new thread
This was in today's paper:
BOY'S LONG HAIR MAKES HIM A TARGET OF RIDICULE
DEAR ABBY: Please help me deliver a message to a family here about their son, who is a fifth-grader in the school my children also attend.
These parents are well-known. They refuse to allow their son to get his hair cut, and it has caused him to withdraw from sports at school. He told some of his friends that he would like to get his hair cut because the other kids are calling him a girl. He just sits at home and plays games on TV. He's afraid to let his parents know about the teasing. Even some of the adults are afraid to talk to them.
I believe this to be a form of child abuse. The boy's parents read your column in the local paper. Please help him because the name-calling is bound to get worse as he gets older. -- ANOTHER PARENT IN TENNESSEE
DEAR PARENT: Surely these "well-known" parents love their son. Sometimes children are reluctant to confide to their parents that they're being teased because they are too ashamed. Because the boy is the target of ridicule, his teacher or the principal should have a talk with the mother or father. However, if they are too intimidated to raise the subject, then you should.
I was surprised that the parent's DIDN'T want to cut his hair, as is usually the case. I feel bad for the kid though. I'm also surprised that Abby really didn't confront the 'long hair' issue :/
For your information, when children are in elementary school, they are young and they have a similar tone of voice, regardless of gender. It is not until their teenage years that men's voice becomes deeper.
To my point of view, it is best to keep a child's hair short or medium-length (I have seen guys in elemtary school with medium-length hair) till the child enters high school. Then at that point, a parent can allow his or her child to grow out his hair.
In other words, once the parent's child have a deeper voice, then the parent should allow his/her child to grow out his hair.
I kind of find it weird that it made it into the newspaper, by the way.
Matthew
What is best is to let the boy choose his hairstyle. Of course, when they are very young they can't, but that doesn't mean that the default needs to be short hair. It's also true that very young children don't care what society's norms are. Adults will be the only ones who make comments or appear to be confused about gender at early ages, and the boy will just think they are stupid! And he would have a point, as you'd think that adults would be better able to discern a child's gender, but my experience has been to the contrary. Peer pressure comes later, perhaps at the age of the boy in the news item. I speak from experience as a parent.
We let our son's hair grow when he was small, and then when he was eight he wanted to cut it because of peer pressure, which we let him do after a suitable delay to make sure he wouldn't change his mind. Then, when he was twelve he wanted to let it grow again, and we had no problem with that either.
OTOH, in the news story, it seems that the boy had reached the age where peer pressure affected him, and his parents had him keep long hair when he didn't want to. Neither the letter writer nor Dear Abby seem to be quite on target, especially not the letter writer, as of course the ridicule doesn't just get worse with age, it's really just a phase kids go through, and of course fashions cycle every few years as well.
To me this reads as the boy is being force to grow his hair long as opposed to being forced to keep his hair short.
that would have been cool had I been able to have my hair like that at such a young age, but I guess at that age it is really hard to tell what gender the kid is really
I can relate to that.
My parents are hippie intellectuals, and I think that's pretty cool.
When I was younger...let's just say my clothes were kind of weird. I got bullied endlessly about it. I BEGGED my parents to buy me normal clothes, but they said that I was cooler than the other kids because I was different.
It sucks being left out and being called a nerd, dork, queer, etc... when you're a kid.
One day when I was about 12, my mom picked me up from school and heard several kids yelling insults at me. She finally realized how bad it was. They took me out that night and bought me "normal" kid clothes.
The kid's parents probably think they are doing him a favor.