My five-year-old daughter\u2019s stepmother cut off her long blonde curls\u2014but discovering why left me furious.<\/p>\n
Alison adored Rapunzel and treasured her waist-length hair. My ex-husband, Gavin, had agreed that any major haircut would be discussed with me first. Yet one Monday morning, I arrived to find her curls replaced by a short, uneven cut.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just hair,\u201d his wife, Janice, said. Then she admitted she had kept the curls to make herself a wig.<\/p>\n
Alison tearfully revealed how Janice persuaded her: \u201cShe said if I gave her my curls, she\u2019d tell Daddy I could live with you all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
My daughter had surrendered something she loved because she missed her mother. She also revealed that Janice discouraged bedtime calls and criticized her for crying.<\/p>\n
Gavin, who had been told Alison only wanted a trim, was horrified. He retrieved the bag of curls and agreed she should come home with me.<\/p>\n
A stylist repaired the uneven haircut, but rebuilding Alison\u2019s confidence took longer. Gavin began seeing her without Janice present, and a month later, they separated.<\/p>\n
Months afterward, Alison noticed her curls returning and asked, \u201cCan I be Team Rapunzel again?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never stopped,\u201d I told her. This had always been about more than hair\u2014it was about her choice and trust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My five-year-old daughter\u2019s stepmother cut off her long blonde curls\u2014but discovering why left me furious. Alison adored Rapunzel and treasured her waist-length hair. My ex-husband, Gavin, had agreed that any major haircut would be discussed with me first. Yet one Monday morning, I arrived to find her curls replaced by a short, uneven cut. \u201cIt\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24454,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24446\/revisions\/24454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}