Yesterday my beautiful baby got her hair cut. It was our first “chop” (rather than “trim”) experience. She was SO excited and LOVED her new hair. 🙂
This morning I realized I had to send my sweet girl to school with her new haircut. If you’re wondering why I’m nervous, read my last post. It’s a scary world out there in Kindergartenland these days. However, to be fair, that post was a few months ago and we have not had a major incident since then. We are lucky that bullying or meanness hasn’t been a daily struggle, but rather a sporadic learning experience.
But still. I’m a mama. So I worry. A new haircut seemed like an invitation for people to comment. And life, two and a half pregnancies, and raising children have taught me that people don’t always think before they comment.
So as she crawled in bed with me for a few extra snuggles before we had to get ready for school, I wrestled with these feelings of worry. Do I just let her go and hope for the best? Do I have talk with her about it before it even happens in hopes of sending her a little more prepared? Or is is futile to pre-parent her through a situation that hasn’t even happened yet?
I never know the right answer.
So I chose to pre-prepare her for the worst, doing my best to stumble through a chat about how her new haircut is so cute that a lot of people will notice and our good friends will see how great you look and say nice things but sometimes, for whatever reason, people choose to say mean things. And that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with us or our hair. Their mean comments are about something going on with them, not us. So as her mommy, I just want her to be ok even if other people around her aren’t being ok.
And it all turned out ok. She came home still loving her haircut with no new traumatizing experiences.
It probably would have been ok even without me bringing it up. It probably would have been ok even if I didn’t bring it up and something DID happen. She’s tough. I know that.
And I know that I won’t be able to foresee every potential danger. I know I won’t be able to protect her every time. I know that.
But the truth is, it’s hard to send them out in the big scary world, especially when they are still so innocent and open-hearted.
But we do it anyway. We prepare them as best we can, for the little situations that then prepare them to be in the world. In that way, I suppose all parenting is pre-parenting.