Wednesday, October 05, 2016

But It Is a Whingy Sort of Roar

I got my haircut today. I think I now have one of those "mom bobs" that the New York Times was so snooty about earlier this year, which brings my hair in line with all other aspects of my life in being disapproved of by the Times.

I think my husband agrees with the Times on this one. He liked my hair long, but I was increasingly unhappy with how long hair looked on me. Specifically, I don't think it was flattering to my face. Or at least, the type of long hair style that would be flattering to my face was proving to be too much work for me to maintain.

Which is why moms end up with mom bobs, I guess.

My husband will get used to the new hairstyle, and I don't give a damn if my hairstyle marks me as a mom, because I am a mom and why should my hair try to convince the world that I am not?

Of course, my husband's less than enthusiastic reaction to my haircut did nothing for my mood, which frankly, was already pretty grim. I am in the lying brain days of my month. I'm also still getting hormonal headaches. The sports drinks help: I haven't had a migraine since I started using them. But I do have roughly four days of constant headache. Drinking a sports drink and swallowing some ibuprofen takes the edge off, but I woke up with a headache yesterday, and it probably won't go away until some time on Friday. And of course, I still have the dull ache in my lower back and intense desire to eat cookies that has always accompanied my period.

I was grumbling to myself about all of this today, while I waited on hold to talk to the pharmacy and sort out the aftermath of my failed attempt to combine picking up my prescriptions with taking Petunia to her art lesson. But then the pharmacy tech took me off hold, and I managed to cross that task off my to do list. I actually powered through every single thing on my to do list, except "call for a car service appointment." Maybe I can get to that tomorrow.

Still, it was a pretty good day on paper. I got a lot done, despite my brain's attempt to convince me I am a loser and my body's attempt to get me to go back to bed. (Including posting the teaser page for my next Taster Flight, sign up now if you want to be an advance reader!)

But most of what made today such an achievement is invisible to the world, because we don't talk about the things that our hormones do to us, and how amazing we are that we get things done, anyway. We've been conditioned to think of those things as signs of weakness, not the signs of strength that they are. When I was growing up, the existence of our monthly hormonal cycle was often advanced as a reason why women shouldn't be in charge of anything, so we learned not to mention it, lest we remind people why we shouldn't be taken as seriously as our male counterparts.

Except it didn't work. No one forgot their biases because we didn't celebrate this aspect of our strength. So screw it. I was strong today, and I'll be strong tomorrow, and I'm proud of that.

I am woman, hear me roar. And I don't care if you laugh at my mom bob.

8 comments:

  1. Thank you for this post! This is great. We all need to be reminded of our strength now and then, and I will try to keep it in mind for those low days in the future.

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  2. I have had a bob since waaayyyyy before I had kids, and I love it both because it's easy and because I also find it much more flattering on me than long hair.

    Per the hormonal thing - I just saw a piece on NPR yesterday about how they got a bunch of hate mail from women when it was suggested that sipping ginger tea was a cure all for morning sickness. Another case of "women's issues" being characterized as "not as bad as all that". I've been fortunate to not have much trouble with PMS but I did have TERRIBLE morning sickness (drinking ginger tea would have just given me something else to throw up) so I feel you having to deal not only with feeling like crap but also with people not taking it seriously.

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  3. Calee5:32 AM

    It's a bad day when I realize my hair has outgrown it's long mom bob and is now just a stringy mess.

    I've been thinking a lot about what you wrote a while back about medical research into "women's issues" and geez it's frustrating. I'm not sick sick, but every time something female-specific hits me (whether its a UTI or reoccurring night sweats due to a hormonal imbalance) I can't help but be annoyed that we don't have a better solution yet.

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  4. I assume I have a mom bob of one sort or another. I have it for the same reason I don't wear makeup: I don't have the time or energy.

    Longer hair is more flattering on me, but shorter hair makes me look younger. I've gone with longer hair for quite some time, but right now I care more about ease than either of the other factors.

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  5. Yes, he will get used to it. My wife has short hair, at least in part for maintenance. It works. I can't complain. I have short hair for maintenance and also because I know it's going away and don't want to pretend otherwise.

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  6. Yes to this whole post! (And Mom bobs are way practical. I'm not a mom but still sport one.)

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  7. I actually found shorter hair HARDER to keep up---it would pouf up ridiculously if I didn't blow dry and/or straighten it, and I couldn't just pull it into a ponytail on a humid day. And then after 2-3 months it looked ridiculous---needed to be re-cut. After a year of that, I decided to grow it out again, despite the compliments.
    I get hormonal headaches, too (having them this week UGH). I so appreciate this post as I try to get through a day of staring at the screen and typing with a wicked headache.

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