Why does it seem that many women cut their hair short after their first child?

I could make a terribly sexist and misogynistic comment here, which would probably be right.

But I won’t because the Politically Correct Police and Social critics would take away my Fluther membership card.

Having had children, I can only give you my reasons. If one is the primary caregiver of children (which, even in this “enlightened” day and age, is most likely the mother) then shorter showers, less time and effort for grooming, things like that, are definitely a factor.

@elbanditoroso: Do tell us, dear, what were your reasons for cutting your hair after having had children? I had thought you were male, but apparently not.

I think many women feel shorter is easier, and less time consuming, to care for. I don’t feel that way, but many do. If it’s about bob length, just below the chin, you can go a good 3 months before needing a cut, if historically you had longer hair, you can eventually go back to the long as you let it grow.

New moms talk about barely being able to take a shower or pee alone when they have a new infant, so simplifying their own grooming routine seems logical.

Also, they tend to care less about looking sexy for their husband and the world. They just gave birth, their attention is on the baby, their body is still looking kind of pregnant for a few months, and they can’t have sex for several weeks. Moreover, more women in their circles have short hair cuts probably. There are plenty of women who don’t cut their hair.

Edit: also, some women lose a lot of hair after the birth, so they cut their hair so it looks a little fuller, and so there is less hair to deal with on the floors and in the shower drain.

The time saving benefits for a busy mother are undeniable, but the goal can also be to repel men.

Because babies and toddlers love to grab and tug at anything dangling, including long hair. This is the same reason why mothers stop wearing earrings.

@Love_my_doggie They can just put their hair in a ponytail, so they still have the option of long tresses when not tending to the baby.

Hahaha, not that simple @JLeslie. Babies and toddlers can wreak all sorts of havoc on hair, no matter how well confined. Babies and toddlers are human, remember, with human intelligence, curiosity, and opposable thumbs. Only the youngest of babies don’t grab hair and stuff. A ponytail just doesn’t cut it unless the child is sleeping.

During pregnancy, hair tends to not shed normally. After pregnancy, hair shedding resumes, and it can seem like it will never end.

Some women cut their hair shorter to help even up the hair’s appearance as it recovers from pregnancy havoc.

@canidmajor I know. I also know plenty of women who keep very long hair. They tend to be thin, with great hair to begin with, and from a culture where women try their damnedest to stay in the sexy roll. I know “white” women who keep long hair too, but more Latin Americans and Asians.

I never quite understood this. When your hair is shorter you need more haircuts to keep it that way. When I was raising my children I never had the time or money for that. It’s also easier to keep longer hair out of your face and child’s reach by putting it up in a bun or ponytail.

My experience was just the opposite, @dammitjanetfromvegas, as long hair took so much longer to wash and tend, I couldn’t give up that time. The cutting was, at the most, once a month.
I guess that everybody just has different ways of handling it. If your husband was involved when he was home, that helps a lot, too.

@dammitjanetfromvegas I don’t have kids, but a ponytail is way way easier for me than short hair. Short hair I have to wash and style every day, because I get bed head and I look half bald in back. When it’s long I can just brush my dirty hair into a ponytail and go.

@canidmajor Once a month?! That’s a pain in the neck. Long hair you can go months without a cut.

Do you have thick hair?

15 minutes, once a month, down the street, was a whole lot easier for me than the added 15 minutes in the shower twice a week to wash the long hair. Maybe more often if the baby had had a particularly spitty-uppy day, or the toddler had been elbow deep in peanut butter.
I have thick hair, that wasn’t really a factor.

I know about long hair. I used to be able to sit on mine. After the kids were no longer that little I grew it out again.
It’s a very different care regime for someone with kids. @dammitjanetfromvegas probably had a different home set-up from mine, that factors into it.

^^Oh, you mean loooong hair. In my world long is different than your long. So, I’m guessing you have good hair. Either thick or a lot of it.

