My Kid the Chinese Thug

I took my 9 year old to get a hair cut this week. He’s been begging me to let him get a mohawk for the past couple of years.

There is NO WAY IN HELL I am going to let my son get a mohawk.

Well, not this son. I did let my 15 year old get one when he was little. It was cute. And fortunately it only lasted a little while, since the gel that made it stick up bothered him at night when he was trying to sleep.

So we’re in the salon and my 9 year old is leafing through the hair book. He stops at a picture of a mohawk and starts salivating. He looks at me.

“No way,” I say firmly.

I manage to distract him with a picture of an Asian guy with short spiky hair on top and closely shaved hair on the side with squiggly lines running through it.

“You can get that,” I say. “Maybe you can get the lady to write ‘Rovers’ instead of the squiggly lines.”

That’s the name of his soccer team. He goes for it.

The hairdresser looks doubtful, but she says she can try to do the lines. I tell her she can just do straight lines if that would be easier. She starts shaving my son’s head. He has lots of hair (dammit) and we all get concerned for a moment. (By then G is back from Sunglass Hut.)

My 9 year old has never had such short hair. He is looking at himself in the mirror. I can’t tell if he is about to freak out or if he has fallen in love with his new self.

The hairdresser asks me to come hold his head while she does the lines. It actually looks cool, even though she didn’t get the lines exactly the same on both sides.

My son gets out of the chair and cops an attitude right away.

“Uh huh!” He gives us a gangsta pose.

Great. I guess it’s true what they say, your hair can make you feel and act a certain way. My kid is now a thug.

We go to the Chinese restaurant for lunch and our waitress admires my son’s hair.

“Lots of Chinese have that haircut,” she says.

Mm hmm. Great.

Mmm hmm, I’m cool, no one’s gonna mess with me NOW!