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The Drama of Long Hair

By Katherine Dobbs, RVT, CVPM, PHR

Like many people these days, I don’t read a paper in print. My news pops up as I enter my Yahoo! email accounts and the top story of the hour comes into view. If I think it’s an interesting story, I click in and read a bit. Last week there was a story of a male student who was suspended for long hair. This isn’t an uncommon scenario, but what was interesting is that this male student was four years old and is now serving an in-school suspension in his daycare facility (meaning he goes to school, but is segregated off by himself all day). The video showed the boy, whose hair wasn’t terribly long but did hang over his eyes, on the lap of his father who had many visible tattoos and facial piercings. It became easier to understand why the parents were standing firm on their son’s personal freedoms. However, the policy of the school was quite clear, to the extent that they even provided many sketches of how a boy’s hair can be fashioned. The school is also standing firm, because the policy applies to all students and has been in effect all along (obviously, the boy’s hair kept growing, and the parents chose to ignore the warnings that a suspension was in the near future).

The reason I find this type of story interesting is how it relates to a common discussion topic in OUR profession, that of dress code and personal appearance. Many practices now have a policy that prohibits an employee from having visible tattoos or facial piercings that are jeweled (meaning, they can substitute a spacer that is less obvious). The practices that have implemented this type of policy have established that for the purpose of appealing to their particular clientele in their specific location, their employees need to uphold a certain professional appearance. I am in favor of these policies, because we must always keep in mind that we have to appear as professionals in order to be accepted as professionals. This is dependent on the culture of the practice and the culture of the region, of course.

So what happens when this little boy grows up, and decides he wants to be in an industry or work for a company that requires him to follow a dress code? It will have been established by his parents and his own experience that his personal freedoms come first…regardless of whether his career choice requires that he succumb to the company policy. But of course, there are even more dress codes in middle and high schools as he gets older, so chances are they will have to face this issue again. Is it better for his parents to understand and accept the school policy and explain it to their son in a way that may eventually support the opportunities he may choose in the future? Should they try to make sense of conforming to policies so that their son understands that this is sometimes a part of life? Or will this just be a problem that is passed on to this boy’s boss in the future? Hmmmm.

As I said…it’s an interesting story.

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The Drama of Long Hair

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