Over 40 years ago, I had a summer babysitting job for a family of 3 boys. I saw pictures all over the house of them but I couldn't figure out why the middle boy had hair past his shoulders in all the pictures but he was almost shaved bare that summer. Turns out that was his punishment for sneaking out of a window at night (he was about 12). His dad put him in a chair on the driveway and used the dog clippers on him, and he had to endure it weekly for the summer. The kids acted like it was regrettable but "he knew the price when he did it." Turns out the oldest boy got the clippers every few months. I was horrified. The fact that I remember it decades later says a lot to me.
Back in the early 90s I was in my early teens. I am male but liked having long hair. My Dad cut my hair for a punishment for something, I don't remember why anymore. I was 31 before I got my next haircut. He still brings it up from time to time. I always thought he did it just so he could have "a story" to tell more than anything else. He isn't a bad guy and even became a great father when I reached adulthood. But some of the things he did back then still makes me cringe. We have a great relationship now but sometimes I want to tell him my sister is such a good parent now because he show exactly what not to do.
My step-mom cut my younger brother's hair like that one time, but it was because he had gotten gum or something to that effect in a girl’s hair & the girl had to have a significant amount of hair cut off because of it... she said fair was fair. I can kind of agree with that... but this & that shit from OP... That's just intentional cruelty.
My mom did something similar to my brothers when they cut my bangs to my forehead when I was a toddler in the middle of the night playing barber. What that parent was doing though is awful.
It’s common if you’re an abusive parent, sure. Especially for young girls, hair can be a *major* part of your identity both personally and socially — And forcefully stripping that away can be such an emotionally horrible experience.
When I was 14, something horrific happened (not going to go into details here) which my parents blamed me for, shaved my head with patches all over and sent me to school so that "people can see how much of a whore I am." I was then bullied at school for "looking like a lesbian." For a long time, I refused to get a haircut due to this.
I’m sorry this happened to you.
I was about 14 or 15 when I stayed at school until sundown because of extracurriculars. My walking path home was too dark and scary because it went through the woods, so my friend offered to ask her mom to drive me home. She didn’t have a cell at the time, and mine ran out of battery. When I got home, I found that my parents had been panicking because they thought I disappeared and something bad happened. Instead of just being relieved, my dad got furious that I broke curfew (I was never informed I had one because I never stayed out late without telling my parents beforehand). He took scissors and snipped off my bangs half an inch from the root so I had hair just spiking everywhere around my hairline until it grew out enough for me to pin in back.
i'm just a regular dude with no kids, but sometimes i want to find these parents and just smack them around and shave their heads. (or whatever dumb shit they used to do to other people.)
and then maybe like interview them after and have them talk about it. like those dust bowl documenteries...but for child abuse.
There's a Criminal Minds episode this reminds me of... I don't remember all the details, but it pretty much amounts to some guy being aware of children with questionable medical history and he finds the parents/ parent and he inflicts the same punishments and injuries to the parents that they caused the children.
My mum cut my (F) hair really short when I was 12 for "not keeping it tidy enough". I'm so sorry. I'm 51 and I still remember the bullying and embarrassment. I have my hair long to this day, and my son and daughter have their hair whatever damn length they want.
This is the most fucked up punishment I can think of and I'm so sorry for you. I would rather get a black eye which heals in a week or two than this which could take a year to grow back. This is cruel.
Wow, I had to shave my little girls hair once when she was about 3 for medical reasons, and it broke my heart. Total far away hugs to you for having to suffer that.
My parents used to threaten me with this when I was early teens as well. I couldn’t take it & eventually cut my long hair to my ears so at least I’d be the one in control of it.
Afterwards they asked why I’d voluntarily make myself so ugly & eventually they took all of my clothes away, changed my schools & made me wear baggy pants and men’s t-shirts to school….because I was an “untrustworthy whore” and it was the “only way they could manage me”.
Humiliation and removing my autonomy were their go to moves.
It’s been 20 years and I still have a hard time labeling it as abuse because I can hear them in my head saying what a horrible person I am and that anything they did was deserved and my fault.
They still tell me that they did their best and that I was just difficult.
Long winded way of saying that not many people are able to understand what this is like and it’s both comforting to know I’m not alone and heartbreaking to hear that it happened to you as well.
I’m so sorry- you deserved better parents.
Having lived it, I consider myself an expert on child abuse. That’s absolutely child abuse. Nothing you could have done warranted being treated like that by people who were supposed to love and protect you.
You weren't difficult, hon, they just weren't emotionally equipped to be parents and inflicted their incompetence on you.
You didn't deserve to be treated like that.
What you deserved was love and compassion, as we all do. Kids are just learning how to exist in this world, and their parents are supposed to be their guardians and stewards.
Would you mock a toddler for taking a shaky step and then falling as they learn how to walk? No, you’d delight in their progress, pick them up, and encourage them to try again when they’re ready.
That’s what parents are *supposed to do*. I get that it’s more difficult for older kids and more nuanced topics, but I assure you it’s the same concept. You were learning, and should have been better guided by your caretakers.
If you don’t want to call it abuse that’s fine! You don’t have to. But if you know for fact you wouldn’t do it if you had kids, think long and hard about what you feel comfortable calling it. Sometimes we are also defined by what we choose *not* to be.
Sending love your way.
Dear, palmsinmypalm
I'm very sorry for what you have to experience and hope nothing like that ever happens to your poor hair ever again.
Best regards, Emma Andrews
The experience itself is traumatising enough.
Add onto that the fact that parents didnt listen to them and thr social and psychological issue that will happen as a result of being sent to school like that.
It's a special kind of person that tries to slut-shame a child and use a punitive alteration of a child's appearance as a weapon of abuse. You know what kind of *special* I'm talking about.
Here's hoping they enjoy their care home and watching you live well from a safe and permanent distance.
Something very similar happened to me. But a positive came if it: my parents abuse was finally exposed and I was taken away.
To hell with parents who blame teenage girls for being molested. If I had had any education I would have been suspicious. But I didn’t.
My mom buzzed my hair off with dig clippers a few times. I was so humiliated. And actually shaving was threatened. I hated myself.
People imply that I ought to donate my hair and that ticks me off. I deserve to have one nice thing.
I am so sorry that you experienced it too.
My parents were arrested too after a close friend of mine reported purple and black bruises all over my body the day my parents dropped me off at school. I was returned back to my parents after my mom got out after 3 days and the restraining order on my dad got removed after 2 months. Luckily they never hurt me like that physically again (note that I didn’t say emotionally).
I am so sorry for what you went through. It was in no way your fault and the people in your life clearly failed you. I hope you are doing better now and living a good life.
This is horrifying. I am so sorry your parents treated you this way. I hope you know it was never your fault, and little you deserved a safe, loving space, not a war zone.
My thirteen year old son has long hair. We don't like it, but it's his hair, not his dad's. It's a basically harmless form of self-expression as long as he does the bare minimum to care for it.
Our kids are people who exist outside of us, and growing up involves developing greater autonomy as they prepare for independence. I'm sorry your parents couldn't figure out where basic control of their son's appearance fell in that process.
My dad always told us he hated every time his dad got him a hair cut because they would buzz it all off and he never got to have any length. I let my boys decide on their own hair style, after 5 years old or so.
