Introducing My Daughter, Dora

My mom was raised very Indian and very religious, by extremely strict parents who considered hair and makeup to be indulgent and vane. Married to a boy who was fascinated by the American Dream, the American culture and the American way, she moved away from India, her pious roots and her parent’s disapproval and quickly acquired a taste for Taco Bell, Mary Tyler Moore, Go-Go boots, makeup and hair.

She followed all the current do’s: starting with the long, straight, parted in the middle, late 60’s look, to the 70’s Dorothy Hamill wedge, up to the infamous Farah Fawcett feathered shag.

When I became “of age”, my mom thought it important for me to also be hip to the current hair trends. She made an appointment with her hairdresser, Joan, and got me a perm when I was in 7th grade. Suffice to say a perm that had a mind of it's own. Unlike my mom, I never had the patience or the interest in doing my hair, and have always been somewhat incapacitated in the hair department. I am haunted by the trauma of desperately struggling to tame this foreign mass of curls with a hairdryer, a curling iron, and a complete lack of coordination; resulting in 2nd degree burns that resembled small red grapes stuck to the side of my neck, and me in tears 10 minutes before having to catch the school bus.

For the past 15 years, my answer to my hair styling handicap has been to have straight, long hair that I literally just wash and comb. That's it. It's boring, but it works. And actually 97% of the time, it's up in a ponytail/bun type of thing. I don’t enjoy doing hair, and I’m horrible at it. Unlike my mom, hair has just really never been my thing.

Years later, I gave birth to a beautiful, perfect little baby.......girl. Who, a year and a half into life…. has hair. Hair - that I have to do something with. For the past 6 months or so, since it’s been “hair hair” – the non-baby kind that has to be managed with barrettes, rubber-bands – and a brush – it’s been a challenge for me to have her look presentable to say the least. At 1st it grew in, in random spots, making it difficult to decide if there was a need for a haircut. Then, when she for sure needed a haircut, I didn’t know where to take her. At the point which we found a place, excited that it was getting “long”, and patronizing Mr. Restless’ glee with the idea of her in pigtales, we decided to keep the length, trim it and at least give her bangs. A month later, her hair became an unmanageable, shaggy mess.

After 6 months of struggling with barrettes in her mouth, hair in her eyes, tears (hers and mine) from my lack of skill in sectioning her hair and putting it in rubber-bands, I made a hair-executive decision: Yesterday, I got her a short bob with little bangs. It’s easy to manage, it looks good and she looks cute as hell. Mr. Restless won’t get his pigtales he loves so much, but he’s also not the one chasing her around with a hairbrush and rubber bands.

She's now, the spitting image of Dora the Explorer.






See, I too, follow the current trends in hairstyles.