MOTHERING SUNDAE: Nits make me tear my hair out (From Oxford Mail)

MOTHERING SUNDAE: Nits make me tear my hair out

10:00am Monday 30th January 2012 in Columns

Yesterday I learned from a friend’s Facebook that she’d discovered a nit in her child’s hair and although not even a super-flea could leap the physical chasm between our electronic outposts, I immediately started scratching.

The same happens when, every so often, we get a letter home from school telling us that a stray nit has been found hopping down the corridor between the single-glove stockpile and Class 2, and please can we shampoo the entire family with the greatest severity and an astringent concoction from the pharmacist.

Now nits strike the fear of god into me because, while Europe was once known for its butter mountain and grain stores, my family historically stockpiles hair like there’s no tomorrow.

And hair management is not my strong point, although it’s not for want of trying.

Despite hours of brushing, smoothing and praying, my everyday style remains rather too Einstein. My locks are either completely oblivious to the ludicrous quantities of ‘sleek and smooth’ shampoo applied, or else my true look would be akin to a Vann-de-Graaf generator victim. And that’s not something popularly asked for in the hairdresser’s hot-seat.

Amongst my circle I have a top-class stylist who’s sleek and snappy with the scissors and produces fabled wonders on any number of mutual friends. But apparently I’d blunt her blades and murder her arm muscles, and it would take so long to coif me into normality she’d have to charge me for an overnight stay. I have, you see, enough hair to generate a profitable turnover for a yak costume factory, and it’s so unruly it’s surprising I ever manage to wrestle it home at night.

With three children, the school’s lice prevention requirements can take months out of a lifetime.

At least close-tooth combing shouldn’t be too hard with the boys: although their hair is somewhat feral, it is fairly short these days, although it wasn’t always so.

We once had an unholy incident where the barber asked us to leave partway through child-shearing because The Youngest was screaming and arm-waving as if being attacked by banshees and it rather put off passing trade. For two years afterwards, every time I suggested a re-run, peering between knee-deep locks, he would refuse point-blank with a toddler-logic “I’ve had half a haircut already”. We’ve come a long way since.

The daughter, however, has hair luscious enough to carpet an emperor’s palace in gold. This is why Rapunzel was hidden in a tower: not to hide her from princes, as popularly believed, but to keep head-lice at bay.

And these days, whilst not such a gripping fairy story, with 21st-century technology the lucky girl would be able to find a prince from inside her tower via social media without even having to condition or detangle.

And that, to me, sounds enchanting!