Mom Sends Daughter To Her Grandma's House Only For Her To Come Back With A Shaved Head
"At this point, I'm in disbelief. I'm so angry, I don't even know what to do."
William Fortunato from Pexels via Canva Pro A mom admitted that she was extremely shocked at the state of her barely 1-year-old daughter after leaving her with her grandmother. In a TikTok video, a UK-based content creator named Tawana revealed that she had gone on a trip and left her daughter, River, with her grandmother. However, when she returned to pick her up, she was taken aback at what her daughter's hair now looked like.
Her daughter came back with a shaved head after spending time at her grandmother's house.
In Tawana's video, she expressed frustration and annoyance after Tawana's mother, River's grandmother, shaved off River's hair. She explained that when River was first born, the little girl had a full head of hair, and that it grew relatively fast in just a short amount of time.
Showing photos of her daughter, Tawana explained that River had soft and curly hair. However, she ended up developing cradle cap, which causes dry or oily patches to appear on a baby's scalp. Due to that, she started losing a bit of hair, but Tawana pointed out that it wasn't large amounts and was fairly normal since most babies tend to lose their hair.
She continued, saying that since her family is from Zimbabwe, a lot of parents believe that the hair a child has been born with is "dirty." Many parents from Zimbabwe believe that if you shave a child's hair, it'll grow back thicker and healthier, something that Tawana's mother did to her when she was a baby.
"When that happened to me when I was a child, my hair came back looking worse," Tawana said. "For me, it didn't work and I didn't want to do it to my child."
Before taking a trip to London, she dropped River off at her grandmother's house, which was a normal routine. She didn't think anything out of the ordinary would happen, as she's there every weekend.
In London, Tawana was out having fun with her friends when she suddenly received a video in her family group chat.
"I'm seeing this child, that looks like my child, bald," she added. Confusion immediately set in, and to make matters worse, the video wasn't loading due to the poor service at the event Tawana was at. At the end of the night, after failing to get the video loaded, Tawana eventually left to go back to her hotel and had completely forgotten about her daughter's potentially bald head.
The next day, she was on her way to her mother's house to pick up her daughter and went through her messages from the night before. While on the way to get River, Tawana got another video in her family chat of her bald daughter, but this time, it was her family members shaving the baby's head.
"At this point, I'm in disbelief. I'm so angry, I don't even know what to do," she admitted.
Still, an hour away from her mother's house, Tawana recalled that she was practically hyperventilating and crying, both from the shock that her mother had allowed this to happen and because her younger brother was trusted enough to use clippers and shave her baby's head.
"I finally arrived at my mother's house and I came out of the car fast because I needed to see," Tawana said. "I get there and River is just smiling at me, and she's just so in love with the fact that her head is bald. I was just upset but what can I do? Her hair is already shaved."
Despite her shock and anger, Tawana decided it was best to move on, as nothing would bring her daughter's hair back.
"What can I do? Her hair is already shaved now," she said, adding that she will not be suing her mom, as many commenters suggested. "We went back and forth over text," Tawana said of her and her mother. "I was just emotional. They really cut her hair, like what can I do now? The hair is gone, even if I fight my mom, the hair is not coming back. As far as River's aware, she's fine with it, she's loving life being bald. I think she's loving the breeze on her head. She doesn't really seem to care."
In the comments section, people were angered on Tawana's behalf, with many claiming that if this happened, they would never allow their baby to spend the night or have unsupervised visits with the family member who shaved their head. Others urged Tawana to set boundaries with her mother so that something similar (or worse) wouldn't happen in the future.
While River was more than content with her shaved head — and hair does grow back — the more prominent issue seems to be a lack of boundaries between Tawana and her mother, seeing as she was very much against shaving her daughter's hair in the first place.
Cultural beliefs in families have a way of causing a clash, especially if one individual doesn't believe as strongly as other family members. It's important and helpful to find a happy medium in these family dynamics. Unfortunately for Tawana, it seems the talk about boundaries came a bit too late, but hopefully her daughter can rock some cute hats until her hair grows back!
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.