The ol’ Kentucky Waterfall, the Mississippi Mudflap, the North Carolina Neckwarmer, Beaver Paddle, Camero Cut, or my fave, the Tennessee Tophat. Call it what you like, but all of these are names for the prized mullet haircut. The toddler mullet; Here we are. How did we get here? Do we keep it? And if we do, are we destined to be judged? OR is this MY way of taking a stand as I near 35, and pointedly deciding that I no longer have any effs left to give and anyone who would wrongly assume I am an uncultured hillbilly, well, THAT’S ON THEM!
We got here through a decisive plan to grow out his hair starting back in early May when he was no longer attending daycare and would not be actively seeing a collective of adults/strangers/classmates daily. “Let’s do it!”
I envisioned this long-haired California or Oregon hippie kid living in our midst by Labor Day. I got Corey Feldman in The Goonies instead. A whole lotta weird growth. Now, we are faced with a very, “no going back” conundrum. It’s too long for us to figure out how to trim now, and he’s got sensory issues that make a trip to the barber, or even a kids’ cuts kind of place, basically impossible. And now I have a whole other challenge – convincing my husband that the cut must be done. He loves it. He finds the mullet to be a prized spectacle that he enjoys running his fingers through while we walk the neighborhood, or it blows in the breeze while the days drift by on the swingset. Additionally, tricky is the fact that we do not tackle certain tasks solo since our little man is prone to sensory meltdowns, so I cannot simply take him to Cookie Cutters while my husband is at work. That is a two-man job!
So here I am. But honestly, I’m embracing this phase. I’m embracing the rogue feeling of living differently than society’s expectations. Does this one minutia of life as I pass others in Target dictate to them that WE are particularly “this” or “that”?? As Ramona and Sonja once asked, “I dunno, maybe we are white trash? What does that even mean?” (One of the great Google searches of all time to ever happen on TV, by the way!) Either way, I think this amazing child that I have placed on this earth is happy just the way he is, and I’m more secure in my own skin than I’ve ever been. So maybe, just maybe, my value in this season of life is to take from this a feeling of being grounded, secure, and content. I am prepared to be looked at like a crappy mom. I’m prepared to be looked at in a way that makes the polished parent next to me wonder if I have any sense of fashion in 2019. But…we’re happy, and that’s more than I can say for some moments in life that were extraordinarily more polished in appearance and pictures. My best hair days never actually mean I personally have it together on an emotional level. But I do at this mullet-haired-toddler-moment.
So like, a happy mullet beats a cranky crew cut, and that’s the spice of life, I suppose.
