I’m so angry I can barely speak… Another sticky dilemma for the motherhood brains trust
My little boy is three and he has (sob, had) beautiful, curly blonde hair. It’s quite long. Not Tangled long, but long enough that some parents in the playground think he’s a girl unless he’s wearing lots of blue and is holding a truck.
My mother-in-law hates my son’s hair. Every time we see her (which is pretty often because she lives around the corner and looks after him two afternoons a week) she comments on it. “Oh look, it’s getting in his eyes”; “He must get so hot”; “I don’t want people thinking my grandson’s a girl,”and so on.
My little boy likes his hair, as far as three-year-old boys like anything to do with their appearance. At least it doesn’t bother him.
So when I went to pick him up from his granny’s on Wednesday and she had cut it short… Well, you can imagine.
Seeing my stunned face, my mother-in-law said, “It was a hot day, and I thought maybe you hadn’t had time to do it. I know how busy you are.”
I didn’t really say anything, I just got his stuff and left, because I really don’t think I could trust myself not to lose it. I cried in the car, and my son got upset that I was upset and said, “Don’t you like my new hair, mummy?” Of course, he still looks beautiful, but, but…
My husband really copped it when I got home and he’s not happy about it either, but he thinks I’m over-reacting. But now I don’t know what to do. I really can’t afford to get my mother in law offside, because I don’t want to start a family war and (perhaps) more importantly, I need her to look after my son on the afternoons I work.
Help! Do I confront my mother-in-law about how I really feel about this, or should I keep the peace and just hide the scissors?