A Mom Found Her Daughter Chopping Off All Her Hair & Her Response Has Made People Reflect On Their Troubled Childhoods
It's just hair after all!
TikTok There seems to be a large controversy — online and in our own homes sometimes — surrounding the importance of a young girl’s hair and how heavy the action of cutting it is.
There are countless videos where parents are criticized for their reactions to their daughters cutting their hair or cutting it themselves, but one woman named Valerie seems to have escaped all of the shade with how she reacted to her daughter.
This mom's calm reaction to her daughter cutting her hair off warmed hearts instead.
In the video, posted on March 26, 2023, Valerie approaches her young daughter as she sits on their living room carpet hunched over a half-full trash can and a pair of scissors.
The trash can is full of hair, of course, letting the more than 22 million people that viewed the video know she’s already lopped off a large chunk of it. “Did you even want to use a mirror? To see you cutting your hair?” Valerie asks her daughter.
After a few more moments of thought and an “okay” from her mom, she actually decides against the idea — mostly due to indifference. She’s already gotten so much done up to this point, a mirror would only slow her down.
“You just know how much you want to cut?” she asks her daughter, to which she replies that she does. Her mind is already home to her artistic vision, she doesn’t need the mirror. She’s in the zone.
By this point, everyone watching the video is likely confused — “Where’s my mom freakout?” they’re asking, probably, but it never comes. In fact, they let us know that this isn’t the first time this has happened.
Valerie asks her, “And you decided to cut it all on your own?” Her daughter says yes. “And this time we’re not making a mess because we’re doing it over the trash can, right?” She says yes again, but then adds “a bit of a mess,” because, without a cape, there’s no way for her to escape those pesky hairs that come loose in her hands.
Valerie seemed to be very approving of her daughter cutting her own hair.
Valerie’s tone the entire time has either been a neutral one or a positive one — showing the most positive reaction when her daughter confirms that she’s trying not to make a mess.
Instead of being the selfish parent that’s a little too (weirdly) obsessed with her daughter’s hair, she’s more concerned with how her daughter feels about the whole situation, eventually telling her “Hey, let’s take a pause there real quick and check it out and make sure that it’s even the style that you want before you continue, okay?”
Her daughter agrees and gets up, doing a spin at her mother’s request to see her hair. “That’s where we’re at,” Valerie says, “cool!” Once Valerie gives her this small compliment, her daughter beams at her mother’s approval, saying “Thanks!” with a big smile on her face.
People in the comments were supportive and recalled their own troubled childhoods.
Many people in the comments reacted positively to the video, praising Valerie for her patience as well as for staying positive and being supportive of her daughter. Judging by the caption, which read “Whoever needs to hear this, hair grows back,” Valerie also doesn’t understand the controversy surrounding girls' hair.
One person wrote, “Whether she likes it or not in 10 years she's only going to remember that mom supported her and encouraged her creativity and her individuality.” Someone else said “I’m just obsessed with how you talk to her. thank you for being so kind and gentle.”
Other people brought up how big of a deal that hair is in their own lives and in the lives of people they know or see on the internet, claiming she was “Breaking generational curses.” Another person commented, “As someone [whose] mom acted like someone was killed when a neighbor cut my hair thank you for not freaking out.”
At the end of the day, it is just hair. It will grow back, so what’s the big deal? Let kids be kids and do what they want. As long as you’re watching them while they’re using the scissors, what’s the harm?
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.