“Pick your Battles,” is a common phrase many live by to keep the peace in their relationships. I've tried to uphold this motto at home by not making a mountain out of a mole hill for things like spilled milk, broken items, or lost shoes and jackets. I will, however, rattle my kids nerves if they don't watch their manners and get good grades.
But, I think I may have a standoff ahead of me.
My very fashion-forward daughter started blogging as a 13 year old and has been carefully cultivating her unique fashion blog, CrumpetsandT, to an almost hand-picked audience. On her initial search for inspiration she came across www.StyleRookie.com, a blog created by a then 11 year old sporting colored hair streaks as her signature look.
Although generally conservative in her appearance, my stylish young blogger decided to jump on the hair-color bandwagon and added a streak of blue hair resembling the look of this young and popular fashion blogger.
Okay, so no big deal, right?
Well, not exactly.
She had asked for my OPINION about doing such a thing and I reminded her it would hinder her donation to Locks of Love (she's been growing her hair to do this since 5th grade). I also told her I didn't think it was a good idea to do it now — maybe during the summer.
Of course, a day later she and I had a discussion about another issue where she was very upset, and decided to take advantage of her dad being her buddy on this one.
Our teen did the deed while we were both out and called her father to ask him for permission. The big deal to me is that my clever girl didn't clearly ask for permission, she instead asked her father and told him, “Mom said it was OK.”
I noticed the hue in her hair a day later when she confidently pointed it out in a public place where she knew I would not over react. When I asked my husband what was up with that he simply said, “We'd talked about this before, remember? As long as it's nothing permanent we'd let them experiment.”
“She's keeping her end of the contract; she has good grades, is committed to her sport, does her community service and is active in church and her youth group. What more do you want from her?” he concluded.
I'm not entirely sure I'd go along with this 'agreement' today. First, I do think people judge by appearances. Second, will this lead to other experimentation?
I'm at a crossroads today and wondering if I should call in the cavalry, or wait for a bigger confrontation to arrive to declare war.
Should I relax or reach for the ammunition?
I'm leaning towards the later.
A very clever friend and mother suggested my artillery should be a box of hair color for myself.
Blue, in fact, so we match!!
What do you think?
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Yeesh, being a parent sounds hard. On one hand, I believe that experimenting almost always leads to bigger things. I've seen so many people go from one little streak of hair dye to one little piercing, one little tattoo, and so forth. On the other hand, your daughter is a great girl who seems to have her priorities straight and wouldn't do anything outrageous. I'd take issue not with the hair dye itself (it IS a small thing), but with how she went about it.
Oh man, I'm not sure what to say about this one. I am very nervous about entering the teen years with my girls. If they are anything like me we are all in trouble. 🙂
oh dear, I went though this road and i took a much different approach than I wanted too, but mommy anger got the best of me, lol.
I took my 15 y.o son to the beauty supply store and bought a box of blue hair dye, told him if he wanted color in his hair he had to do all of it, or none of it, lol!
good thing he went with none!!!
Your daughter is gorgeous and obviously has her morals and rules in order, other than going on daddy's side against mommy, lol. I would say let her have the streak, as long as she does not want the entire head blue, you are just having a “teen kid” moment 😉
Oh my gosh, I'm having an anxiety attack just reading this post! I've got two young daughters and I'm dreading the tween/teen years already.
Ultimately, I think it's a personal decision. One that works for you and your family. I can remember when I came to my parents begging to put “Sun In” (ugg, I'm aging myself) in my black hair! They said “No way, no how – not under our roof!” I was furious but did not rebel. However, my freshman year of college I did pay to get my entire head of hair colored an obnoxious red/brown color. I thought I was sooo cool – a few months later I realized I looked ridiculous.
I think there's a fine line of allowing your child to explore and experiment – I think it depends on your comfort zone. Personally, I've come to the conclusion early on I have no comfort zone!
This is what you have to look forward when you have kids!
Mama Mary!
Since you have all that 'experience' then they won't be able to pull a stunt like this one (I hope).
Love ya!
After the inital shock, I've managed to calm down, too. I really liked the idea of coloring a streak in my hair to match her, though. I'm sure she would have had a fit.
Me too! I have no comfort zone, gray area or open mind about certain things. Guess that'll teach me to judge others as well since now my own daughter is noticing the looks.
Like you, I hope she might realize this wasn't such a good idea in a few days, weeks, months…?
I'm impressed at your daughter for being so independent. Now blue hair isn't my thing, but what can you do? One of the 12-year-olds in my youth group recently dyed her hair pink — and I tried not to freak out over it or endorse it, because I think she did it for the attention. Of course, I'm not the mama and mama has to have different rules than the youth leader