I Couldn’t Let My Daughter Get Bangs
My mother’s death continually creeps into my everyday life, and leaves me feeling unsettled by even the most minor changes
We’d been talking about this day for over a year: my eight-year-old wanted a modified ‘70s shag with peek-a-boo bangs.
“Curtain bangs look so cool!” she had announced over breakfast waffles. “I just really, really want them, Mom.”
“I love that idea, sweetie!” I said. In my head, I was in. I’m cool, I thought. But I’m not.
I’m an angsty mess in a hair salon with my own curly hair issues. In 1986 my overwhelmed mother cut all three of her daughters’ thick hair, saying we’d look “stylish” and “sharp.” I looked like Ralph Macchio. In seventh grade, I grew my hair long in response to years of short hair.
There is an acute pain in watching my daughter get her hair cut. I wondered if this was about me or her, or both. My mother’s death twenty years earlier from a brain aneurysm continually creeps into my everyday life, and leaves me feeling unsettled by even the most minor changes.
I really was excited about my daughter’s hair decision. She knew what she wanted, and I try to love what she loves: Minecraft, The Descendants, fairy gardens. I wanted to support her. But I did what I always do when a big change is at hand: I got scared. And I lied.
I dashed her hopes by telling her we couldn’t do curtain bangs this time. I used the excuse of a new hairstylist to say we’d do it next time. All bullshit excuses that basically said: this part of parenting is hard for me. She was upset; I was embarrassed for sabotaging her idea. We agreed instead to cut off several inches.
In the salon, the scissors squeaking across the bottom of my daughter’s hair guts me. When the stylist snips the sides and pulls the wet hair down, my daughter’s ears sticking out, I begin to squirm in my seat.
I am thrown back to the early days of motherhood, when I was in my element, a certain anxiety soothed by making sure my baby was taken care of: pediatrician appointments, a regular nap schedule, baths. It was a long and loving list, one I could successfully complete.
Then she got older. Parenting a bigger kid is both fun and terrifying. Sometimes I have no idea how much freedom to grant, and I second-guess everything I say. She continues to change, and I see her moving further away. The ground feels slippery beneath me.
Watching her grow, in all of her glory, can be excruciating. It’s been the hardest lesson after losing my mother: learning to release what I’m desperately clinging to. I see my harmful attachments and try to unfurl — for everyone’s sake. So everyone can breathe. Marking these motherhood moments so casually, without ceremony, is an unfortunate reality.
Today, with long legs that almost touch the bottom bar of the chair, my daughter knows what looks good, what she likes. She’s beginning to know who she is. She’s never afraid; I always am.
“What do you think, mama?” The stylist turns to me, her fingers still working on the ends. Moving, shaping.
“Looks great!” I say, too loudly. In the same breath I blurt out, “I don’t think we need to cut anymore.” I am trying not to explode from the shock of eight inches lopped off, the mix of excitement and sadness watching her become herself.
It seemed strange for her to be in someone else’s hands during such a major change. Perhaps that’s why I want to grab the scissors and give her a trim. Something soft and smooth. Something to ease this, and all, transitions.
The stylist leans over my daughter’s shoulders and unbuttons the cape, swinging it off and pressing down the chair pump, shooting my daughter back down to the floor. To me.
“It looks so good!” I exclaim, my eyes scanning her face, leaving room for her to react if too much hair has been chopped.
“I love it,” she says, smiling, angling her head, admiring her new ‘do in the mirror.
This moment, this brand-new cut, is an ending and a beginning. Thankfully curtain bangs are still trending, and I have a while before she wants highlights in her hair. I look forward to sitting in the salon and enjoying that.
Natalie Serianni is a Seattle-based writer, instructor, and mother of two. Her work has been featured in parenting magazines, literary journals, and lifestyle blogs. She’s at work on a memoir about grief, motherhood, and learning to let go of our mothers while seeing them in everything. Connect with her on Instagram, Twitter, and her website.
This essay is part of our Moms Don’t Have Time to Grieve column.
