Bed Head

What does bed head have to do with empathy? Well, everything.

She doesn’t want me to brush her hair. I only have to step into her shoes for a brief moment to understand what that would be like. She’s in the middle of a game and doesn’t want me yanking around on her. When her hair is tangled it hurts a bit to have it brushed out. Or it simply just might not be what she had in mind for herself for this moment in time. I have empathy for her and her situation and I leave her alone.

Now it is time to have empathy for myself. I don’t like it when her hair looks like that. I am uncomfortable going out in public with hair like that. What will people think of me as a parent?

So what do I do? On most days I gather my self confidence and let the hair run wild, telling myself that my relationship with my daughter is more important than the opinions of complete strangers. Other days I wait. On this day I waited until Echo was involved in earnestly brushing her teeth and didn’t mind my hair wrangling. But when she said “Ouch! Please stop!”, I did. So we ended up with a half groomed child. Oh well. I can have empathy for that too.