My Daughter Got A Major Haircut--And *I'm* The One Who Freaked Out

Photos by Lydia Hudgens

Late last month, my daughter (who has always had long hair and hates getting even the teeniest trim) announced that she wanted to cut her hair to her shoulders--a major cut that would have taken off about four inches. "You know," I said, opening my big mouth. "If you cut it even shorter, you could donate it to an organization that makes wigs for kids who lost their hair because they were sick. You could help people by giving them your hair." She thought about this for about two seconds. "Yes," she said. "I want to do that."

For a week, I kept asking if she really wanted to do it to see if she had changed her mind, but she was adamant. She wanted the cut and she wanted to donate her hair. She also wanted it immediately, so that she would have the new cut for the first day of school. So I made her an appointment. 

And then I freaked out. 

I started panicking that she wasn't going to look like a little girl anymore--that a chic little bob was suddenly going to make my seven-year-old fast forward into a seventeen-year-old. Embarrassingly, I actually tried to talk her out of it. One night, we laid in her bed and I got teary-eyed as I begged her not to cut too much off. "Mommy, you thought I would chicken out about the haircut, but you're the one chickening out," she said. I was busted.

So, I sucked it up and the day before the first day of second grade, we headed into the Chris Chase salon in Chelsea for an appointment with Elle Kinney, a talented hairstylist who I've known for years. The three of us talked about how short we would go, then took out a tape measure to measure the required eight inches. We had jussst enough. Elle formed two ponytails, then I held my breath (my daughter never hesitated for a second--I was the only baby in the situation), and Elle snipped. 

My daughter looked into the mirror and smiled and laughed; she loved it immediately. After a shampoo (which she adored), Elle cut and shaped it some more, then blow-dried it into the supercute bob you see here. My daughter loved it. I loved it.

We'll be donating the hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths, a great organization that provides wigs to women going through cancer. We hope that it brings a little bit of happiness to someone going through a very challenging time. I'm so proud of my daughter for what she did and for being brave in the situation, even when I wasn't. 

Oh and that thing I had been so scared about? That my kid was going to emerge from the scissors and the blowdryer looking like a teenager? Didn't happen. Not only does she still look like my little girl, but somehow, she looks even more adorable, and maybe even (shhh!) a little younger. Hey, I'll take it.