Haircut Hell: A Special Thanks to a Stranger

“You’re doing WHAT?!” my husband asked me as he headed off to work. I repeated that I was taking all three kids to get their hair cut. He looked at me like I was insane. If you don’t know about my family, getting haircuts probably seems like no big deal. But my oldest son Christopher has severe autism. Taking him anywhere is a challenge. Haircuts are especially challenging. Going out with all three kids – insane.

But, I had recently had success taken all of them food shopping. Yes, it was just Trader Joe’s. And I’m sure we looked ridiculous as I pushed an 8 year-old in a shopping cart while my 7 year-old and my toddler trailed behind (or rather, ran around the store). I’m sure I looked even more ridiculous trying to get Christopher out of the cart since he won’t bend his knees and he’s getting really tall, so I just have to try to propel him straight up and then kind of swing him over…. But, whatever – there were no meltdowns and we got everything on the list. That is success. And I guess I got a little cocky.

“Don’t worry,” I assured my husband, “I have a lollipop for him. It will be fine.” Any experienced autism mom can point out the rookie mistake in that sentence. Our haircut place gives out Dum-Dums, so I was bringing an organic lollipop for Christopher to have after his haircut. What I should have brought was lollipopS. As in plural. First lesson learned.

The second lesson was that the haircut place is a lot more crowded on a Saturday than on a weeknight. The problem is that they close at 6:00pm during the week, so I have to leave work early just to get one kid there by 5:45. Since they all needed haircuts, Saturday was the only option. But, when we got there, there was a 15-30 minute wait. Kids with autism don’t always wait well.

When we finally got called, I had Christopher go first. This was not the best idea (third lesson). I thought he should wait the least amount of time, but that means nothing if you also have to wait AFTER. The haircut went surprisingly well. He wouldn’t let them touch him with the buzzer, but they were able to get in pretty close with the scissors. I was patting myself on the back a little. When he finished, his sister had started her haircut and his brother was still waiting. He went to the basket and picked out his lollipop. Success.

Until he finished his lollipop.

At this point, the other two kids were both getting their hair cut. Christopher wanted more lollipops. There weren’t any more lollipops. He dumped the Dum-Dums all over the floor to check. He got very angry. He screamed and threw all of the Dum-Dums everywhere. This all happened really fast. If you’ve ever had a public autism meltdown moment, you know it can come on like that. And all of the sudden you are snapped to attention, and you are the center of attention, and you don’t know what to do exactly because you are trying to control your kid and apologize to everyone staring, and explain to everyone about autism, and check on your other kids, and not to cry (please don’t let me break down and cry) and all you want to do is run away or fall through the floor or disappear. That all happens – just like that.

So, Christopher was screaming and then he was just mad. And everyone was trying to ignore me, but also get out of the way. And I knew that he was also mad that the other kids were eating those Dum-Dums and that’s not fair, so he was also angry at the injustice of it all. And he wanted to take it out on those other kids. He rushed over to the families sitting on the floor in attack mode. This doesn’t happen a lot, but it is The Worst (PS – I say that a lot of things about autism are The Worst – but I’m sticking to it because ALL of them are). So, there I was trying to hold him (and he’s crazy strong) while he flailed all over the place. Whenever I would get a hold of his arms, he would violently, wildly kick his legs.  Then he lunged for anyone he could grab – I managed to pull him back before he fully reached this mom sitting there, but he caught the ends of her hair. I muttered some attempt at an apology, but she was glaring at me like I was the worst mother in the world. I can’t blame her – she wasn’t expecting to get assaulted while she waited for her child’s haircut. At this point, we were like a circus side show in the middle of the haircut place.

Completely ignoring my other children, I asked one of the stylists if I could take him in the back. I took him into the bathroom and trying to soothe him. At this point I couldn’t hold back my tears. I hate feeling sorry for myself, but why couldn’t I ever just have a normal uneventful day? Why was my child trapped in a broken body, unable to control himself or communicate? Why did everything have to be so unfair all the time? Why couldn’t I just take my kid to get a freakin’ haircut?

I told him that I would give him another lollipop when we got home. I told him that we were leaving in just a few minutes. I told him that I was sorry that I didn’t bring more “pops” but that it was not okay to freak out and hurt other people. I washed his face (and mine) and walked him out, trying to ignore all the stares. My other kids were done and were sitting on a bench with a random woman.

She was telling them that everything was okay and that I would be back soon. She smiled kindly at me and it was all I could do not to break down in tears of gratitude for this small gesture. She stayed with them while I tried to write a check with one hand while holding Christopher in the other (cursing the hair place in my head for not taking credit cards and myself for not having the check written out in advance). I thanked her profusely and apologized for inconveniencing her, but she just calmly followed me to the door so that she could hold it for all of us to get out.

After getting all of the kids into the car, I completely broke down. My kids were either oblivious or just over it. “Ugghhh,” my 3 year-old let out an exasperated sigh, “Can we go home, or do we have to sit here crying all day?” Point taken – no time for self-pity in our family. Onward!

I didn’t write this to complain about how hard the little things are for us. I wrote this because of the helpful stranger. She probably has no idea what a difference her kindness made. She made a sucky experience – that is just one of many sucky experiences we have that we have to suck up and move on from – a little less sucky. I wrote this so that families not affected by autism have a better understanding of what affected families are going through (I know I could have been better prepared, but I promise that autism meltdowns happen regardless of the best laid plans), and maybe withhold judgement and show kindness. I wrote this on the tiny tiny chance that this stranger would see it, and know how grateful I am – for her and people like her who make the day a little easier for people like me, giving me the strength to face the next one.

When my husband got home, the kids were happily playing on the deck with their freshly cut hair. “How did it go?” he asked me.

“It was fine.”

“Oh,” he said, “I was thinking that maybe you should have brought more lollipops.”