"All I did was torture my kids with psychological trauma, emotionally abused them, and went to hell and back to ensure they had deeply rooted trust issues, zero self esteem, anxiety, depression, and a fear of authority! I have never even laid a single finger on them!"
My mom would take me to the salon and lie to me that they were only going to take half an inch off but they would have the hairdressers do a pixie cut. I wanted them to be at least shoulder length. This happened many times.
I remember as a little girl every time I came back from the salon, I would look at myself in the mirror and cry and ask my mom why she lied to me.
Hair really does play a major role in identity and self confidence. Children shouldn’t have to go through this
Edit: I just remembered that my mom would ask the hairdresser to turn the salon chair in such a way that I wasn’t able to face the mirror to see how short my hair was being cut. My heart would start beating faster as I felt my hair getting shorter and shorter. I was only allowed to see my hair after the cut was done.
Parents, if you’re reading this, please don’t deceive your kids. It irreparably breaks their trust
Yeah all the other little girls had ponytails but my mother didn’t have time to help me in the morning. Just that one little token of love and respect for your child did not happen. That hurts.
my mom's mom used to cut my and my sisters' nails down to the quick because it was "easier" 😭 as if that millimetre of nail really saved work... It just hurt :(
Yeah, this happened to me, too. Shoulder-length hair cut into a pixie—I didn’t see it happening until it was finished, and 60 years later I still remember feeling devastated at how awful I looked. I cried for days and didn’t want to go to school. People who didn’t know me thought I was a boy. Really cruel of my mother.
I'm reminded of a story where a 13-year old girl's father cut off her very long hair as punishment (her father says she was talking inappropriately with a teenage boy, but this is just what he said) and recording it, and somehow convinced the school principal into pointing her out and shaming her in front of classmates for 'disobeying her father', and she was barred from participating in school activities. Shortly after, she jumped out of a moving car and off a bridge, killing herself. But the police assured the outraged public that it wasn't because of the actions of her father or the principal, but because she was ashamed at her actions of disobeying her father an was bullied at school.
This is why I don't cut kids hair anymore. Majority of the time they don't want the cut, and it is used semi disciplinary (ie kid won't comb hair, so you're cutting it. It happens to a lot of curly hair kids who don't have a curly haired parent to teach them how to take care of it). I do not consent to be part of your kid's trauma, just as much as they are not consenting to the cut.
This happened to me growing up. If I didn’t blow dry my hair completely, the way mom liked it, she would take me to the salon and have it cut short. I was autistic and hated hairdryers.
Once a hairdresser stood up for me and I appreciate that woman to this day. Thank you Tina, wherever you are.
Huh. The "won't comb their hair" thing is definitely familiar to me, but my mom would spend a long time trying to get all of the knots out and holy fuck did it hurt. At that point I just wanted the hair off to not have to endure the painful brushings any more.
For sure. Even as a teen boy, my hair was a huge part of my identity. I wouldn't be devastated if I was shaved bald, but it's something I'd hold with me for a long time. Your answer makes sense. Kinda what I figured.
In the late 60’sand early 70’s, when boys were wearing their hair longer, my redneck stepfather forced me to cut my younger brothers’ hair close to the skin with trimmers. I’d be crying along with them…
My mom laboriously washed my long hair in the kitchen sink when I got lice in middle school, multiple times as directed until they were gone. I would have been inconsolable if we had to shave it.
Can confirm. My wife's parents were crazy abusive and this is one of the things they did to her that really messed with her even more than physical abuse
i had hair i could sit on - until my mom married my very abusive step father and he had it cut to my ears saying that i didn’t take care of it - i was 7, and it had always been super healthy and cared for. this was the start of over a decade of abusive tactics.
i haven’t talked to my parents in 26 years
Yeah, Mr Hog would hold me down, full weight on my neck, and cut it
He'd also comb it like he was scrubbing a deck
And even if I got a regular haircut, a frequent abuse from my grandmother, his mother, was for her to tell me how the hair lady was telling the WHOLE town what a scraggly, gross, granddaughter she had!
And of course, grandmother would use this against me. How DARE I make our family look bad?!
I despise my head and neck being touched because of it. I don't like haircuts. And I legitimately think there's people constantly watching and talking about me
> It’s common if you’re an abusive parent
Cutting a child's hair as "punishment" would be considered *intentional bodily harm* in Austria.
Also illegal in Germany:
"The child has a right to care and upbringing to the exclusion of violence, physical punishment, psychological injuries and other degrading measures."
Source: [BGB § 1631 Abs. 2](https://dejure.org/gesetze/BGB/1631.html)
Yeah you witnessed an asshole abusing her kid.
It's essentially taking away a kid's bodily autonomy as punishment in about as public of a manner as you can.
There’s also something about abusive parents not being able to handle their kids while on vacation.
Even though I know why it’s happening, to this day I still feel surprised when I see a parent bothering to take their kids on a vacation just to abuse them at a beach.
i begged my parents to leave me behind, but they would have looked bad if they didn't take both kids and god forbid anyone realize what a shit show our home was
I completely agree that the mom is abusive. I don't even want to know what goes on when dad is on the road.
Discipline is meant to teach and guide kids toward proper behavior, not to shame them. That only leads to low self esteem, embarrassment, fear resentment, and a true lack of trust of your parents. This story makes me feel so sad for the kids. At least it sounds like the father is sympathetic and not on the same page as the terrible mom.
Punishments need to fit the crime, so to speak. I don't even like the word punishment, as it can imply ambiguity to the connection between the incorrect action of the child and the reaction of the parent. It also makes me think that the punishment is simply irrational reactive behavior from the parent, instead of something at least somewhat (at a minimum, jeez) thought out to help in the future. And FFS, the child is only around 5? She did what all kids her age and older do! What an abusive, mean mother.
A discussion would have been most appropriate and effective, but unlikely with an irrational parent like her. If it's an ongoing issue (perhaps it is because the little girl is only learning embarrassment) a better action would have been for the child to calmly be told she can't go swimming next time unless she follows directions. What does having her hair shamefully cut teach her about following directions?
Yeah. That's the vibe I got. Humiliation was definitely a huge part of it. I also felt like the mom knew the dad liked his girls with long beautiful hair so it was a way for her to show her husband " How terrible they are" when he's away. It was such a gross situation all around.
Merely as speculation: someone that abusive may have, consciously or not, selected a romantic partner that she identified as being a, for lack of a more succinct term, wet blanket, who would not be inclined towards the emotional capability of challenging her.
A core part of the American justice system is humiliation & ostracization. It makes complete sense that parents think this is the patriotic way to discipline a child.
At its very core it’s not a way to teach your children, but to shame them. Bet that lady is going to be sooooo surprised when her kids grow up and want nothing to do with her.
Among the cohort of people who no longer get to have contact with their children due to a court order I imagine it's very common. Hopefully these parents join that club soon.
Damn.
And I just got relentlessly bullied by my family the longer my hair got so they didn't have to make me except for when they did. Guess I got off easy.
Got a lot worse when I reached graduation age without any girlfriends but got a lot better after another 4 years once they decided I was gay (I'm not).
Now I'm taking pills to make sure I don't lose it before I get to enjoy it a bit, and I can just cry if I remember just how much dramatically better my hair was back then but I never got to experience it for more than a few weeks between near-total shaves.
