Pants-Free Parenting: Waving the white flag in battle between moms, daughters

My daughter loves her hair. She believes it is magic - her hair can heal wounds. She spent most of last year, touching her hair to her friends whenever they pretended they were dead. 'You are healed!” She'd yell.

She loves to wear it long, flowing down her back, 'Like Rapunzel,” she tells me when I beg to put it up in braids or a ponytail. I always relent. Her hair, her choice. I just do my best to make sure it is combed. But even then my daughter fights me.

My husband can hack a hairbrush through my daughter's hair and she will barely flinch. I touch a comb to her head and she wails. I try not to take it personally. After all, hair has always been the battleground between mothers and daughters.

For most of my childhood, my thin snarly brown hair was cut short in a bob. My mom explained that this was because I didn't take care of it. She'd said this as she pulled sticks and leaves from my hair. She said it when I cried and begged her to let me grow my hair long and let it flow down my back in thick braids like a pioneer girl. Or when I cried because she had teased it too big. 'You need more volume,” she'd say, her Southern talent for backcombing made me look like an electrocuted rodent.

When I turned 18 and left for college, I grew my hair long. I haven't had it shorter than shoulder-length since. Even at 32, my hair decisions still feel informed by that nine-year-old girl who just wanted braids. When I visit my mother, she will notice my new haircut, the streak of red dye, my thick bangs and she will sigh. 'Have you thought about a bob? It's so flattering on you.”

My mother just wants me to look nice. I understand her kind intentions behind every disappointed huff or gentle suggestion: 'Your sisters say bobs are back in style.” My mother knows too well the meaning of good hair. She lost most of hers when she had trouble with her thyroid in her early twenties. Hair is a treasure. It's a gift. It's a shield of beauty and a flag of resistance. My sister Becky had a similar fight with my mom. Becky's hair was thick and blonde. My mom insisted she keep it long. When Becky turned 18, she shaved her head.

And as much as I try not to repeat the sins of the past. I hear my mom in my voice when I tell my daughter: 'Let's just get that hair out of your face so you can play.” I annoy myself, but it's hard to stop. My daughter shakes her gnarly hair. 'No! You will wreck the magic.”

I give in. Her hair, her choice. But it isn't easy. Last year, I learned that the teacher at school brushed my daughter's hair for her. My daughter told me, 'Oh my teacher just brushes my hair sometimes. I love it!” That night, when I told my husband, I had to hold back my tears. 'They probably think I'm an awful parent!” He patted my head; my own hair unwashed for two days.

'It's just hair,” he said. But he doesn't understand that for women, there is no such thing as just hair. Hair is our moniker. Hair is a calling card.

I am a mother, raising a little girl with magical hair and I both want to allow her autonomy and steel her against judgment. I can't do both all the time. And all too often in the language of mothers and daughters, the words of caring and criticism are one in the same. So I try to be quiet. I buy her new hairbrushes. I keep my advice to myself.

'Do you want my hair on your head?” She asked me the other day when I brushed some from her eyes. 'No,” I said. 'I love your hair. But I love mine too.”

I wasn't exactly telling the truth. Part of me does want her hair - her magical hair. It's the stuff of princesses, movie heroines, and fairy tales. But more than that, I want her hair because I want that moment again, when hair was just hair - not potential, not a fate to be managed, not a bother or a necessity, not another part of me I learned to hate, not a connection to my mother fraught with concern and censure.

' Lyz Lenz is a writer, mother of two and hater of pants. Email her at eclenz@gmail.com or find her writing at LyzLenz.com.