of my haircut—why wasn’t she. I felt bad for Eli. I had manipulated him into cutting my hair. Because of what he had done, my mother locked him between the apartment door and the outside door. I still feel guilty for getting him into trouble. It had been entirely my fault—but my mother wasn’t listening to our side of the story. And we were all too scared to speak.
My mother made an immediate call to her beauty salon and scheduled an emergency appointment. It turned out that Eli was not as skilled as the barber on Sesame Street. He had cut my hair unevenly; my mother says my hair looked awful. I had long hair, short hair, and many different layers in between. My mother was traumatized by it. Her first born girl had gotten her first haircut–it was my mom’s worst nightmare. For a few months, she refused to take a picture of me; my mom did not wish to keep any memory of the event. I wouldn’t get a haircut after that, for many years to come.
My mom’s memory of that time is still an emotional subject. But I see it differently. When thinking about the episode of my first haircut now, I laugh at what happened. I can remember exactly what I was thinking and how much this haircut meant to me. It sounds ridiculous, and perhaps I was an unusual child, but those thoughts really ran through my head.
Today, I see what I had done then differently, and can interpret my thoughts as a child along with my adult thoughts. The two coincide. At the age of four I was very restricted. I know that most young children are, and for reasons of their own protection, but all of my mother’s restrictions left with me without much to do. I had some time on my hands and decided that I wanted a haircut and was going to get it. As absurd as this may sound, that was the younger me, looking to break free, to inch out somewhat from my mother’s grasp, who wished to play a role in at least one of her own life’s decisions. I wanted so much to do something on my own, and was tired of never being allowed to fulfill my own desires.
I look back at that instance in time and feel a sense of pride. I know that the haircut hurt my mother and got my brother into trouble. The guilt for that still penetrates as well. However, that plot that I carried out, was merely the young me struggling to break out a bit. That four year old wanted to express herself, and she needed to do something that would make a statement, that would communicate to the authority, that she too had an impact on her life. She too, could make a decision. I was not to be pushed aside, my ideas were important; my wants were significant and I was to be taken seriously. My mother learned that the hard way. Instead of humoring me, and allowing me to get a small trim, she tossed my pleading aside, and ignored how significant this haircut was to me.
The struggle that I had with my mom continued for many years. It continues to this day. We still argue, and tug at each other. My mom still says that I will forever belong to her. I have come to accept it. I learned much from my very first defiance of her wishes, and that lesson resonates within me today, and is as follows. Myself and my mother are separate individuals (regardless of how she feels), though separate, what occurs to me affects her deeply. And therefore I must not do anything to any extreme that would flaunt my difference of opinion in her face. Flaunting that I did exactly the opposite of what she wanted hurt her then. I have tried and continue to attempt not to act as overtly defiant or selfish as I had when I was four.
I realized after the haircut that my mom’s restricting me was her way of looking out for me. My mother truly thought that short hair was unattractive on girls, and by not allowing me to cut my hair she initiated me acting out on my own. I was left with short “ugly” hair, a crying mother, a brother in trouble, a father who laughed at me–but who sided with my mother. My other three siblings (including the less than a year old baby) were displeased with me as well, because I had caused so much trouble. All in all, I would say that getting that haircut wasn’t worth it at all. I can see why I did it, and am deeply proud of my early stubbornness, though at the time I was in a real mess. It took me a long time to redeem myself at home. But the memory–being able to look at it in retrospect, and to understand the deeper meaning, makes all the trouble that I had gotten myself into back then worth it. At the age of four, I spoke up, acted as I wished and had been successful at it and that is what will always remain in my memory.
Linda Schwartz
