A lesson learned

The lesson is: Never EVER, no matter what you previously thought, leave a small child alone with a pair of scissors.
This is what greeted me when I came downstairs this morning.

Tyran had decided, after spending a long time last night doing some really lovely craft work, to use his scissors for the purpose of a makeover. He stood over the bin, foot on the pedal, and lopped off all of his beautiful hair, front, back and sides. It's so short in some places that even a number 4 comb on the clippers hasn't evened it out. I refuse, on principle, to cut it any shorter.

Why did he do it? Well there is the million dollar question. Apparently his hair was annoying him and getting in his eyes. I mentioned this to him the other day and suggested a trip to the hairdressers. He insisted he wants it really long. I pushed the point, he kept insisting. Further investigation uncovered the horrible truth - Tyran would like to fit in with a group of boys from whom I'd like to keep him apart forever. One child in particular seems to have captured his attention. This child is rude. He's bad mannered. He's aggressive and badly behaved. He's disruptive in the classroom. His social skills are a product of his background, one with which we have nothing in common. In a nutshell, he's not the type of child with whom I'd want to encourage a friendship. He's a yob in the making. So why does my child want to be his friend so badly? Tyran would like hair like this child. He'd like to be as much like this child as possible in the hope that he'll win his friendship, that he'll impress him. He's everything Tyran is not as far as I can see. So why the attraction?

Answers on a postcard please.

Anyway, I'm not prepared to follow the advice most people are dishing out to cut it short. I will not use a number 2 or 3 on those clippers to even it out. It looks raggedy and rough and choppy. It looks like a DIY haircut. But let's face it, that's exactly what it is. It'll grow out enough in about 6 weeks to be able to do something decent with it I hope, at which stage we'll go to Tyran's usual hairdresser and cross our fingers that he'll understand my distress. He's usually brilliant.

It's taking a lot of getting used to. Tyran himself, keeps running his hand over his head, pulling at the hair and feeling the back of his neck. hayley struggled to keep track of him at soft play and kept asking me for help to find him. Tyran is suffering from scissor happy remorse. He'd like it long again. I'd love to just brush this all off as a lesson learned, but I'm still too upset about it. Many, many tears were shed, rightly or wrongly. It was the shock of seeing all that beautiful hair gone, and later realising that despite my best efforts, I appear to be raising a sheep. I was assured by many people that the values Tyran has learned at home will help him realise at school that the kids who initially seem interesting and exciting may not be the ones he wants to hang out with. It appears those people were wrong.

Perhaps it's just a blip. Perhaps we all need to go through this for Tyran to realise that being Tyran is better than trying to fit in with a group of kids with whom he has nothing in common beyond being human and attending the same school. here's hoping.

In the meantime, if one more person says to me, at least it wasn't Hayley who did it, at least he's a boy and can get away with short hair, I may well be charged with manslaughter. It makes no difference to me which child it was. There is nothing wrong with short hair on a girl if she chooses it. There's nothing wrong with long hair on a boy if he chooses it. There is a lot wrong with being forced into gender stereotypes when it comes to something as silly as the length of your hair. I'm mourning something that was so Tyran and so beautiful. Because let's face it, he has really gorgeous hair that some people would pay a lot of money for.

He's still very beautiful and his rough, choppy hair does suit his little elfin features. I'll get used to it eventually.