Should a baby’s hair be shaved?
Do you remember the story of Samson and Delilah in the Bible? When Samson was conceived, an angel of the Lord predicted to his parents Manoah and Zorah that they would have a son who will deliver the Israelites from the Philistines. Samson’s parents promised not to shave or cut their son’s hair. Samson’s strength was stored in his hair and when finally his hair was shaved by Delilah his enemies subdued him, plucked out his eyes and mocked him. That was the power of the hair.
In today’s world many myths have surrounded the issue of shaving a baby’s hair.
In one of the articles ‘My cousin stole my husband’, a lady expressed her pain when her mother-in-law agreed to shave the hair of the child her husband had fathered out of wedlock. The woman was hurt beyond words because that meant the child had been accepted in the family.
Many communities in Kenya have myths that surround shaving of baby hair after birth. I have seen babies who have turned one to two years and still have not been shaved simply because parents are still debating on who should shave the baby.
In my culture, it is believed that baby hair should be shaved by the child’s paternal grandmother. Consequently, if a girl gets a baby before marriage, shaving the baby turns out to be an issue of debate, especially if she had not been formally introduced as a wife-to-be.
I remember when my son was four months old; an old friend of my mum broached the subject. She asked mum and I when I would be taking my son to his paternal grandmother for shaving. I wondered why a four month old baby should be made to travel more than 1000 kilo metres for such a simple task. My answer to her was: my mother will shave his hair because I had bought a small pair of scissors specifically for him. I was not ready to take him to the barber shop; he was too young, what with the risk of infections.
Mum’s friend was shocked; she rebuked my mum for breaking traditions. To cut the long story short, my mum ended up shaving my baby and she did not do it once, but whenever it was necessary.
There have been arguments that baby’s first hair or what most people refer to in Kiswahili as ‘nywele ya tumbo’ should be shaved because it retards the baby’s growth; others argue that the hair should simply be shaved because it is dirt from a woman’s womb. This being a sensitive subject I sought the personal opinions of different women. They remain anonymous, for fear of catching up with some curse or other consequence!.
Jennifer is a mother of two children and both are boys. She says she has never shaved them because it is a taboo in their culture unless her mother-in-law passes away. She states that shaving baby hair is something she has learnt can only be done by mother-in-laws. I wanted to know for those whose mother- in-laws are past tense, who shaves the hair? She simply said the father of the child becomes the succeeding barber.
Ruth is a single parent and she does not understand why baby’s hair should be a topic of discussion. According to her the mother of the child should be the final decision maker on what is to be done about her baby’s hair, whether it is plaiting or simply shaving it. ‘Not any other person!’ she says. ‘I shaved my baby’s hair when she was 9 months old. I remember on that day I had taken her for a measles jab and on our way back, I passed by a local kinyozi (barber shop) in our neighbourhood where she was shaved: My daughter was a sleep and so she did not even know that someone was working on her head.’ Ruth says her baby being shaved by a ‘non-approved’ barber did not interfere a thing with her daughter’s growth and development.
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