The Haircut

When Elise was younger, strangers regularly referred to her as a him. At first it I wasn't too offended because we put her in a lot of gender neutral clothes and she was completely bald for a very long time and frankly all babies just kind of look like little gender-neutral aliens. Boy, girl - for babies, really it's all the same. But as she got older and more opinionated about her wardrobe (read:super girly) strangers would still say things like "Oh, he's so cute" even though she was wearing a dress. A pink dress at that! I don't know why it annoyed me so much, exactly. They are strangers and obviously they are completely unobservant. But it irked me, if for no other reason than Elise is such a girly girl and so identifies with being a girl (GirlPower!) that I felt like it was an insult to who she is. When she finally began growing some hair (around age 3) and I could put it in a ponytail, people stopped confusing her for a boy and the issue passed.

When Lucas was a baby, we naturally never had a gender-mix up issue because he was wearing gender-neutral clothes and was bald and alien looking which, as we just discussed, people apparently assume means boy. But a few months ago, out of the blue a stranger asked me "How old is she?" to which I replied "4" and the person gave me a very confused look. It took me a few minutes to realize she'd been asking how old Lucas was, not Elise. Why - on earth - someone would think that Lucas was a girl was beyond me. All boy clothes are dark, earth tones (blue, brown, green) with firetrucks or footballs or dinosaurs (which I hate by the way - why can't boys wear bright colors?! So lame!) so even if I'd wanted to put him in something a little less boy-looking, I couldn't (unless I put him in actual girl clothes). Plus, regardless of clothes, he looks like a boy. Just like Elise has always looked like a girl, regardless of hair length!

Anyway, I am not sure why it even mattered, but for some reason, again, it bothered me. Ever since that day at the playground, I found that almost every time we went out somewhere, a stranger mistook Lucas for a girl. This time it wasn't so much that Lucas identifies so strongly with being a boy (he says, "I'm not a boy, I'm Lucas!") but more that I think people are generally clueless and I find that annoying.

When the weather changed to be cooler and less humid, Luke's hair was less curly so it was lstarting to look a little scraggly. So, I decided to take him in for his first real haircut. The woman asked how I wanted it cut and I just looked at her helplessly - I have no idea about different styles of girls or boys hair - so she said "What do you think? Longer like it is or traditional boy?" That's when it all made sense to me. People had been assuming that Lucas was a girl because his hair is curly and because it wasn't buzzed super short. Not that it was even actually LONG - because it wasn't even on his neck - but still. I think that is what was happening. I did actually want his hair shorter, but this revelation was making me hesitate. I began the inner soulsearching of: do I want his hair to be shorter because I want it shorter or do I want it shorter because other people expect it, as a boy, to be short?

In the end, the hair-cutter was getting impatient with my indecision and so I went ahead and went with "traditional boy" short. I came to realize that while it does annoy me that people are stupid and for whatever reason can't realize what gender my children are - that is not why I was cutting his hair shorter.

The hair-cutter cut off his adorable red curls and knowingly put a handful of them in an envelope and handed it to me. I stood there gripping it, watching my little guy sitting patiently, getting his haircut, listening to directions, being such a big boy. Cutting his hair had nothing to do with gender-identity and everything to do with crossing that final line from baby to big boy. It was me - in some bizarre way - letting go of the baby and embracing the toddler in my boy.

And what a handsome big boy he is - no matter how long his hair.