Letting Your 6-Year-Old Daughter Shave Her Head Is A Great Idea

I’m not being snarky with that headline. An Ohio mom is getting some flack for allowing her 6-year-old daughter to shave her head, but I think she deserves a round of applause.

According to ABC News, Paige Lucas-Stannard, the writer behind the blog Baby Dust Diaries, said her daughter Aellyn had been begging to shave her head like her father, Pete, who she had watched shave his own head every month. Lucas-Stannard said she let the matter drift off at first in the hopes that Aellyn would forget about it, but the kid was persistent.

”I thought maybe she might forget about it but the next day she definitely didn’t forget about it,” Lucas-Stannard said. ”She still wanted it. She was really excited.”

Aellyn wanted her hair short, so Lucas-Stannard conceded. Aellyn’s father did the shaving for her, just the way he does his own. Well, first he shaved her hair into a Mohawk, because if you’re shaving your head, of course you should try a Mohawk for a moment. Then he took that off too and she was left with a trim little buzz cut. Aellyn looks adorable with her buzz cut, and it is probably very easy to take care of and comfortable for summer. Also she loves it, and that’s all that matters.

Sure, some people are probably bothered by the idea of a girl with short hair, because that is unfortunately the world we live in. But it wouldn’t be weird for a boy to have that haircut, and it would be wrong to refuse her request on the grounds that it would bother other people. That would be a really good way to teach a kid that her body and her appearance are primarily for the consumption of other people, but they’re not. They belong to Aellyn.

Besides, hair grows.