DH and I have a disagreement with regards to our ds12's hair, specifically the LENGTH.

His position: He wants it to be cut short, does not believe that a 12yo should be allowed to wear his hair as long as he wants to. He thinks we should be grooming him for future grooming for the workplace.

My position: DS is of the age to make some of these decisions on his own. There are no school rules re: hair length on boys. As long as he washes it, I'm fine with how he wears it. He's a skater and a rockin' guitar player, and I see the long-hair deal as part of his developing identity. He's a good boy, very smart, I think he's earned the right to start deciding some things for himself, especially something as personal and identifying as hairstyle.

Tonight I took DS to have his hair cut, by my stylist, because I wanted him to get a good cut while still keeping the length he's waited for. She cut about an inch off, now his hair is about an inch and a half below the ears. I don't think that's crazy long, lol.

So DH has asked me to get ya'll's opinions. Should the kid be allowed to grow his hair as long as he wants?

BTW...how would we POJA stuff like this? ds12 is a step-son to my H, and I know I took over on this, POJA-ing with DS instead, but we have three more kids together...I guess I'm looking for the age when the Discussed Child has a say and a position in the POJA...or a maturity level...or at all, when it comes to them as minors.

My H is pretty set on making all decisions until they're 18. :0

With teenagers (and he's basically one or will be soon), you have to choose your battles and assume that the rest of the lessons he is picking up from you through osmosis. By that I mean that he hears you two discussing issues, and he is picking up those views of yours as his own. If he hears DH saying 'when people reach the age of getting a job, they have to dress accordingly,' your son will pick that up as his own view, and will dress accordingly when the time comes for him to get a job.

But if you sit him down right now and say 'you cannot have long hair because I don't like it' he will fight you on it and find other things to rebel about as well.

Let him have whatever hair he needs to fit his own self-image. It is one of the only things young adults can have control over that helps them develop their place in the world.

And I promise you, 99% of all the kids who have long or weird hair in school will outgrow it by the time they get out of college. But in the meantime, they respect YOU for respecting THEM. Win/win.

Thanks, cat. That's what I've been trying to tell H, that it's not a 'battle worthy' topic. We'll have plenty of those later.

CWMI, I think this is State of Conflict stuff, that will melt away when you all get to State of Intimacy again.
Has your H gotten a chance to explain to DS12 without judgement his hopes and dreams for his future, that starts with a nice haircut? Has your DS12 gotten a chance to explain to your H without judgement what he lies about long hair, and how he plans to keep it well-groomed?

We went through a similar thing with my sister. She's 18 now, so she takes good care of her hair now. She's biracial, and always had long hair, but it was a ton of work when she was younger for my mom and I keep it nice. She was supposed to condition it daily. At times we had to take her to the salon against her better judgement so they could explain why the only thing she could do was cut it, because it was so broken and damaged from being poorly taken care of. At that point, not cutting it just led to worse damage.

this seems liks a real "pick you battles" kind of situation
when we come across simple issues like this with my daughter (granted she's only 5) we take a different approach, if I think it's going to be ok to let her have her way, I'll first say no, and tell her why I don't like it, then we'll mull over it and in the course of a day or two, we say, ok you can have this one. It goes along way to creating a good bond and mutual respect, then when something of larger importance comes along, she doesn't feel so bad if she doesn't get her way, because she knows she can win some battles

personally, it's only hair, you can cut it, dye it, style it, or put it in dreads (whatever) it will always grow back eventually. And chances are that the long hair thing won't be a lifelong taking


you can also make a compromise with the kids, that as long as he keeps up good grades he can chose his own hair style

I thought the point of POJA was to reach a decision you BOTH could be enthusiastic about. What would it take for your husband to be enthusiastic about allowing your son to let his hair grow long? How could you become enthusiastic about requiring him to wear it short?

I hear you saying that your son's opinion means more to you than your husband's, and arguing that this issue is BOTH "too important" and "not important enough" to consider your husband's opinion. "Too important" because it's your son's hair, and he should be able to choose his own hairstyle. "Not important enough" because, if the SCHOOL doesn't care what your son looks like, why should YOUR HUSBAND have a say?

Paying for your son's hair to be cut/styled in a way that YOU KNOW doesn't please your husband, strikes me as disrespectful, independent behavior.

smidgen, isn't the rule of POJA that you don't do anything without an enthusiastic agreement?

Wouldn't that mean that the kid wouldn't get a haircut until we agreed on how to have it cut?

And wouldn't that eventually mean that the kid's hair gets very, very long?

Yep, that's the rule of POJA. And you violated it: Independent behavior.

Maybe you two would be more motivated to reach agreement on what length the kid's hair should be, if you agreed that it looked awful the way it was.

lol, well THAT we all agreed on. Where it fell apart (and this wasn't an argument, just a difference of opinion) was that H wanted to take him to get a cut like our other boys--which is crew. DS didn't want it cut at all, was happy to ride out the growing-out stage it was in. I wanted it trimmed enough to be out of his face.

Smidgen, do you think that a 12 year old should have a voice in how he wears his hair? Because I don't see it as a decision left solely to H and I.

You have a whole bunch of overlapping issues going on here. First, the POJA which you did not reach. Second, it's important as parents to present a united front - which you didn't do either. And third, the issue of whether or not a 12 year old should have a say in his hair style.

I'll tackle the 3rd first since I'm intimately familiar with teenage boys, and also hair issues. Personally, I'd let him do whatever he wanted with his hair. Long hair is WAY better than drugs, alcohol, shoplifting, vandalism, bullying etc., etc., etc. that teenage boys get into. He's not going to even apply for a professional job for many, many years, nor is he going to hob-knob with potential employers. There is absolutely zero risk to his future if he has long hair, dyes it purple or shaves it into a mohawk. And, he's at an age where he will be increasingly more rebellious. There's no need to feed fodder to this, believe me! My mom gave my brother a hard time about his hair, to the extent that he refused to get it cut at all for about 7 years, well into his 20's. He was not a bad kid or anything, he just lapped up the chance to rebel.

Now in order to come to a POJA, you need to discuss these things. Do some research as well. See how the other kids are wearing their hair. How about the rest of your son's behavior? Work together to be as informed as possible so you can make the best decisions. I know it's only hair, but at 12, it's a big deal.

Once you have a POJA, presenting a united front is easy. It's a given, in fact. This alone will make surviving the teenage years a thousand times easier.

I think a 12-yr-old is capable of making a lot of decisions, including weightier ones than his hairstyle. My position is that parents set the boundaries on what is acceptable for the child, and the child is free to choose anything within those boundaries. As the child matures, the boundaries widen to include more options.

A child needs freedom to make decisions, because he needs to practice on things that don't matter too much before he faces the life-changers.

That reminds me of a guest speaker we had at a PTA meeting once. He'd watched parents coming up to school all day bringing lunches, papers, or anything else their kids forgot at home. He told us we were hurting our kids. He said that making a 0 on a homework assignment in 3rd grade will not prevent him from getting into Harvard. He said that elementary schools will give a kid a PBJ sandwhich if they forget their lunch, so they won't go hungry.

BUT. He said that they WILL learn not to do it again, if we are not there to pick up the pieces for them.

He said that we need to let them make little mistakes like this, now, so that they learn from them, so that they are smart enough later not to make the bigger, more serious mistakes 20 year olds could make.