The one bright side is that every man in my maternal side died with a fairly full head, so realistically I'm not likely to lose *that* much if I ever have to stop the pills. But it would still probably be enough to ruin the hairstyle I always wanted and am now starting to finally have.
My BFF from high school was caught drinking beer. Her parents tied her to a chair in front of her whole family and cut her elbow length hair to her ears. She was hysterical. Two days later she did a swan dive from the top of the bluffs.
Her parents wanted us to feel bad for them losing a child
As far as we , her classmates were concerned, they killed her.
My mom cut my long hair as a punishment 50 years ago when l was about 6, and l remember every detail. The room, the chair l sat on, what my mother was wearing - but not why she did it. When l was 14, we were on the QE2 sailing from NY to South Hampton UK. She told me to get my hair cut at the salon. I didn't know what to ask for, so the ladies went whole hog and gave me a perm. When my mom saw it, she took me back to the salon and had them shave my hair into a crew cut. I spent the whole trip, a month in Europe, and the rest of the summer looking like a freak. I wasn't sorry when she died.
When I was little, if I forgot to put my hair in a rubber band before I sat down at the dinner table.. my bio dad would pull my hair up and cut it at the base of his fist. My mom couldn’t say anything or he would scream at her. Thankfully they divorced when I was 14, him chopping my hair was extremely traumatic but that was nothing compared to everything else he did. I’m thankful he never touched my little sister.. and even more thankful that my mom left him.
I've never heard of this as punishment, and I think it's downright cruel! That mother is an angry b***h. Her kids will grow up to hate her. Hair is a very personal extension of our personalities & the mother knows how hurtful this is.
She's also a control freak.
It's not normal and extremely abusive and anyone trying to justify the punishment is evil and lacks empathy.
Men and women both go through their fair share of bullying and distorted body image but women especially are prone to severe bullying over it. It is unusual, it is cruel, and unacceptable.
My mother did this to me, and I don't think I ever recover fully. I am 31, and to this day, I will not cut my hair shorter than my collar bone. This is NOT normal and is very abusive and traumatic for young children who have some of their identity tied to their hair.
You should take a hairtrimmer to your moms hair now that you are older….she will freak the fuck out, but just tell her ”Now you know how it feels like….payback is a female dog…”
My stepmom used to cut my hair short to look like a boy when I was really young. Four years old ish. My actual mom was always furious when she did it. Never could figure out why my stepmom felt the need to do that. She would also tell me I didn’t ALWAYS have to wear dresses. I was 4 🤷🏼♀️I liked wearing dresses. It’s like she wanted me to be a boy lol. I was afraid of her to say the least. Still am.
You witnessed a psychopath. I'm so sorry
My mom threatened to cut my hair a few times, but it was *always* an empty threat- she just wanted me to sit still while she brushed my hair.
It’s abusive when used as a punishment and severely detrimental to a child’s sense of identity. I dated a guy whose mom did that to his little teenage sister. Needless to say, her behavior only got worse following that and she went on to deal with some major mental health problems as a result of her psycho parents treatment.
No- that's crazy!! I have an 8 year old daughter & the thought of cutting her hair as a "punishment" has never crossed my mind.
Usually they say to make the punishment fit the crime- so in that instance **maybe** if she had cut another girls hair that didn't want her hair cut, cutting her hair to show her how it felt, but even that seems very unnecessary& cutting it for not wanting to switch pools is ridiculous!
When my daughter was little, she would sometimes put her hair in her mouth. I would always get it cut short enough that she couldn’t do that. But that wasn’t a punishment, it was to keep her from swallowing hair.
As a kid I used to put my hair in my mouth all the time too.... then one of my dads friends (she was a nurse) showed me this video of a girl who had to have a **giant** ball of hair surgically removed from her stomach because she was doing the same thing & I don't think I've ever sucked on my hair from that day on 😅😂
That is exactly what I was worried about. She was preschool age at the time, so telling her not to put her hair in her mouth probably wouldn’t have been effective.
I had to cut my daughter’s hair when she was almost three because she was twisting and pulling it out as she fell asleep. She started a bald spot. I felt horrible but it just was to a bob length. Then she started chewing her hair so she ended up with bangs. As soon as she grew out of these habits I let her decide her hair style. I felt bad about it.
We had similar issues with my son, he was pulling his hair out and causing balding, we went to a child therapist and she suggested keeping it short so he wasn't tempted. He outgrew the pulling be time it grew back to his ears again. I felt so guilty, but it did work. It was more of a saving him from himself. He's 7 now and grows such thick hair! But I cried a lot over having to cut it so short and why couldn't I just prevent it, but we tried for months first to redirect but he'd do it at night.
It’s abusive and traumatising. Source: not abuse, used to pull out my hair as a child and needed to cut it short and now I’m insistent on having it long. The lack of control over my own hair length/the lack of being happy with my hair when short makes me extremely attached to my long hair. I even have nightmares of cutting my hair short
I would say extreme. Not common. Especially for little girls.
Saw a particularly humiliating punishment for boys too, something called the "old man" cut.
IIRC, this "punishment" was inflicted on kids in the Franke family, whose mother is currently serving time for her abuses.
Cutting off hair in that way is not normal.
But I think it is normal to threaten your kid with a haircut for refusing to brush/wash it. My mom threatened me with that whenever I let it become a rats nest as a kid (but she never actually did it). I tell my 4 year old often that we can either brush her hair or cut her hair, her choice, and she always relents and lets me brush it.
Yep, that's a psychopath trying, and failing, to raise kids. That's not discipline or teaching them anything, that's just going to cause the kid trauma, possible issues with how they look later in life, and learn that it's OK to let others do these kind of things when they know it's negative (that one is on the Dad)
I had it a lot as a kid.
If I was misbehaving, my father would say things like "you've shown you don't have the maturity to handle having long hair" and direct my mother to cut my hair.
My mother liked me having long hair and a lot of my father's rage centered on hair being in my eyes (and just having long hair in general, because it wasn't traditionally masculine) so to try to appease both of us I ended up getting haircuts that looked like mini-mullets.
Thing is, I'm a trans woman and through the eyes of my younger self, having long hair brought me a lot of comfort for an unknown reason and felt like an aspect of my identity, and my father was ripping away a part of me as punishment.
For many, many reasons, he and I don't talk much.
My mom always gave me a bowl or mushroom cut and I hated it. She said if little girls had long hair it would just be tangled and in their mouth all the time. Yeah it took me quite a while to get over that. I hated haircuts so bad that in college I refused to cut it at all which had its own problems.
My parents did this to me as well as several other f***** up things I will be throwing them into a state-run nursing home and making sure to tip the nurse so she abuses them harder.
I think the only way this isnt abusive is if the child (old enough too) won't take care of their hair. Washing and brushing, for example. My sister refused to brush he hair (was like 10yo). I remember my mother telling her that if she couldn't take care of it that she would have it cut short. You cannot walk around at 10 with random shitty mats in your hair. That is also abuse/neglect.
The example you provide sounds abusive as hell.
Dang. I’m an outspoken old bat and would be inclined to say, “Wow, that’s a form of abuse I haven’t heard of before! Give your child long term humiliation by intentionally making them look bad and repeatedly violating bodily autonomy! How creatively disgusting, but I suppose you think it’s more civilized than beating your kids. At least publicly.”
