new thread
I'm 17 and have been growing my hair for about 3 years now. It is almost 15 inches long and looks SO cool. All the girls at scholl love it, but my parents have wanted me to get it cut for a long time. The deal was if I fall below a 90 average at school, I get it all cut off...and I did. So, now I have to get it all cut off. I am embarrassed to say that the thought of it makes me cry like a baby. Dad told me today is the day, or he will buzz it off himself. What do I do?
It is annoyingly that you have made such a deal. But this is not a natural law that has to be followed. The hair is a part of your body and your personality, there can not be made a request to cut it off without hurting your civil rights. Your father don't has the rigth to attack you physically, as he would do catching your hair. You have to look to find compromises, something that is unpleasant for you but will show your father that you will go "to the right way". I think to cut off all the hair is a too great emotional sacrifice that will make you too much unhappy. I know where I am speaking from. I can only appeal to your father to look for another reasonable solution that wouldn't castrate your emotionality. For me I can say I had trouble about my hair for many years and this has absorbed a lot of energy I could had better used for other things.
I think for young people one should have understanding for their faults, that helps more as restrictive behaviour. Hair has nothing to do with character or skills, but it gives emotional life for people who like it. At your age your are on the way to decide for yourself about your life. I think parents can only give hints and help. Maybe you can give this letter to your father to read, it comes from Munich, Germany.
wolfgang
What a dumb deal. What does your hair have to do with your grades?
But maybe you can make them a better deal, even now. Something like
spending additional time studying in exchange for letting you keep
your hair. I don't know whether you would like such a deal or
whether they would buy it, but at least it's something you would have
some control over. Then if you didn't get a 90 next time at least
you parents could see you made an extra effort.
Just don't do it. And learn how to threaten back! In many states, a physically forced haircut will qualify as child abuse, or at least as grounds for an investigation by child abuse authorities. Is your (control freak) father willing to face that?
Don't back down and don't cut any more deals. Child protective authorities have forced families to provide special diets for kids who have become vegetarians, etc. You're under 12 months from legal majority. You swing more weight than you think.
My own son turns 17 tomorrow. His grades are plenty high, and he hasn't cut his hair since he was 13. Does long hair effect his grades? I think it does. I think it helps. Why? It is an image thing. He looks and speaks like an intellectual, like a creature of the library, rather than of the football field.
Your father isn't demanding that you cut your hair so that your grades will improve. He probably realizes, on some level, that the haircut is likely to depress you and have the opposite effect on your grades.
He just wants to excercise control. It is hard to watch kids grow up and break away, physically and emotionally. I know, I've been through it three times as a dad, and of course, once as a kid.
You may win this one or lose it, but remember it for when you are a dad. Maybe your sons can grow up with a dad who hugs them, instead of with a dictator.
When I was 16 my father forced me to go and get my hair cut above the collar. My hair was to the middle of my back. To top it all off the lady that cut my hair cut it crooked in the back. When I turned 18, I got a descent job and started paying my father rent. He didn't bother me anymore about the hair or anything else. As long as your parents are putting a roof over your head and food on your plate, unfortunately you have to submit to them when it comes to hair.
This is not as far fetched as it sounds. It is not uncommon for longhaired adults to report that they have grown distant from, or no longer see, parents who got physical with them over haircuts. What I'm passing on to you here is not youthful speculation, it is "been there done that" advice for your father from men who are older than he is.
It is true. I lost my family feelings at a time where they destroyed my long hair dreams. And now they complain that I don't take much care of them. And grand children from me they will never see.
I'm not sure I agree with everyone else on this board.
Keep an open mind with your father. The way I see it, your father IS in a negotiating mood (although I doubt he'd admit it). If he created the 90% grade threshold it was his way (in his own head) to permit you to have long hair. Good grades gave him cover when he had to defend you to his short-hair ilk.
Here's a possibility:
Suggest that the deal was backwards. The current one punishes you and damages your relationship with your father when you get low grades. Suggest a way to reward good grades with long hair, and compromise. Agree to cut off a few inches (have someone else cut it) as a sort of penance (Dad will need to be able to claim some success, and he won't go away empty handed).
Keep talking with your father though. You can always grow your hair, but you can never replace your father.
And finally, for the sake of your own education, shape up and don't let you grades dip again!
A deals a deal. Cut it off.
Dennis,
I am sympathetic to your desire for long hair, as we all seem to be. However, I believe Andrew presents the best advice in response to your situation with your Father. Do sit down with your Father and engage him in a discussion about your desire for your hairstyle and length and autonomy. Meanwhile, validate your desire to achieve good grades, the importance of your education (TO YOU) and your committment to strive harder. At the end of your conversation I hope you both feel like you've "won". If the strife you are currently feeling is ONLY about hair, then work it out. Don't move out of the house or cut your Father out of your life or call the authorities - these suggestions are extreme, radical and do nothing but cause a life's worth of harm and hurt for lots of people.
your father just wants you to be like everybody else, that you are with the big commuinity, he doesn't wants you to be a stand out, ah man/boy with a mind one his own.
Ask your dad if everybody in the world was real fat, and you had a good body, if your dad wanted you to gain weight.
PS:my parents never were/are negative about my long hair, some kids my age were though
I hate to hear there are still dads like that out there. I went through it all with my dad 30 years ago. I gave in and cut my hair, but a couple of years later, I moved out and cut my parents out of my life. The hair thing may have started as a fashion thing, but after it became big deal, I suppose I became somewhat obsessed about it, because I never went to the barbershop again.
Print these replys out and show them to your dad, Dennis. At 17, your too old for such parenting schemes to be effective. You should know that getting good grades is for your future and not something you have to do to avoid having your choice of appearance imposed upon.
Gentlemen: Please, somebody get a grip here. A 90% average? Below that and you consider it bad grades? Someone is being incredibly unrealistic here. If you were failing, that might be a different story. Your father is looking for any excuse to make you cut your hair. The entire scenario is a bit much to believe.
I'm with the moderates on this one, Dennis. A deal is a deal and you do sacrifice some personal freedoms by living under your father's roof and/or accepting financial support from him. Also, I am not in favor of lifelong damage to an important relationship because of rigidity on either side. So, negotiate. As said, maybe a few inches cut off for another chance. Maybe a few inches cut off for another chance and a lowering of 90% to 85%. Respect the deal you entered into by recognizing it is ultimately your dad's decision now whether to modify the deal, and he may respect you enough to back down or modify the penalty.
Charlie
About three replies have misread what Dennis was trying to say.
He clarified in his latest post that there was no "deal" as in "agreement". He used the word "deal" to mean "situation", as in, "the situation was". And what the situation was was a one-sided threat. Such does not constitute an agreement. Agreements flow from negotiations between willing parties.
Longhairs can learn one thing from this confusion - that we should make it clear that we are not agreeing to any such one-sided "contracts" if they are proffered. To be most effective this should be done at the moment it is mentioned. Otherwise, an abuser can delude himself into feeling there was an agreement. Later, when the truth comes out that there was not, he may then in his mind position you as someone who is renigging. This enables him to feel he is in the right and justify to himself his being even more abusive.
i think the grades are the excuse the dad is using to cut his son's hair short. you are correct- it is poor parenting. it's most certainly not going to win the dad any respect- only resentment.