Ben has always had abundant hair. When he was very little he had curly, light hair which his neurologist said reminded him of Harry Styles and when he was one it needed to be trimmed. He had that typical baby thing of very little hair in some areas and way too much in others. The curls were cute but the comb-over + mullet combination was disconcerting.
I did what I had seen other people do and booked a haircut at a hairdressers that did special first haircuts. My mother in law joined me as we tried to entertain Ben while I did my best to hold him upright on my lap. His head was wobbly and I attempted to hold as far up his body as I could without getting in the way of the scissors. Sometimes I held the front of his head while she trimmed the back, or one side while she did the other. It was difficult and the hairdresser was perturbed by the wobbliness of it all, the difficulty of doing what she needed to do as quickly as she wanted to do it. We left with a shorn child, a certificate and a lock of hair. It wasn’t the landmark childhood moment I had hoped. It was an anti-climax – I’d expected to feel like despite his challenges, Ben had taken part in a rite of passage. A First Haircut, with documentation to prove it. Actually I felt like I’d wasted money on a stressful half hour where we had inconvenienced the hairdresser.
As Ben got older his hair grew straighter, longer and it got matted at the back where he lay down so much, rubbing his head from side to side since he couldn’t roll himself. He had an amazing side parting and swoosh of hair to the side, but it was annoying when it flopped into his eyes. A family friend who was a hairdresser offered to trim it at my mum’s house. As Ben sat in his highchair there, bolstered with rolled up towels and distracted by Cbeebies on an iPad, she worked her way around his head taking her time and letting his head loll when it needed to.
This was a good arrangement for us all and over the following years our friend would visit us at my mum’s or at our house regularly, taming Ben’s hair in exchange for cups of tea. As he got older his hairline established itself and it became clear that he was made for the sideburn like a very small, belated member of Supergrass. His hair grew quickly towards his face, and for a boy that is predisposed to being hot and whose body is in a constant state of wiggle, a helmet of hair didn’t help him cool down. Within a few months of a cut the hair would be back, in all its density and effortless perfection, or tousled imperfection.
When he was five Ben had an operation on his brain which meant his head needed to be shaved. In the pre-op consultations the surgeon had said they would do this in the operating theatre, but that we might prefer to do it ourselves first – partly to minimise the shock at seeing Ben freshly shaved post-op, and partly because the team were experts in neurosurgery but not hairdressing.
Our family friend visited us at home the day before the operation and cut James’s hair first while Ben watched TV next to them. When it was Ben’s turn we put an iPad on the dining table near the open doors to the garden. It was midsummer and there was washing drying in the sun as our friend put down her scissors and picked up her clippers. She started at the nape of his neck as she worked up and over the crown of his head, removing all of the glorious hair that had been his calling card since he was born. The surgery was too big and intimidating an event to really grab hold of, but sweeping all of his hair up from the floor felt dramatic and like we were unmooring ourselves from what we knew, taking terrific risks.
Ben’s head wasn’t clean shaven – there remained a downy stubble of hair which was satisfying to ruffle and with one front tooth missing he looked entirely different and incredibly cute. Having been born with very little hair, Max was now three and had more gradually grown a similar mop to Ben’s though darker brown. But now Ben’s had disappeared and the brothers that had looked so similar looked completely different. Max looked even more dark, relaxed, undisturbed in comparison.
Ben had bandage wrapped around his head for the week following surgery, the kind of bandage that cartoon characters have after running into a wall. When this came off we could see the patches where they had shaved the hair completely and stitched up incisions. Over the following months more of Ben’s teeth fell out and his hair slowly grew back but the texture and character was different. Even when the ridge of the scar was hidden, the hair around it was disturbed and you could see a ripple. The hair on the top no longer casually flopped to the side, it had vigour and grew up and out. After a night of Ben lying on his back, his hair would sit straight up like the frill of a triceratops and resist all efforts to be flattened. He didn’t need a haircut for a while but I watched the volume rise and the sideburns return, slightly darker, courser. When it came time for a haircut his hairdresser would not only need to contend with Ben’s near constant movement but now also the scars on his scalp. I was delighted to have his full head of hair back, but wondered how long we could manage it being cut. He hated being held still but it’s risky to have a pair of sharp scissors next to an unpredictable head. I wondered if the close crop would need to become more frequent.
It came time to find a new hairdresser and through a friend whose daughter also found it hard to keep still we found C. She also visited us at home and we would set Ben up at the dining table with a programme to watch and the headrest of his chair removed behind. C is fast and she found a way to dance her scissors around the ever moving target. Her speed meant there wasn’t time for Ben to get too frustrated or annoyed. I clamped his head still for the short buzz of clippers around his ears, but otherwise he wobbled and she coped.
When C visited this weekend she reigned in Ben’s sideburns and commented on how his hair has changed. Four years after the shaved head, the contours of the scars are invisible beneath his thick hair and the dinosaur frill is less pronounced. Some of the floppiness has returned. I trust C’s skill with her scissors and I paid little attention, chatting and making tea because I don’t need to be right there holding his head.
Then it was Molly’s turn to watch her programme and get her hair dramatically chopped after she requested hair more like her brothers. She no longer wanted the soft, light, long curls that she’s had for the last few years and which I later swept into the bin. She now has darker, shorter hair. Not exactly like her brothers, because in the same sentence as asking for short hair she said she also wanted to look like Elsa so I was worried she didn’t understand the long term implications of a hair cut, but closer.
I’m disconcerted by her new bob – she looks older and I have to admit she is no longer a baby – but she just wanted less hair. It’s not the precursor to surgery, it won’t take four years to recover, she just wants hair a bit more like Ben. It’ll grow back.
Son Stories by Jessica Moxham 