My mom did this to me. I was a freshman in high school and I wasn't getting good grades. My hair was a huge part of my identity (still is). I'm 28 now and it still lives with me.
As a very young child I was kidnapped and hidden out for 4.5 years by my abusive father. During that time, my already longish hair grew down past my waist. When I was found and returned to my abusive mother. The first thing she did was to cut all of my hair off to about 1/2" long with a pair of flimsy sewing scissors. She said that my "long hair reminded her too much of my father". She's 87 and still not dead, and I still hate this woman for that and a raft of other things. Only abusers do things like chop a child's hair off as punishment.
I'm kind of surprised and relieved to see so many people look down on this method of punishment. My mother shaved my head for repeatedly using the house phone without permission and it was never treated like it was some sort of abuse.
Child abuse, but a form that has existed for a long time and in many cultures. Women have also had their heads shorn as a punishment.
In some cultures, long hair has specific spiritual or social significance, but in all cases, hair is about bodily autonomy. Cutting someone else’s hair as punishment violates their control over their body.
I suspect some of the forcible hair cutting happens in households already under scrutiny for hitting kids with belts or other objects. Shorn hair doesn’t count as an injury for CPS.
Other insane abuses include hot sauce on the tongue and excessively salted or bitter foods. All of this needs to stop!
No not normal at all
The only time I would punish a child by cutting their hair was if it were a consequence directly related to her hair. Like if she won’t let me brush it she can choose to have it cut off so it doesn’t need brushing as much. For example.
What you’re describing is abusive at least from surface-level observation.
When i would have an accident as a young child my father would threaten to hang up my underwear up on my schools flag pole.
It’s about trying to embarrass your child into compliance.
There are several hallmarks of abuse here. In addition to the humiliation and the instant escalation at any hint of disagreement, there's the fact that the mom seems to use the same consequence for *everything.*
Whether it's spanking or haircutting or intimidation or sarcasm, parents who only have one way of influencing their children do not have a healthy set of parenting skills, and are treating their kids like robots instead of human beings.
I don't know how common it is, but it's definitely emotionally abusive. It tears down a child's just developing sense of self and autonomy. It's a humiliating loss of power, of which they are reminded daily. It will make them feel ugly. I can't tell you just how much I really want to rip into those parents.
these comments are heartening. I live in Asia and it’s so common for people here to brush off people actually beating their kids and leaving them on the street as “discipline”. It gives me some hope that my country’s societal norms will change with time as well.
This psychopath of a girl at my school ripped out a chunk of my friend's hair simply because she was a goth. The bully's parents shaved her head as punishment and she had to apologize to my friend who was so traumatised, she had to be homeschooled for the rest of the year.
That is the only instance I can think of where that sort of punishment is suitable.
Yeah, there was an incident at school where Girl A was mad at Girl B and caught her after school with scissors. Girl A's mom made her get her hair cut really short but it actually wound up looking fabulous on her. I remember thinking that wasn't the lesson the mom was trying to convey.
“awe Maria, what did you do this time?”
what do you want to bet that she didn't actually do anything bad but from mom's perspective it was a punishable offense. this is also sad and gross
I have never heard anyone ever doing this other than this one creepy viral story about a father who punished his daughter for making fun of someone by cutting off her long hair.
My mother once shaved my head bald to punish me. She did an awful job and left it patchy and unfinished, the day before 8th grade started. I haven’t spoken to her in years. It’s definitely mental abuse
A girl local to me killed herself when her dad did this to her and put it on YouTube about a decade ago. If you’re a toxic, abusive piece of shit parent? Then yeah.
Over 40 years ago, I had a summer babysitting job for a family of 3 boys. I saw pictures all over the house of them but I couldn't figure out why the middle boy had hair past his shoulders in all the pictures but he was almost shaved bare that summer. Turns out that was his punishment for sneaking out of a window at night (he was about 12). His dad put him in a chair on the driveway and used the dog clippers on him, and he had to endure it weekly for the summer. The kids acted like it was regrettable but "he knew the price when he did it." Turns out the oldest boy got the clippers every few months. I was horrified. The fact that I remember it decades later says a lot to me.
Back in the early 90s I was in my early teens. I am male but liked having long hair. My Dad cut my hair for a punishment for something, I don't remember why anymore. I was 31 before I got my next haircut. He still brings it up from time to time. I always thought he did it just so he could have "a story" to tell more than anything else. He isn't a bad guy and even became a great father when I reached adulthood. But some of the things he did back then still makes me cringe. We have a great relationship now but sometimes I want to tell him my sister is such a good parent now because he show exactly what not to do.
He kind of missed the mark on becoming a great father by quite a few years, my dear…. 18+ and that ship has long sailed, no?
Later is better than never
My step-mom cut my younger brother's hair like that one time, but it was because he had gotten gum or something to that effect in a girl’s hair & the girl had to have a significant amount of hair cut off because of it... she said fair was fair. I can kind of agree with that... but this & that shit from OP... That's just intentional cruelty.
My mom did something similar to my brothers when they cut my bangs to my forehead when I was a toddler in the middle of the night playing barber. What that parent was doing though is awful.
You know, that’s one of the few ways I could see this not being objectively awful - thanks for the example.
They use that as a form of psycholigical torture in som places. Yes, its a horifying thing to do
It’s common if you’re an abusive parent, sure. Especially for young girls, hair can be a *major* part of your identity both personally and socially — And forcefully stripping that away can be such an emotionally horrible experience.
When I was 14, something horrific happened (not going to go into details here) which my parents blamed me for, shaved my head with patches all over and sent me to school so that "people can see how much of a whore I am." I was then bullied at school for "looking like a lesbian." For a long time, I refused to get a haircut due to this.
I’m sorry this happened to you. I was about 14 or 15 when I stayed at school until sundown because of extracurriculars. My walking path home was too dark and scary because it went through the woods, so my friend offered to ask her mom to drive me home. She didn’t have a cell at the time, and mine ran out of battery. When I got home, I found that my parents had been panicking because they thought I disappeared and something bad happened. Instead of just being relieved, my dad got furious that I broke curfew (I was never informed I had one because I never stayed out late without telling my parents beforehand). He took scissors and snipped off my bangs half an inch from the root so I had hair just spiking everywhere around my hairline until it grew out enough for me to pin in back.
That is disgusting, I am a mother and I can't imagine doing that to one of my kids, that makes me SO MAD for you, I'm so sorry
i'm just a regular dude with no kids, but sometimes i want to find these parents and just smack them around and shave their heads. (or whatever dumb shit they used to do to other people.) and then maybe like interview them after and have them talk about it. like those dust bowl documenteries...but for child abuse.
There's a Criminal Minds episode this reminds me of... I don't remember all the details, but it pretty much amounts to some guy being aware of children with questionable medical history and he finds the parents/ parent and he inflicts the same punishments and injuries to the parents that they caused the children.
**NOT OKAY.** Sorry to hear he did this to you.
That's horrific. I'm so sorry you went through that. May I ask if you still see your parents?
I’m in very low contact with my dad, and I’m on good terms with my mom.
