My Kids are Hippies

My kids are hippies. They are free and fun and feel comfortable in the dirt. They love nature, they have sympathy for animals. They feel protective of Mother Earth. They cry about poverty and injustice.

All of that is true. But, I must say there's a bit of a rigidity in there somewhere. They're not completely live-and-let-live, as much as we try to instill that very loving virtue in them. Frankly, they're kind of uptight about MY HAIR!

I have almost always had long hair, because I'm a bit of hippie myself. It kind of went along with the territory. If you can imagine a tall, angry, long haired teenage girl who wore embroidered gauze shirts while Reagan was in office, you pretty much have an accurate image of me in the 80's. How fun was that? I knew the Brazilian rain forest was being cut down to make room for cattle grazing so people could have their Big Macs, but my peers didn't seem to be too interested in that. Huh. Go figure...

My husband wore an army jacket and also had long hair, because he was cool like that.

When my kids were babies, I either had my hair up in a twist with hair sticks or clips, or up in a pony tail. If I had it down, it got in the way of our marathon nursing sessions. Did you know that an infant can nurse for 45 minutes, take a 10 minute break and then want to nurse again? No? Well, they can. Any way, mine did. I was of the belief that what a baby wants is what they need. They don't know about manipulation or the idea that they should be more independent. Who thinks like that any way? Shouldn't a baby be dependent and feel that constancy and trust so that they can become independent when they feel ready? Isn't that the path to independence? I thought so. If they wanted to nurse, they needed to nurse. If they wanted to be held, they needed to be held. Case closed.

My kids were used to my hair being up. My son particularly would get upset if it was down. A little bit uptight there, I think. A little bit possessive and territorial about what is after all my hair. I know he just was in love with his mommy. Mommy looks like that, that and that. But, not like that.

I don't want to have long hair. I grew it out for a couple of years to give to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program that collects donated hair and turns it into wigs for women undergoing chemotherapy. I felt good doing that. It was easy and then I got a cute haircut. I haven't been back for a haircut since and the kids were thankful that my hair was growing back out. Lately, I've been talking about getting a haircut again.

My kids are not having it! "NO!! Don't cut your hair!" "NO--Mom, you can't cut your hair!!" they both wail. My husband gets in on it too. "I don't think you should cut your hair." But, he says that calmly, even if he's also wailing inside.

Hippies, the lot of them.