To me if we use short, medium, long, xlong, and xxlong, I define them more or less as follows:

Short: chin length or shorter.

Medium: to the shoulder.

Long: to the underarm.

XL: Bra line.

XXL: Below the bra line.

Height can play a part. I’m 5’6” so my hair has to be many more inches than someone 5’1” to reach the bra line.

I didn’t get a short cut, and thinking about the moms that had their kids in the same nursery school, not a whole lot had short hair, either.

To me, when the baby was first born, it was about six months of her sleeping a lot. A whole lot. Being a parent wasn’t hard until she started walking. Before that, I had been dreading not being able to get some sleep, and that never happened.

My hair is to the middle of my back but it is fine. It doesn’t take me that long to wash and condition it. I can understand how it would if someone had thick hair.

@jca Would you describe your hair as long? I would say you have medium length hair.

Do you consider short to be “man” short? Similar to my grandma in the photo?

@JLeslie: I don’t consider my hair short, but if I were to label it either “more short” or “more long” I’d say it’s “more long.” I think of short as being anything above the bottom of the neck. I think “man short” is very unsexy and hard for most women to pull off without looking unattractive. Your grandma in the photo is one of the rare exceptions, but her cut and the fact that she has a cute “pixie” look like Sandy Duncan is such an asset to her. I find many with “boy short” hair don’t have the cute look. Just my opinion, of course. I feel a need to add that because I don’t want to be attacked by people who may not agree with me.

@jca My grandma pulled it off well in my opinion. She’s about 53–54 I think in that photo. She also had a very nice figure, great posture, and dressed well, so her presence was a very nice, sort of active/energetic, feminine one, even with the short hair.

I think your hair is more long than short too, but then when @canidmajor talked about hair down to her ass, I’d guess you, like me, don’t even consider hair that long when we think of long. It’s not on our radar. Anything below the shoulder would be long to us. Would you agree? Or, am I putting words in your mouth?

I agree anything below the shoulder is long, to me.

@canidmajor How short did you cut your hair? “Man” short?

What on earth is “man short”? Buzzed? Shaved? It was short for me, blunt, just below my ears. Anything that had to be “styled” was out. It’s very thick, maintenance is time consuming.

@canidmajor Man short is your typical, classic, WASP man style. @jca is right, the more proper name would be pixie for women.

By blunt do you mean like a bob? That would be short to me if it was just below your ears.

My hair is thin, so it dries very fast. I have extensions now and I’m shocked how much longer it takes to dry. Still not very long, because I didn’t add a ton, but I still definitely notice a difference.

It takes a fair amount of work to keep your hair long and beautiful, but mothers don’t have a lot of time for that, so cut it short. Wash and wear!

Kittens “kneading the bread”. Twins did that with my sisters flowing locks. #4 a few days later.

It really doesn’t take a lot of work to make your long hair look good. 5–10 minute shower, then combed and air dried An extra five minutes for a blow dry if it’s cold.

Not to over-generalize, but I think the people who go put of their way to “mommy cut” are people who put more daily effort into their appearance than others like, say, myself.

I cut my hair when Ian was one… But that was because I had renounced my religion and hadn’t had a haircut in over 15 years (not even a trim). It was still what any reasonable person would consider “long” afterwards.

And I still only wash it about once a week, because fuck it.

Or, @Seek, perhaps we were just really averse to carrying around the smell of sour baby spit-up. Most of the moms I knew were way less concerned about their appearance than about the smell.

OK.

My kid had esophageal reflux, and spent the first year and a half of his life spitting up. I get that, believe me.

I solved the vomit-hair issue the same way I solved sitting on my hair: I put it up. Usually with a hair elastic I was already wearing on my wrist from the day before.

:: shrug::

Yeah, that constant reflux thing is a bear. I dried up early, so I did a bizarre dance trying to find the perfect formula mix to lessen that, little to no joy reducing the reflux, but the baby was thriving so no actual problem.

Yeah, we just kept cleaning cloths strategically placed around the house