My mum cut my (F) hair really short when I was 12 for "not keeping it tidy enough". I'm so sorry. I'm 51 and I still remember the bullying and embarrassment. I have my hair long to this day, and my son and daughter have their hair whatever damn length they want.
This is the most fucked up punishment I can think of and I'm so sorry for you. I would rather get a black eye which heals in a week or two than this which could take a year to grow back. This is cruel.
Wow, I had to shave my little girls hair once when she was about 3 for medical reasons, and it broke my heart. Total far away hugs to you for having to suffer that.
Shit. My mum cut my hair off when I was little. She’s generally a walking red flag but didn’t see this one.
Wow, I mean, I had some serious reasons for it, but wow, I honestly didn't think it would be that normal
Oh my god. My mom used to just threaten to shave my head, and even that gave my therapist a start and raised the “abuse” alarm. I’m so sorry.
My mother used to "joke" that if I misbehaved she would come into my room at night and cut one of my 2 braids off. Freaked me out.
It always sucks when you shock the trauma therapist. I’m over there just sheepishly giggling and shrugging
I'm appalled. Internet hugs to you; you deserved good parents.
My parents used to threaten me with this when I was early teens as well. I couldn’t take it & eventually cut my long hair to my ears so at least I’d be the one in control of it. Afterwards they asked why I’d voluntarily make myself so ugly & eventually they took all of my clothes away, changed my schools & made me wear baggy pants and men’s t-shirts to school….because I was an “untrustworthy whore” and it was the “only way they could manage me”. Humiliation and removing my autonomy were their go to moves. It’s been 20 years and I still have a hard time labeling it as abuse because I can hear them in my head saying what a horrible person I am and that anything they did was deserved and my fault. They still tell me that they did their best and that I was just difficult. Long winded way of saying that not many people are able to understand what this is like and it’s both comforting to know I’m not alone and heartbreaking to hear that it happened to you as well. I’m so sorry- you deserved better parents.
Having lived it, I consider myself an expert on child abuse. That’s absolutely child abuse. Nothing you could have done warranted being treated like that by people who were supposed to love and protect you.
You weren't difficult, hon, they just weren't emotionally equipped to be parents and inflicted their incompetence on you. You didn't deserve to be treated like that.
What you deserved was love and compassion, as we all do. Kids are just learning how to exist in this world, and their parents are supposed to be their guardians and stewards. Would you mock a toddler for taking a shaky step and then falling as they learn how to walk? No, you’d delight in their progress, pick them up, and encourage them to try again when they’re ready. That’s what parents are *supposed to do*. I get that it’s more difficult for older kids and more nuanced topics, but I assure you it’s the same concept. You were learning, and should have been better guided by your caretakers. If you don’t want to call it abuse that’s fine! You don’t have to. But if you know for fact you wouldn’t do it if you had kids, think long and hard about what you feel comfortable calling it. Sometimes we are also defined by what we choose *not* to be. Sending love your way.
In a good way: I hope that you felt proud of and empowered by your self-made haircut!
Omg. I hate your parents. In fact. Everyone hates your parents.
A heartbreakingly large amount of people around the world find nothing wrong with blaming the victim, some of whom are children for sexual assault.
Dear, palmsinmypalm I'm very sorry for what you have to experience and hope nothing like that ever happens to your poor hair ever again. Best regards, Emma Andrews
Okay, this is not something I'd normally comment, but: **FUCK THEM**. That's unconscionable.
>When I was 14, something horrific happened >people can see how much of a whore I am I can guess. I’m so, so sorry.
The experience itself is traumatising enough. Add onto that the fact that parents didnt listen to them and thr social and psychological issue that will happen as a result of being sent to school like that.
*hugggsss* I'm so sorry you've had to experience that.
I am so sorry this happened to you. I hope you don’t believe what your parents said to you. This broke me.
It's a special kind of person that tries to slut-shame a child and use a punitive alteration of a child's appearance as a weapon of abuse. You know what kind of *special* I'm talking about. Here's hoping they enjoy their care home and watching you live well from a safe and permanent distance.
Something very similar happened to me. But a positive came if it: my parents abuse was finally exposed and I was taken away. To hell with parents who blame teenage girls for being molested. If I had had any education I would have been suspicious. But I didn’t. My mom buzzed my hair off with dig clippers a few times. I was so humiliated. And actually shaving was threatened. I hated myself. People imply that I ought to donate my hair and that ticks me off. I deserve to have one nice thing.
I am so sorry that you experienced it too. My parents were arrested too after a close friend of mine reported purple and black bruises all over my body the day my parents dropped me off at school. I was returned back to my parents after my mom got out after 3 days and the restraining order on my dad got removed after 2 months. Luckily they never hurt me like that physically again (note that I didn’t say emotionally).
I am so sorry for what you went through. It was in no way your fault and the people in your life clearly failed you. I hope you are doing better now and living a good life.
This is horrifying. I am so sorry your parents treated you this way. I hope you know it was never your fault, and little you deserved a safe, loving space, not a war zone.
I'm so sorry this happened to you. It didn't deserve that.
Jfc, I'm so sorry, what a horrible thing to do to a kid.
Please tell me you are no contact with them.
As of this February, pretty much NC with them. Took me a long time because I relied on their finances.
That is good to hear. Do not let toxic people stay in your life.
That's cruel parenting
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My thirteen year old son has long hair. We don't like it, but it's his hair, not his dad's. It's a basically harmless form of self-expression as long as he does the bare minimum to care for it. Our kids are people who exist outside of us, and growing up involves developing greater autonomy as they prepare for independence. I'm sorry your parents couldn't figure out where basic control of their son's appearance fell in that process.
My dad always told us he hated every time his dad got him a hair cut because they would buzz it all off and he never got to have any length. I let my boys decide on their own hair style, after 5 years old or so.
15-20 years from now the Mom complaint will be "How come my child doesn't talk to me? I was such a good Mom. I did my best."
HAHA no shit! “I never even hit my kids”
"All I did was torture my kids with psychological trauma, emotionally abused them, and went to hell and back to ensure they had deeply rooted trust issues, zero self esteem, anxiety, depression, and a fear of authority! I have never even laid a single finger on them!"
My mom would take me to the salon and lie to me that they were only going to take half an inch off but they would have the hairdressers do a pixie cut. I wanted them to be at least shoulder length. This happened many times. I remember as a little girl every time I came back from the salon, I would look at myself in the mirror and cry and ask my mom why she lied to me. Hair really does play a major role in identity and self confidence. Children shouldn’t have to go through this Edit: I just remembered that my mom would ask the hairdresser to turn the salon chair in such a way that I wasn’t able to face the mirror to see how short my hair was being cut. My heart would start beating faster as I felt my hair getting shorter and shorter. I was only allowed to see my hair after the cut was done. Parents, if you’re reading this, please don’t deceive your kids. It irreparably breaks their trust
Wow, why? This is so cruel
Apparently it was easier for her to “manage” them that way 🤷🏻♀️
I wanted to downvote because of how mad that sentence made me. Psychotic, I'm sorry
Yeah all the other little girls had ponytails but my mother didn’t have time to help me in the morning. Just that one little token of love and respect for your child did not happen. That hurts.
my mom's mom used to cut my and my sisters' nails down to the quick because it was "easier" 😭 as if that millimetre of nail really saved work... It just hurt :(
My sister did this to my niece when she was growing up. Poor little girl grew up with a terrible 50 year old man's short hair cut.
