I think I mentioned that the reason I started off looking for tips on how to grow your hair long was my daughter. She`s four, has fine, fair, floaty hair to just above her waist and wants to grow it "as long as a mermaid".

So good old mummy has been dutifully braiding and combing and oiling her hair and doing all the right things and her hair was looking great...till today.

This afternoon she came through with a hairbrush knotted into her hair. Not just any old brush, but a tough, cheapo radial brush that she uses for brushing My Little Pony`s tail. I`d told her never to put it in her hair and she never has in the year she`s owned it.... till today.

She`d started brushing the hair on her left temple, and, being four, when it started to tangle she tried to fix it. She wound the whole front side of her hair onto this brush, pulled it tight....then decided that whatever I said about the forbidden hairbrush, it couldn`t be worse, no? So she crept through and showed me.

I`ll tell you, I was just about in tears. You know these brushes and we`ve all would our hair round a brush, haven`t we? I looked at this solid mass of tangle round the brush and all I could see was me cutting it off. Most of the entire side of her hair, right up to the scalp. Honestly. About a third of her hair. Nightmare.

So I picked at it a bit, told her I might have to get the scissors, watched the woebegone face as I told her that if I had to cut it then the rest of her precious hair would have to go too. I was serious...it was that bad. What a mess. Her father wouldn`t even have hesitated. I doubt most mothers would have either.

But, as I may have mentioned, I`m a spinner. And knitter, and I crochet and weave as well. I can take a grubby matted sheep fleece and turn it into yarn fine enough to knit shawls. I wasn`t going to admit defeat to a £2 hairbrush without a fight. I talked to my unhappy little girl and we agreed to give it a go.

So for the last three hours she has lain sideways in total silence on my lap while I picked at this ghastly knot with a crochet hook. I tried pulling the plastic spikes out the hairbrush (unfortunately it wasn`t that cheap), I tried unwinding it...haha...I eventually settled on snagging one hair at a time with the crochet hook and sliding it (when possible) out of the knot. Fortunately my daughter has fine, slippy hair in good strong condition, so this was a workable plan.

But it still took three hours. My daughter has never willingly sat still for three minutes of her life, but she stayed there while I pulled and tugged and the hairs popped and broke and slid and knotted. But we got there in the end. I got that $%^&* brush out, and my daughter carried it over to the dustbin and threw it in. We also had a full handful of broken and tweeked out hairs...argh! Literally hundreds.

Oh well, it`s thin on one side. We combed her out and inspected the damage and though to me it`s very visible she`s happy because she gets to keep her long tail. Better than the 1/4" buzz cut she nearly ended up with anyway. It`s thinner on that side but not ridiculous and it will thicken up again in a few months, unlike the rest that would have taken three years to regrow. I kept on thinking how my mother had cut my long hair very short when I was four and 43 years later I still haven`t forgiven her for sending me through childhood ugly. I wasn`t going to do that to my daughter for the sake of a little effort on my part.

Now, a lot of people might call me mad for not just taking her straight to the hairdresser and getting her hair cut free from the brush and a neat pixie cut. But I know all of you will understand, won`t you?  

I totally relate and understand.  My mother had my shoulder length hair all cut off when I was ten years old in the dead of winter!!  I am 41 years old and have not forgiven her for it.  My hair is 32 inches now and all one length and god willing will grow until God says stop!!  You are a total saint and when your daughter gets older she should kiss the ground you walk on!

Well done!  She's lucky to have a good old mummy like you.  Although I do not have a crochet hook, I do gently take out one hair at a time from my own elastics on a regular basis.  Totally worth it, no?

God forbid it should ever happen again, I'm wondering if applying oil to the hair would have been helpful.  Hopefully none of us will ever have to test it!

She's brave-I would have cut it out myself!  My mom kept my hair short when I was young 'cause it was so thick.  I hated looking like a boy (I though I did, anyway) and couldn't wait to grow it out.

I would have worshiped my mother for all eternity if she had had that patience with me and my childhood messups. And I'd bet the experience has lasting effects and she'll remember later on to be careful about what she puts in her hair and maybe even listening to her mother!

Oh my.  You are wonderful! That took a lot of patience. And your daughter was so brave!
She and you deserve a treat. I hope I never have to deal with an ordeal like that with my daughters.
Meg

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Lol...thank you very much! My old university supervisor used to say that my term papers reminded him of Victorian novels. Which was not a compliment, I suspect, because I was doing a heavyweight science degree course at the time....

Wow,

bravo, your a nice mom. My mother never cut my hair but two of my sisters had to have their hair cut off in the back, shaved really. Some disaster they got themselves into. Not, too bad though since that was the STYLE back then ?!? egad, i say, lol.

your daugther incident reminds me of my own. After seeing the caucasian girls in class curling the ends with a brush alone. I decided having relaxed hair, i could do the same thing. I ended up in tears, my hair is not even close to their texture and I had also wrapped my hair around the brush the same way your daughter did. I went from sibling to slibing in my house trying to find someone to remove the darn thing. I thought i would have to cut my over shoulder length hair on one side. And darn it i would not have cut anything else, i would have gone to school with a bald patch! But, I was patient and took every strand out, only to decide a little while later that i didn't want my hair relaxed anymore, i wanted it to be natural again and That's a whole nother story!! LOL

Your daughter was so brave! hair accessories are a real treat!

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ummAbbaas