Friday, December 28, 2012

Mom Hair

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We're supposed to be talking about the holidays, right? How lovely they were. How magical it is to see Christmas through the eyes of our children. How grateful we are for all the nice gifts we received and the time spent together. Yes, yes, and yes.

Phew. Now that we got that out of the way...let's move onto more important things. Like hair.

I distinctly remember being a young kid and thinking that some of my friends moms would look much prettier if their hair wan't so short. It wasn't anything against them. They were all wonderful. Baking cookies for us after school and shuttling us to and from soccer/the beach/everywhere. I just wondered why they chose to wear their hair in such a way that resembled a, um, mulletish type style or crew cut. You know what I mean...

Now, I get it. I really get it.

You see, all of these moms were busy. They were great moms. Which meant they were helping out at school, cooking, driving to and from each child's recital or game, and all the while holding down a house with 2-4 kids/dogs/and husbands. Wow.

I have fairly long hair. It's on the fine side. We live in an area where we walk everywhere daily. (Read: it's windy!) My child thinks it's pretty amusing to pull my hair occasionally. Do you see where I'm going with this?

This leaves me dreaming of short hair. Easy hair styles. I know...how momish of me. I never thought I would think of changing my hair just to make my life easier. I always thought women who used that excuse were just lazy. Not that I ever had any truly difficult to maintain hair styles. But I find that, these days, I'm just washing my hair and throwing it up in a top knot or a side braid every day.

My question is: Is it even worth it? Honestly, I hate wearing my hair lose/down, lately. For Christmas Eve, I blew out and curled it. Looked fabulous but took roughly 40 minutes. There's no way I'm even close to doing that every day. I've had short hair (chin length) before so I know it suits me and I like it enough. Now, it just gets tangled while I chase P in the playground, knotty in the wind, and yanked out on a daily basis. Ouch.

Have you ever considered cutting your hair because it's just another things to maintain everyday? Do your kids pull your hair? Do you think this is all ridiculous?

5 comments:

  1. I totally get this and when I was pregnant, I vowed not to cut off my hair... mostly because it had taken me *years* to grow it out after having short hair since I was ten! I had no idea my hair COULD grow past my shoulders, so once it did... I became very much attached to it.

    The only point where I almost chopped it all off was after I got a Mirena IUD and started shedding huge clumps of hair... again. AFTER all of the normal post-partum shedding. I went to a salon and got it "fixed" as best I could while keeping as much of the length as possible - I also ended up getting the IUD out for other reasons, and my hair started growing back immediately.

    Now I have waist-length hair that's usually up in a sock bun most days, but I do leave it down on occasion now that my son is no longer at an age where I'm holding him a lot. He's quite good about not yanking on my hair - he may grab it occasionally, but not often and he's decently gentle. The bigger problem for me is earrings, which I never bother to wear.

    Having nannied with short hair, I must say long hair has advantages. I can't imagine making enough time to go to a salon to get regular haircuts - which is absolutely required for short hair. My very, very fine hair is often really wispy and can stick straight out - fixing that kind of a bad hair day is a lot harder than having hair long enough to just pull back into a ponytail.

    Really for me, the big sacrifice was getting rid of jewelry. I've kept my hair really long because I'm stubborn and I'm very happy to have that part of my appearance/identity intact!

    (I obvs think a lot about my hair.)

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  2. About 5 months after my son was born I was at the point where you are now. I had long hair that I loved when there was time to fix it, but it wasn't practical for every day. I took the plunge and had 8 inches cut off. I was terrified that I'd end up with the "mom hair cut", but my stylist angled it from the back and turned it into a super cute bob. It's stylish and easy to manage. I'll slowly let it grow back, but it's exactly what I needed post baby.

    Go for it if you need a change! It will grow back. :)

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  3. I cut mine into a bob when my daughter was 2 and loved it. I missed my long hair of course, but it was so easy...

    Now my son is nearly 18 months, my long locks are back, and I'm thinking of cutting again. Lots of cute non "mom" short cuts out there now, easier to avoid the mullet or soccer mom bob...I have an appointment this weekend so we'll see!

    Being able to pull into a ponytail or bun is really helpful, but it seems that's the only way I wear my long hair lately so what's the point?

    Thinking of donating to locks of love, too...

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  4. I'm with you! Just trying to figure out a time to make it happen since my breastfed baby is not a fan of bottles, makes the timing a little tricky! :)

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  5. I know what you mean! With my son, almost five years ago, I had lush, beautiful, down-to-my-waist hair that I refused to cut. I thought, "This will be easy, just put it up in a pony tail or bun and good to go". While true to some extent, yeah, it wasn't really like that. Two months in and I was sitting at the shoppe's chair asking to cut it all off, I didn't care how short. Ended up with shoulder-length hair that was more manageable and actually nicer. Now with the baby, I knew what I was getting myself into--I was at the hair salon the day I went into labor. I'm due for my next trim next month, and I can't wait!

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