Cutting hair

When I was a kid, our mom used to cut our hair.  My sisters and I were not fond of hair-cutting fests.  There was that one night before school pictures, when my mom decided tonight was the night.  Every time she took another swipe at my bangs, she decided they were uneven in another direction; she zig-zagged her way up my bangs until they were 1/2" long on one side and 3/4" on the other.   Somehow I escaped her grasp at that point, but the photos from my 7th grade year continue to haunt me.

A friend of the family rescued me in later years, whisking me away from my mom and taking me to a professional hair cutter.  Getting my hair done by someone who knew what she was doing meant a lot to me.

So it's with considerable caution that I admit that I've taken over my mom's tradition of cutting family hair.  In fact, I only mention home haircutting now because my daughter, returned home briefly for Thanksgiving, asked me to cut her hair and said I should write about it.  Full disclosure:  I didn't touch her bangs.

I've learned as I got older that it's not always as hard as my mom made it look.  Boys are easy, thanks to clippers (except when they ask for dragons and checker boards--then boys aren't so easy).  About a dozen years ago, I got a pair of clippers for about $7; they've paid for themselves many times over.

But girls need scissors, and I remember scissors as an evil to be endured. When my daughter was in high school, I offered her $20 to perm my hair, and she learned as she went along.  She got really good at it!  Since a perm at the nearby hair salon could easily run me $100, I figured paying my daughter was a bargain.  We've cut each other's hair over the years.  When she went to college, I lost my favorite hair stylist . . . at least until my friend TL came along.

But that's a story for another time.