My Mother's Obsession with My Hair

I originally wrote and posted this in August 2008 on my old blog. In my lifetime, I have gone through more hair stylists then I have men or women for that matter! I have  never found the person who could handle the fact that my hair is very thick on one side, that I have cowlicks, and I my bangs hang at a funny angle.

Just the other day, I found my person who understands what my hair is doing and what needs to be done to make it look normal! So this story is for Kari. My new best friend. She can be found at "to dye for." in Easthampton, MA.

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My mother had many obsessions and one of them was about my hair. It never looked like the Shirley Temple image she had in her mind. It all started out innocently enough when I was 2-years old. We were living on a military base on the island of Okinawa where my father was stationed. It was very windy and, at the time, I had baby-fine curly strawberry blonde hair. It was always getting tangled, so one day my mother couldn’t take my wiggling and crying any longer from the comb getting stuck in the knots in my hair, so she shaved my head. 

Oh yes, she did! There I was - bald. Hair grows back, so what’s the big deal you ask? Well, it grew back very thick, very straight and no longer blonde! God forbid! And that was the beginning of her obsession with my hair.

Starting at around the age of four (remember my hair had to grow back first), I got the first of many perms that I would have over my lifetime. One of my first memories was sitting in a chair in the Beauty Salon on a stack of telephone books, trying not to fall out of the chair. I truly believe this is where my fear of heights came from. It was several feet to the floor and I could have gotten really hurt. If I had fallen it wouldn’t have concerned my mother - as long as my hair came out curly. Also, I distinctly remember the strong smell of the perm and how my eyes always watered during the process.

I was blessed with extremely thick hair and the perms I received didn’t react well and my hair became all frizzy looking. Our hairdresser at the time just didn’t know how to handle cutting it. My mother started taking me to the Barber Shop on the base. One of the first pictures taken of me when we came back to the States was of a little white girl with an Afro! That and my speaking a mix-mash of English and Japanese was not well received back in 1958! Oh, the traumas I went through as a young child!

Now both my parents lived through the Great Depression and were scarred for life because of that. When we came back to the States, they both continued to work and save money so we wouldn’t end up in Debtors’ Prison. My mother was a Civil-Service Nurse (she worked at the clinic on base) and my father was a Chief-Master Sergeant stationed at the Air Base in Lincoln, Nebraska.

One of their money-saving ideas was for my mother to start perming my hair at home. Impending disaster! She left the solution on way too long which resulted in huge clumps of my hair falling out. On top of this, I was growing like a weed and they weren't replacing any of my dresses. During the early 60’s, no decent little girl wore pants to school! There I was looking like Little Orphan Annie, (this must be where my obsession with red hair began) with dresses hitting above my knees, which was not fashionable back then, and with very frizzy hair with clumps of it missing. Oh, what a sight I was!

Fast forward to the late 60’s, when the Beatles (the band, not the bug) and flower children were having their moment in history with their very straight, long hair. Yep, for a brief while, Mother left the perm obsession and went to the straight-hair obsession. Which was fine with me. I learned to blow dry my hair using one of those domed hair dryers designed for home use. It looked like a huge blue helmet! I flipped back the arm that connected the dome to the electrical unit and made my own blow dryer. It wasn’t very small, nor very portable, but it worked!

Now I always tried to be the good little girl and live the way my mother wanted me to, which is how I developed my neuroses and obsessions that I have had to battle with over the years. Ah, think of all the future blog postings you'll get to read!

One of the many rebellions I went through with my mother was when I was a  teenager and it was about my hair. Go figure. In the fall of 1971, I decided I wanted to wear my hair in a Gypsy Shag which was all the rage back then. My mother would not even consider that as an option for me. One day I snuck off to downtown Lincoln. Thank goodness for the bus system! I went to Swanson’s, which at the time was a very swanky clothing store in town with a salon and had my hair done. I remember coming home and yelling for my mother from the first-floor landing that I had a surprise for her. She flipped! Oh my gosh, she had a bird. She was so upset! She never forgave me for going against her wishes. Years later she would always shudder at the mere mention of the Gypsy Shag hair episode.

As the years flew by I found other ways to upset my mother, dating older men, staying out until the wee hours and divorcing at the young age of 25 (marriage #1) and so forth. But it seemed one of our favorite past times over the years was always arguments over my hair. To remove myself from my mother’s interference, I moved from Denver and eventually ended up in Virginia. She hated to travel, so I was safe living in Virginia.

But like the good girl that I tried to be, I went back to Denver every six months and stayed for a week of fun and hell. Now let me tell you, for me to get from Northern Virginia to Denver took hours by plane plus travel time to and from the airports. There I’d be, landing exhausted at Mother’s doorstep around 11:00 p.m. (which would be 1:00 a.m. back East). And the very first words that came out of her mouth after having not seen me for six months was, “Oh Sharon Elaine, your hair looks just horrible!” 

Thanks, Mom. I needed to hear that after traveling so many hours to see you. But unfortunately, I just could never please that woman no matter how much I tried and especially when it came to my hair.

Until the next time…