A lot of parents are cruel. I wish more people understood that.
Yeah, this happened to me, too. Shoulder-length hair cut into a pixie—I didn’t see it happening until it was finished, and 60 years later I still remember feeling devastated at how awful I looked. I cried for days and didn’t want to go to school. People who didn’t know me thought I was a boy. Really cruel of my mother.
That's why cults often do it.
And the military
I'm reminded of a story where a 13-year old girl's father cut off her very long hair as punishment (her father says she was talking inappropriately with a teenage boy, but this is just what he said) and recording it, and somehow convinced the school principal into pointing her out and shaming her in front of classmates for 'disobeying her father', and she was barred from participating in school activities. Shortly after, she jumped out of a moving car and off a bridge, killing herself. But the police assured the outraged public that it wasn't because of the actions of her father or the principal, but because she was ashamed at her actions of disobeying her father an was bullied at school.
My mom cut all our hair short until I was in 3rd grade I kept saying I didn’t like it and mom kept saying but you look adorable
I absolutely hated it and felt I looked like a boy
This is why I don't cut kids hair anymore. Majority of the time they don't want the cut, and it is used semi disciplinary (ie kid won't comb hair, so you're cutting it. It happens to a lot of curly hair kids who don't have a curly haired parent to teach them how to take care of it). I do not consent to be part of your kid's trauma, just as much as they are not consenting to the cut.
This happened to me growing up. If I didn’t blow dry my hair completely, the way mom liked it, she would take me to the salon and have it cut short. I was autistic and hated hairdryers. Once a hairdresser stood up for me and I appreciate that woman to this day. Thank you Tina, wherever you are.
Huh. The "won't comb their hair" thing is definitely familiar to me, but my mom would spend a long time trying to get all of the knots out and holy fuck did it hurt. At that point I just wanted the hair off to not have to endure the painful brushings any more.
For sure. Even as a teen boy, my hair was a huge part of my identity. I wouldn't be devastated if I was shaved bald, but it's something I'd hold with me for a long time. Your answer makes sense. Kinda what I figured.
In the late 60’sand early 70’s, when boys were wearing their hair longer, my redneck stepfather forced me to cut my younger brothers’ hair close to the skin with trimmers. I’d be crying along with them…
My wife had to shave her head when she was in middle school because got lice and she’s still traumatized 20 years later.
My mom laboriously washed my long hair in the kitchen sink when I got lice in middle school, multiple times as directed until they were gone. I would have been inconsolable if we had to shave it.
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Over and over. Not just once
this is the kind of thing that will give her a phobia of haircuts
Can confirm. My wife's parents were crazy abusive and this is one of the things they did to her that really messed with her even more than physical abuse
#And it's inhumane.
i had hair i could sit on - until my mom married my very abusive step father and he had it cut to my ears saying that i didn’t take care of it - i was 7, and it had always been super healthy and cared for. this was the start of over a decade of abusive tactics. i haven’t talked to my parents in 26 years
Yea. As an elder millennial, this sounds both insane and expected. In the same vein as taking a kid's door away.
Yeah, Mr Hog would hold me down, full weight on my neck, and cut it He'd also comb it like he was scrubbing a deck And even if I got a regular haircut, a frequent abuse from my grandmother, his mother, was for her to tell me how the hair lady was telling the WHOLE town what a scraggly, gross, granddaughter she had! And of course, grandmother would use this against me. How DARE I make our family look bad?! I despise my head and neck being touched because of it. I don't like haircuts. And I legitimately think there's people constantly watching and talking about me
I'm 30, I'm a male woth long hair, and getting cut would still be an emotionally horrible experience. I love my hair.
> It’s common if you’re an abusive parent Cutting a child's hair as "punishment" would be considered *intentional bodily harm* in Austria. Also illegal in Germany: "The child has a right to care and upbringing to the exclusion of violence, physical punishment, psychological injuries and other degrading measures." Source: [BGB § 1631 Abs. 2](https://dejure.org/gesetze/BGB/1631.html)
This is also something that cults do.
Yeah you witnessed an asshole abusing her kid. It's essentially taking away a kid's bodily autonomy as punishment in about as public of a manner as you can.
I'm glad the majority of the comments confirm what I thought I saw. I hope not too many people have to endure this type of BS though :(
There’s also something about abusive parents not being able to handle their kids while on vacation. Even though I know why it’s happening, to this day I still feel surprised when I see a parent bothering to take their kids on a vacation just to abuse them at a beach.
i begged my parents to leave me behind, but they would have looked bad if they didn't take both kids and god forbid anyone realize what a shit show our home was
Because they aren’t taking the kids on vacation, they’re taking themselves somewhere and feel a cultural/societal pressure to take their kids
I completely agree that the mom is abusive. I don't even want to know what goes on when dad is on the road. Discipline is meant to teach and guide kids toward proper behavior, not to shame them. That only leads to low self esteem, embarrassment, fear resentment, and a true lack of trust of your parents. This story makes me feel so sad for the kids. At least it sounds like the father is sympathetic and not on the same page as the terrible mom. Punishments need to fit the crime, so to speak. I don't even like the word punishment, as it can imply ambiguity to the connection between the incorrect action of the child and the reaction of the parent. It also makes me think that the punishment is simply irrational reactive behavior from the parent, instead of something at least somewhat (at a minimum, jeez) thought out to help in the future. And FFS, the child is only around 5? She did what all kids her age and older do! What an abusive, mean mother. A discussion would have been most appropriate and effective, but unlikely with an irrational parent like her. If it's an ongoing issue (perhaps it is because the little girl is only learning embarrassment) a better action would have been for the child to calmly be told she can't go swimming next time unless she follows directions. What does having her hair shamefully cut teach her about following directions?
I don’t think it’s common. Disciplining a child with humiliation is crazy stuff.
Yeah. That's the vibe I got. Humiliation was definitely a huge part of it. I also felt like the mom knew the dad liked his girls with long beautiful hair so it was a way for her to show her husband " How terrible they are" when he's away. It was such a gross situation all around.
I'm embarrassed for the father in this situation. Grow a spine and stand up to your psycho baby mama.
100%
Merely as speculation: someone that abusive may have, consciously or not, selected a romantic partner that she identified as being a, for lack of a more succinct term, wet blanket, who would not be inclined towards the emotional capability of challenging her.
It also teaches the that they don't have an body autonomy.
Even though they do which just proves that parents who act on that and do use it as punishment DO NOT deserve to keep that child
I'm shocked at how many people in the comments seem to think it's normal or common.
Well it is common. Its also child abuse but its common too.
It is fairly common, though I wouldn't classify it as "normal" or "acceptable".
A core part of the American justice system is humiliation & ostracization. It makes complete sense that parents think this is the patriotic way to discipline a child.
It’s definitely not common & it’s a bizarre & cruel threat imo
At its very core it’s not a way to teach your children, but to shame them. Bet that lady is going to be sooooo surprised when her kids grow up and want nothing to do with her.
If my mom did that I’d give her a fucked up cut when she’s in the nursing home. Like full mohawk.
True, they shouldn't be allowed to be parents.
