Keeping the Yentes* at bay

Over the past few weeks it has been brought to my attention that the state of my youngest son’s hair has gone beyond normal acceptable tonsorial standards and on into that realm normally reserved for mad scientists.

I’ll accept part of the blame.

Being somewhat, um, challenged in the follicle department I was loath to lop off perfectly good hair just to satisfy a bunch of yentes. Besides, there is some aspect of ‘baby-ness’ that floats away with the curls of hair during that first haircut that can never be recaptrured. From that point on, no matter how you dress the kid or smear food on his face, that innocent ‘baby-ness’ will be but a receding image in life’s rear view mirror.

Zahava and I were not in any particular hurry for that to happen.

But I agree, his hair was starting to get out of hand. It was getting in his eyes… it was always full of food… and even when he was clean, his hair looked matted and tangled.

It was only a matter of time before people started coming up to us on the street demanding to know what we intended to do about our child’s hair! I’m not kidding about this, by the way. It is very common here in Israel for perfect strangers to tell you your child is dressed too warmly… not warmly enough… that you are not feeding them correctly… enough…too much… and countless other helpful suggestions on childrearing without which your child simply wouldn't survive! Such is life in a nation of Jewish mothers.

The one ‘out’ I might have been able to rely upon to keep the ‘yentes’ at arms length is the fact that many religious Jews have a tradition of waiting three years before giving a boy a haircut. Unfortunately for us, this is largely a Hassidic custom, and my wife and I don’t really dress the part.

So, before Shabbat I got out my trusty beard trimmer and Zahava held Yonah while I sheared him like a sheep. He was not the least bit happy to have this buzzing things making passes at his head and past his ears, and he really put up a pretty good fight.

It was actually weirdly reminiscent of my experience at the beginning of boot camp when they herded us all into the base barbershop. I can still remember the barber asking me if I wanted to hold on to my sideburns. I asked, “Really?! Can I?” He said, “Sure! Just cup your hand under your ear and you can catch them as I shave them off.”

Well, no such witty exchange took place between Yonah and his dad… but as the wisps of hair drifted down to the floor a startling transformation took place. Our baby floated away with the little brown curls, and in his place was left a tear streaked little boy. His appearance was made even more pitiful because his hair is not particularly thick. In fact, truth be told, it’s a little patchy.

The end result was actually eerily like a little boy in a DP camp, circa 1946. Maybe the striped outfit he was wearing added to the effect.

Anyway, without further ado… I give you Yonah:

Before:

And after:

Now with winter fast approaching, all we have to worry about are the yentes telling us he’s “dressed too warm”… “not warm enough”… “where’s his hat?”… “he needs a blanket”…

* yen·te (yĕn'tə)
n. Slang.

A person, especially a woman, who is meddlesome or gossipy.