Pamela Ritter's "Yielding Scissors"

I gave my first haircut to myself when I was three. I remember noticing that my paper dolls’ hair seemed remarkably one-dimensional. In a gesture I always felt was overlooked for its resourceful merits, I decided to share some of my hair by cutting it off and gluing it onto the paper doll heads. I wanted the dolls to have long hair, and sacrificed quite a bit of my own. When I went in the kitchen to get some glue, Grandpa, who had been entertaining himself with his whiskey, shifted his focus to me. He started laughing, swung me up to his shoulders and paraded me into my grandma’s room at the end of the house. Both my mother and grandmother where aghast.

At four, I had cut the hair off my first Barbie doll. My mother, a doll collector, was devastated. My next Barbie had painted on hair and three wigs.

In an effort to provide me with more versatility, my mom bought a Chrissy doll when I was about six. She came with long, auburn hair that would roll up into her head like a rolling window shade if you pushed a button on her back. I resisted cutting her hair for a long time.

For my eighth birthday, I received one of those doll heads attached to a tray with hairbrushes and curlers. I noticed there were no scissors.

These experiences diminished my self-perception of being a capable hair cutter and soured me on dolls in general. For the remainder of my public school years, I became conservative and cautious with my own haircuts. I ceased all attempts to cut my own hair. However, I developed a formula of directives for my hairdresser, “A bi-cut please, just above the shoulders. Blunt, no layers. Cut the bangs so they touch my eyebrows and curve at the edges to the tips of my ears.” I may not have been cutting, but I believed I was in control of the outcome. Maybe those thwarted attempts at self expression when I was young contributed toward my impulse for control. One time I sat with my eyebrows raised to the middle of my forehead. I remember this haircut particularly, because it is memorialized in the school photos for my freshman year at high school. The next time I was at the hairdresser, I made sure my expression was very relaxed.

When I went to college, I became the dorm hair cutter, perhaps because I had a steady hand, and could cut a straight line. I did many free trims, and despite the fact that my trims usually were very simple, I reacquired the perception that I had skill in hair design.

Upon my return home after my first year of college, I was confident that I was the solution to my only brother’s hair problem. He was twelve at the time, and in a stand of adolescent rebellion was refusing to let my Dad use his electric shears to do his traditional cut. Garrett wanted just a trim. “Garrett,” I said convincingly. “I’ve been trimming my friends’ hair all year. I have lots of practice. I can do it for you.” Poor Garrett. His hair ended up looking remarkable similar to the cut I did to myself when I was three. Each time I cut on one side, I had to balance out the other … Garrett wore a ski cap for weeks that summer and didn’t trust me for years.

Motherhood added a new dimension to my hair experiences. Many mothers I’ve spoken to agree it can be difficult to cut the hair of young children, for both the mother and the child. My two year-old, Hawken, agreed. Indeed, when I took him to have his hair cut, he reacted with such a high level of pained resistance that we started to call him Sampson. Humbled by the dramatics at my hairdresser’s, I began cutting his hair at home—very, very carefully. I was conservative—a bowl cut, smooth on top, so silky and fine. At four, he informed me that he wanted to go get his hair cut at the place where his friend Ryan went—a barber. With a sense of relief and trepidation, I said, “Sure!”

Since then, I’ve struggled to learn “barber talk.” I took my little guy in with the intention of receiving a “trim”. I liked the bowl cut style. I asked the barber to trim the back, but to keep the top evenly long—a bowl cut. “So, you want a little boy cut?” the barber said.

"If that’s what I described, yes.” I replied uncertainly. What we got horrified me. My baby’s beautiful, silky hair was shorn—short, all over, layered and coarse looking. My boy was delighted.

Six months later, we were ready to try again. I had restored the bowl cut, but Hawken wanted the barber. I went to a different shop. This time I tried a new method of inquiry, “What do you call a bowl cut that is short on the sides and in the back?”

“A little boy cut,” the barber answered.

“Well, then, that’s what we want, but I really want the top to be all one length.”

"No problem."

The cut is a disappointing version of the first shearing. Again, Hawken is delighted.

I am proud to say that I did not reveal my personal opinion to my happy boy. In fact, the next time we went in, I just said, “He would like a little boy cut.”