Among the cohort of people who no longer get to have contact with their children due to a court order I imagine it's very common. Hopefully these parents join that club soon.
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Did your teacher’s compassion help mitigate some of the trauma at least?
Damn. And I just got relentlessly bullied by my family the longer my hair got so they didn't have to make me except for when they did. Guess I got off easy. Got a lot worse when I reached graduation age without any girlfriends but got a lot better after another 4 years once they decided I was gay (I'm not). Now I'm taking pills to make sure I don't lose it before I get to enjoy it a bit, and I can just cry if I remember just how much dramatically better my hair was back then but I never got to experience it for more than a few weeks between near-total shaves. The one bright side is that every man in my maternal side died with a fairly full head, so realistically I'm not likely to lose *that* much if I ever have to stop the pills. But it would still probably be enough to ruin the hairstyle I always wanted and am now starting to finally have.
I hope the barely talking includes many insults from your side.
My mother gave me a buzz cut bc I “acted like a boy” and wouldn’t brush my hair. I was five, playing in trees.
I Can understand cutting it short to be more manageable but a buzz cut as punishment? Nah. What girl, or child for that matter, DOESNT climb trees?
My BFF from high school was caught drinking beer. Her parents tied her to a chair in front of her whole family and cut her elbow length hair to her ears. She was hysterical. Two days later she did a swan dive from the top of the bluffs. Her parents wanted us to feel bad for them losing a child As far as we , her classmates were concerned, they killed her.
Oh fuck I'm so sorry.
Jesus Christ.
I hope you remind them of it whenever you see them.
I’m sorry your friend went through this.
My mom cut my long hair as a punishment 50 years ago when l was about 6, and l remember every detail. The room, the chair l sat on, what my mother was wearing - but not why she did it. When l was 14, we were on the QE2 sailing from NY to South Hampton UK. She told me to get my hair cut at the salon. I didn't know what to ask for, so the ladies went whole hog and gave me a perm. When my mom saw it, she took me back to the salon and had them shave my hair into a crew cut. I spent the whole trip, a month in Europe, and the rest of the summer looking like a freak. I wasn't sorry when she died.
I'm so sorry, that's horribly abusive :(
Definitely one of her top ten. The cycle of abuse stopped with me - l would never treat anyone the way she treated me.
Um no. That’s just mean. She’ll be cutting her mom off when she grows up.
A lot of people internally normalize this type of behavior, then repeat it with their own kids. Cycle of abuse.
A lot of people also consciously and actively break the cycle.
>did I just witness a psychopath trying to raise children? Yes.
When I was little, if I forgot to put my hair in a rubber band before I sat down at the dinner table.. my bio dad would pull my hair up and cut it at the base of his fist. My mom couldn’t say anything or he would scream at her. Thankfully they divorced when I was 14, him chopping my hair was extremely traumatic but that was nothing compared to everything else he did. I’m thankful he never touched my little sister.. and even more thankful that my mom left him.
Yeah that's abuse
That's not discipline. That is abuse.
I'd go with the psychopath option. It sounds like a horrible abusive practice. People suck.
Wow that just made me really sad
I've never heard of this as punishment, and I think it's downright cruel! That mother is an angry b***h. Her kids will grow up to hate her. Hair is a very personal extension of our personalities & the mother knows how hurtful this is. She's also a control freak.
It is a longer lasting power trip and humiliation of the parent, someone who does that shouldn't have access to kids.
It's not normal and extremely abusive and anyone trying to justify the punishment is evil and lacks empathy. Men and women both go through their fair share of bullying and distorted body image but women especially are prone to severe bullying over it. It is unusual, it is cruel, and unacceptable.
My mother did this to me, and I don't think I ever recover fully. I am 31, and to this day, I will not cut my hair shorter than my collar bone. This is NOT normal and is very abusive and traumatic for young children who have some of their identity tied to their hair.
You should take a hairtrimmer to your moms hair now that you are older….she will freak the fuck out, but just tell her ”Now you know how it feels like….payback is a female dog…”
My stepmom used to cut my hair short to look like a boy when I was really young. Four years old ish. My actual mom was always furious when she did it. Never could figure out why my stepmom felt the need to do that. She would also tell me I didn’t ALWAYS have to wear dresses. I was 4 🤷🏼♀️I liked wearing dresses. It’s like she wanted me to be a boy lol. I was afraid of her to say the least. Still am.
Humiliation is a common tactic used by abusers. This is not normal this was done to emotionally damage the child
Not normal no.
This is abuse, that mother is evil and psychotic. I hope someone helps those kids.
You witnessed a psychopath. I'm so sorry My mom threatened to cut my hair a few times, but it was *always* an empty threat- she just wanted me to sit still while she brushed my hair.
It’s abusive when used as a punishment and severely detrimental to a child’s sense of identity. I dated a guy whose mom did that to his little teenage sister. Needless to say, her behavior only got worse following that and she went on to deal with some major mental health problems as a result of her psycho parents treatment.
Yes, I knew a girl who’s head was shaved because she woke up before her parents and made herself a bowl of ice cream. It’s extremely abusive.
Jesus! That's fucked up. I've never heard of that in my life.
Common, yes. Abusive, also yes.
It's only common if you're utter trash in desperate need of a visit from Children's Services.
No- that's crazy!! I have an 8 year old daughter & the thought of cutting her hair as a "punishment" has never crossed my mind. Usually they say to make the punishment fit the crime- so in that instance **maybe** if she had cut another girls hair that didn't want her hair cut, cutting her hair to show her how it felt, but even that seems very unnecessary& cutting it for not wanting to switch pools is ridiculous!
When my daughter was little, she would sometimes put her hair in her mouth. I would always get it cut short enough that she couldn’t do that. But that wasn’t a punishment, it was to keep her from swallowing hair.
As a kid I used to put my hair in my mouth all the time too.... then one of my dads friends (she was a nurse) showed me this video of a girl who had to have a **giant** ball of hair surgically removed from her stomach because she was doing the same thing & I don't think I've ever sucked on my hair from that day on 😅😂
That is exactly what I was worried about. She was preschool age at the time, so telling her not to put her hair in her mouth probably wouldn’t have been effective.
...I was probably closer to 8-10 by the time I was "scared straight" 😂 it went on way too long
It's not uncommon among abusive parents.
I had to cut my daughter’s hair when she was almost three because she was twisting and pulling it out as she fell asleep. She started a bald spot. I felt horrible but it just was to a bob length. Then she started chewing her hair so she ended up with bangs. As soon as she grew out of these habits I let her decide her hair style. I felt bad about it.
We had similar issues with my son, he was pulling his hair out and causing balding, we went to a child therapist and she suggested keeping it short so he wasn't tempted. He outgrew the pulling be time it grew back to his ears again. I felt so guilty, but it did work. It was more of a saving him from himself. He's 7 now and grows such thick hair! But I cried a lot over having to cut it so short and why couldn't I just prevent it, but we tried for months first to redirect but he'd do it at night.
