Father Asks If He’s Wrong For Cutting Daughters Hair As Punishment

Parenting isn’t easy, and it can cause a lot of problems if you don’t do it right. That’s why there’s such pressure of parenthood, especially for fathers who are seen as the inferior parent socially speaking. You hear a lot about how bad single mothers have had it, but people tend to roll their eyes at how bad single fathers have it. This story is not about a single-parent household, but it’s still dividing the internet.

A father, who has long hair himself, chastised his daughter for months that she needed to start brushing her hair or at least attempt to, or he would cut her hair off. The child, being only seven, did not care about her hair of course, which made the father even angrier and it culminated into him cutting her hair off at the shoulders. His sister and his mother are upset, but his wife is in agreement with him.

#1 A father’s story about cutting the hair of his child

#2 Don’t understand what his height has to do with it

#3 Yet another argument

#4 Don’t think the warnings were the problem.

#5 An update!

#6 Well she did put zero effort into it.

#7 Of course it differs from child to child.

#8 At least he learned his lesson

#9 Thank God.

Redditors commented:

My mom did this to me, but not as dramatically. I had waist-length hair and I am especially tender-headed. So every morning and every evening lead to a complete meltdown from the time I was 2 until I was around 4. Mom warned me that if I couldn’t stop crying and screaming when she brushed my hair she would take me to get it cut, but of course nothing changed so she brought me to a salon to cut it and… I didn’t care one bit. It made me no difference whether it was short or long, but I was in a consistently better mood every day because I wasn’t starting the day off with pain in my scalp.

Maybe it would have been different if my mom had just gone and grabbed the scissors and hacked all my hair off. But I didn’t have a choice in the matter, and it was not a battle I cared to fight. Maybe her reaction is more of a response to the power struggle rather than the actual loss of her hair.

I am in the camp that it is totally reasonable to tell your child “you’re not ready for long hair because it takes a lot of care to keep it healthy. Let’s keep it short until you’re older.” But I am also more of a fan of having that conversation rather than just grabbing the scissors.

#10 Redditor fsr97 gave his thoughts.

#11 Rapunzel hair.

#12 An In-The-Moment decision can be dangerous

This. All of this.

The privilege of long hair was taking care of it. That included brushing it herself, which OP stated she wouldn’t even try to do part of, or letting him do it without problems. If she couldn’t handle that, she couldn’t handle long hair.

If you choose NOT to brush your hair, you choose for ME to do it. And maybe I don’t want to be screamed at every day when taking care of your hair. So maybe a short haircut is better for everyone all around.

I’m not going to coax and cajole someone into taking care of their hair. No one HAS to have long hair. It’s a privilege. And I have never cared about length. Long, short, dyed purple, shaved off. None of this matters to me. Take care of it, that’s all.

I agree with you that a conversation of “This is the last warning. Pick a short hairstyle, brush your own hair, and let me do the detangling without drama.” rather than just the hair being cut, though.