Mother shaves her 6-year-old daughter's head - for good reason

2015

Why should girls not be bald?

No, little 6-year-old Aellyn has no cancer and no lice. And yet she asked her mother to shave her head - and for good reason.

As reported by Paige, Aellyn's mother, on her blog, her daughter sees her father shaving his head every month. One day he also shaved his son Boston, Aellyn's brother.

Of course, the little Aellyn also wanted to have his head shaved. But her father told her to ask her mother first.

How would you react?

Aellyn's mother, Paige, who herself is the author of education counselors, reacted very loosely at first. She said "Sure, we can do that", but still waiting, whether the desire of her daughter still exists or was just a fixed idea.

But Aellyn did not stop for days to talk about shaving her head. Paige told her daughter that there were people who believed that girls should not have shaved heads. Aellyn's answer was clear: "Never, girls can wear their hair as they wish!"

Paige said humans could be mean to Aellyn or call them a boy. But the little girl insisted bravely: "Then I'll just tell you that I'm a girl."

Paige makes it clear on her blog that she never raised her children in stereotypical boy or girl roles. She warned her daughter mainly about other people and their possible reactions to a shaven-headed girl.

But she also admits that she really wanted to stop her daughter, also of her own volition. That she liked her daughter's hair so well ... but then she thought she could not do that.

If she had told her daughter that her hair is beautiful and that she should not shave it off, she would have told her that her daughter's looks are important to Paige and that she would only exist to please others. That the opinion of others matters more than their inner voice, their sense of adventure and their self-esteem. That their decisions should be made dependent on external "rules" and not on their own sense of what is good or bad for them.

So the hair was shaved off the same evening:

Aellyn decided she wanted to shave off her hair for the summer.
Posted by Peter Stannard III on Sunday, April 26, 2015

Paige writes in her blog how impressed she was, how relaxed, almost indifferent, how her daughter handles the loss of her hair.

And in the end, she has to admit herself: "[Aellyn] looks pretty with her shaved head, not only beautiful in appearance (although of course she is [...]), but also beautiful in all her pure way. She knows who she is even without the rules, expectations and concerns that most of us carry around. "