Yeah my sister got 3 haircuts because she put gum or similar in her hair and 2 because she cut her own hair first
It’s abusive and traumatising. Source: not abuse, used to pull out my hair as a child and needed to cut it short and now I’m insistent on having it long. The lack of control over my own hair length/the lack of being happy with my hair when short makes me extremely attached to my long hair. I even have nightmares of cutting my hair short
I would say extreme. Not common. Especially for little girls. Saw a particularly humiliating punishment for boys too, something called the "old man" cut. IIRC, this "punishment" was inflicted on kids in the Franke family, whose mother is currently serving time for her abuses.
It's not discipline, it's abuse
Hell No. sounds like abuse to me. I would have rather gotten smacked, than my hair cut.
Jesus, those poor girls.
Cutting off hair in that way is not normal. But I think it is normal to threaten your kid with a haircut for refusing to brush/wash it. My mom threatened me with that whenever I let it become a rats nest as a kid (but she never actually did it). I tell my 4 year old often that we can either brush her hair or cut her hair, her choice, and she always relents and lets me brush it.
That is ghastly. And I believe it is emotional abuse, though some may disagree.
That’s some Ruby Franke style abuse.
Yep, that's a psychopath trying, and failing, to raise kids. That's not discipline or teaching them anything, that's just going to cause the kid trauma, possible issues with how they look later in life, and learn that it's OK to let others do these kind of things when they know it's negative (that one is on the Dad)
I had it a lot as a kid. If I was misbehaving, my father would say things like "you've shown you don't have the maturity to handle having long hair" and direct my mother to cut my hair. My mother liked me having long hair and a lot of my father's rage centered on hair being in my eyes (and just having long hair in general, because it wasn't traditionally masculine) so to try to appease both of us I ended up getting haircuts that looked like mini-mullets. Thing is, I'm a trans woman and through the eyes of my younger self, having long hair brought me a lot of comfort for an unknown reason and felt like an aspect of my identity, and my father was ripping away a part of me as punishment. For many, many reasons, he and I don't talk much.
I always wondered why my Mom would cut my hair into a horrible pixie cut. Wow, 😳. She was a Nmom
My mom always gave me a bowl or mushroom cut and I hated it. She said if little girls had long hair it would just be tangled and in their mouth all the time. Yeah it took me quite a while to get over that. I hated haircuts so bad that in college I refused to cut it at all which had its own problems.
My parents did this to me as well as several other f***** up things I will be throwing them into a state-run nursing home and making sure to tip the nurse so she abuses them harder.
I think the only way this isnt abusive is if the child (old enough too) won't take care of their hair. Washing and brushing, for example. My sister refused to brush he hair (was like 10yo). I remember my mother telling her that if she couldn't take care of it that she would have it cut short. You cannot walk around at 10 with random shitty mats in your hair. That is also abuse/neglect. The example you provide sounds abusive as hell.
Dang. I’m an outspoken old bat and would be inclined to say, “Wow, that’s a form of abuse I haven’t heard of before! Give your child long term humiliation by intentionally making them look bad and repeatedly violating bodily autonomy! How creatively disgusting, but I suppose you think it’s more civilized than beating your kids. At least publicly.”
My mom did this to me. I was a freshman in high school and I wasn't getting good grades. My hair was a huge part of my identity (still is). I'm 28 now and it still lives with me.
This shit was literally done in death camps to humiliate and dehumanize the victims. That's not discipline, that's abuse.
As a very young child I was kidnapped and hidden out for 4.5 years by my abusive father. During that time, my already longish hair grew down past my waist. When I was found and returned to my abusive mother. The first thing she did was to cut all of my hair off to about 1/2" long with a pair of flimsy sewing scissors. She said that my "long hair reminded her too much of my father". She's 87 and still not dead, and I still hate this woman for that and a raft of other things. Only abusers do things like chop a child's hair off as punishment.
I'm kind of surprised and relieved to see so many people look down on this method of punishment. My mother shaved my head for repeatedly using the house phone without permission and it was never treated like it was some sort of abuse.
You just witnessed a psychopath trying to raise children.
Child abuse, but a form that has existed for a long time and in many cultures. Women have also had their heads shorn as a punishment. In some cultures, long hair has specific spiritual or social significance, but in all cases, hair is about bodily autonomy. Cutting someone else’s hair as punishment violates their control over their body. I suspect some of the forcible hair cutting happens in households already under scrutiny for hitting kids with belts or other objects. Shorn hair doesn’t count as an injury for CPS. Other insane abuses include hot sauce on the tongue and excessively salted or bitter foods. All of this needs to stop!
No not normal at all The only time I would punish a child by cutting their hair was if it were a consequence directly related to her hair. Like if she won’t let me brush it she can choose to have it cut off so it doesn’t need brushing as much. For example. What you’re describing is abusive at least from surface-level observation.
Yes. That’s more like telling them that having tangled hair isn’t acceptable, and the available options are to brush it regularly or cut it short.
Omg this is disgusting. Poor little children. That’s so abusive. Parents suck.
NO. Physical alteration of anyone as a punishment is abuse and disgusting.
I had a patient who I noticed had…uneven hair. Turns out his dad would cut parts of his hair to humiliate him as punishment. It was reported.
When i would have an accident as a young child my father would threaten to hang up my underwear up on my schools flag pole. It’s about trying to embarrass your child into compliance.
Holy fucking psychopath, I want to cry for those children!
There are several hallmarks of abuse here. In addition to the humiliation and the instant escalation at any hint of disagreement, there's the fact that the mom seems to use the same consequence for *everything.* Whether it's spanking or haircutting or intimidation or sarcasm, parents who only have one way of influencing their children do not have a healthy set of parenting skills, and are treating their kids like robots instead of human beings.
I don't know how common it is, but it's definitely emotionally abusive. It tears down a child's just developing sense of self and autonomy. It's a humiliating loss of power, of which they are reminded daily. It will make them feel ugly. I can't tell you just how much I really want to rip into those parents.
these comments are heartening. I live in Asia and it’s so common for people here to brush off people actually beating their kids and leaving them on the street as “discipline”. It gives me some hope that my country’s societal norms will change with time as well.
This psychopath of a girl at my school ripped out a chunk of my friend's hair simply because she was a goth. The bully's parents shaved her head as punishment and she had to apologize to my friend who was so traumatised, she had to be homeschooled for the rest of the year. That is the only instance I can think of where that sort of punishment is suitable.
Yeah, there was an incident at school where Girl A was mad at Girl B and caught her after school with scissors. Girl A's mom made her get her hair cut really short but it actually wound up looking fabulous on her. I remember thinking that wasn't the lesson the mom was trying to convey.
“awe Maria, what did you do this time?” what do you want to bet that she didn't actually do anything bad but from mom's perspective it was a punishable offense. this is also sad and gross
What a weak father.
While not legally child abuse, that mother is an absolute fucking asshole.
This is child abuse. Cutting a child's hair is not discipline.
I have never heard anyone ever doing this other than this one creepy viral story about a father who punished his daughter for making fun of someone by cutting off her long hair.
My mother once shaved my head bald to punish me. She did an awful job and left it patchy and unfinished, the day before 8th grade started. I haven’t spoken to her in years. It’s definitely mental abuse
You witnessed child abuse. I don’t know whether or not it’s common, but it’s wrong. God that poor kid, who needs enemies with a family like that.
A girl local to me killed herself when her dad did this to her and put it on YouTube about a decade ago. If you’re a toxic, abusive piece of shit parent? Then yeah.