My son is eight years old. Most evenings, after his shower (assuming his mother and I can get him to take one) and before his bedtime, I blow-dry his hair. Me—not his mom, not his sister, not himself—me.
Here’s the deal. My son is a goof, and very creative. When he was six, apropos of nothing, he announced to his mother and I after a bath that he wondered what he’d look like with “poofy” hair. So, I got the blow-drier and starting blasting his hair back, spiking it up all over. My son is blessed with hair as thick as a beaver pelt, which is a source of both relief and jealousy for his bald father. When I was done, he looked like he’d stuck his finger in a light socket. He loved it.
He wore it to school, to his first grade class, the next day. He goes to a liberal, hippy-style charter school, so there was no rule against having hair that looked like he’d been electrocuted. It was a big hit. He started requesting it every day, to have his “poofy” hair done after bath time. And since I’d done it the first time, only I was qualified to do it, in his view.
Over the next two years, his blow-dry spiked-up mane became a part of his character, his persona. When he started playing soccer, and the other guys were wearing faux-hawks, my son still stood out because of his spikey, flowing, flopping, and awesome hairstyle. We adjusted the name of the style, however, toward the end of second grade…we’d just made the playoffs in indoor soccer and he’d become our permanent goalkeeper, and “poofy hair” just didn’t sound right anymore. We dubbed it “warrior hair”
So Warrior Hair it was, and Warrior Hair it is. And here’s why I do it. I do it because it looks cool, and because he likes it, and this look is part of the person he’s growing into, iconoclastic, expressive, brave and free. However, the real reason for me is, it’s an excuse for me to touch my son tenderly, almost every day. See, he was not a bottle baby—he was what we call around here a “boobie baby,” so I didn’t get to hold him as much as I wanted when he was little. I didn’t get to feed him. But I did get to hold him on my chest while we listened to music, and pat his back gently and put him to sleep.
I can’t even begin to describe how much I miss holding him and patting him to sleep. I miss those tender moments of just me and him, being together, physically touching. But we have this now, and I get to run my fingers through his hair, and spin him around, and blast him with hot air from a blow-drier, and help him look like he wants to look, and it’s a real thing for me.
So, that’s why I blow dry my son’s hair. Because it’s awesome.
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Editor’s Note: In case you missed it check out Todd’s song and video “Sin Responsibly”
Thanks, guys. When this article originally came out, my son was eight. He’s ten now, and still rocking Warrior hair. I hope he does it forever.
Your son doesn’t know it, but those times have a lot to do with how you interact with each other over the rest of your lives. When he gets older, he may shun the hair drying, but if you get him interested in having his hair cut with clippers, you can do it for him and, he will probably get used to you doing it for him. Its some of the best time I spend with my sons – for the same reasons you state in your comments. And they don’t even know it.
That is a beautiful article. When my son was about 3 to 5 years he always wanted me to come into his room and tell him stories to help him sleep. I treasure the memories of those times. We also would listen to a little transistor radio I gave him and we would sing: American Pie, driving the Chevy to the levy. . . when it came on the radio. We stopped doing it when my wife thought it was kinda weird for the dad to be visiting his 5 year old son, every night.