To Shave or not to Shave Baby’s Hair

Ok. It’s no secret that I’m Asian.. or may be it is. Lol. I don’t know I guess. Anyway, I’m Chinese… Chinese-American and it’s part of our culture to shave our baby’s hair off once they’re one month old. Many Asian cultures do this. Wikipedia has a page dedicated to the “first haircut”.

One reason we do this is because the Chinese elders believe shaving the head helps the hair grow in thicker. I cannot deny or confirm such beliefs, but many people swear by it even though the experts say there’s no correlation. If you’ve never met an older Chinese person born outside the states, you’ll know or realize you can’t change their belief no matter how much data of proof you give them.

I’ve heard the original tradition for shaving the baby’s hair is shed the birth hair they receive from the womb. After the shave, both mom and baby are required to take a bath with Pomelo leaves to ward off evil spirits.

We never did it at one month. After speaking with all the elders in my family, no one was dead set on when it had to be done, only that we should do it. My hubs, Eric, and I took an entire year to debate this hair shaving thing. There was always a party we had to go to or a family birthday that required photos. We just kept postponing it.

We finally did it this past weekend. Shaved it all off. Not because we believe his hair will grow back thicker, but because of the cultural part. It’s just an old tradition, regardless of the reason, but we felt we should do it.

Eric had this grand plan in place. He would do the shaving. I would videotape it and my nephew would vacuum. Vacuum? Yes. Eric’s theory was that Lil Man loves it when Baba (daddy) is vacuuming, so he thought it would be a good distraction.

The vacuum came on and Lil Man was in glee. Smiling and bouncing up and down in his chair. Then the shaver came on. He immediately started trying to move his head away. That didn’t work so he tried to swat it away. That still didn’t work so he combined both actions. My brother and SIL came home at that point and started playing with Lil Man trying to distract him. But, basically, it all ended in tears and loud crying. VERY loud crying. I can’t even get myself to upload video. Someone might call DYFS on me. But, I’ll leave you with this… before and after photos, then you tell me what you think of the shave. Oh and if you’re wondering who the guy is in the photo, no – he’s not Eric. Lol. It’s my mom’s boyfriend.

What do you think? Cute? Not cute? You think we’re crazy? Lol. Share your thoughts by leaving a comment. Have a great day!