Last night, just before I went to sleep, I was reading a thread on Duggar Family News about Jessa Seewald. She had posted a video of herself on Instagram, giving her sons haircuts. If you know anything about the Duggar family, you probably know that the Duggar daughters had to cut their brothers’ hair for many years.
Jessa knows how to cut hair, even if she never got professionally trained. But one person, a self-identified hairdresser, says that Jessa should not be allowed to post videos of herself cutting hair. She thinks that should be illegal! This is what she wrote:
As a hairstylist, this infringes on the education and hours I worked towards being licensed.
She needs to take this shit down.
No one wants to watch her give a shitty haircut from someone who never took a class and isn’t licensed.
It should be illegal for her to make money doing that.
Um… wow. I mean, I kind of get what she means. If you went to school to learn how to cut hair and spent time and money on training and a license, you’d rather people not know how to cut hair. BUT– haircutting is not rocket science. I have cut my own hair for many years. Sometimes it looks shitty, but that could also happen if I had a professional cut it. Especially if she’s a disrespectful little twit who curses at people and doesn’t realize that especially right now, some people are having to take on certain personal tasks on their own.
I do have some empathy for people who cut hair for a living. Thanks to COVID-19, their businesses have taken a huge hit. Bill just got a haircut done by a pro last week. Prior to that, I was the one cutting his hair. I never learned how to do it through a training program. Actually, I learned how to cut hair by clipping my horse back in the 1980s and, yes, I used a YouTube video to get an idea of how to do it on a human being. I even wrote a blog post about it his first homemade haircut. It doesn’t take much skill to cut Bill’s hair. I don’t mind doing it. However, I think we’d both prefer for him to have a pro do it. Maybe even the lady who posted the above comment… although she revealed herself to be quite the saucy little snot in that thread.
I mostly kept quiet as other posters took her to task, mostly telling her to calm down and chill out. But then she posted these comments, revealing that she’s probably not the nicest person:
When I saw her comment about c-sections, I had to respond…
You have got to be kidding me. You are comparing a haircut to a C-section? I get what you’re saying, but these aren’t normal times, and the Duggar women have been cutting hair since the early days! In normal times, no one died from a haircut. But they might during the COVID crisis.
I watched a YouTube video before cutting my husband’s hair, just to have an idea of what to do. But guess what! I managed four whole months of cutting his hair without embarrassing or killing him (due to virus exposure). I don’t see how a haircut is even remotely comparable to a C-section. That is NONSENSE.
So she turned the sauce on me… this was our exchange.
Ever heard that expression? You probably have to be of a certain age. The first time I heard it was in the film, Tootsie, starring Dustin Hoffman and Jessica Lange, among others. Jessica Lange’s character, Julie Nichols, invites “Tootsie” (Dorothy Michaels) out, and Dorothy says,
But I learned last night, that the expression “I have to wash my hair” has been around for decades. It was a popular excuse for getting out of social engagements back in the mid 20th century. In those days setting and styling hair was a time consuming process because a lot of women had perms. They would only wash their hair a couple of times a week because it meant having to set it and style it properly. They didn’t just wash and go like I do almost every day. So, back in the 50s, if a woman said she had to wash her hair, it meant she’d need a couple of hours. But nowadays, it’s just a way of blowing someone off. If someone tells you they need to go wash their hair, they’re basically telling you that attending to personal hygiene is more important than spending time with you. So you’d probably do well to heed that social cue and leave them alone.
I wasn’t interested in staying up late, trading barbs with some woman who doesn’t think amateurs should be allowed to post videos of themselves cutting hair. She seemed like an immature little bitch to me, and I needed my beauty rest. In any case, I don’t think it’s very smart for someone who provides services like hairstyling to be posting as she did. On the rare occasions that I do want to visit a professional hairstylist, I prefer to go to one who’s nice. She doesn’t seem like a very nice person. I didn’t even post the rest of her comments to others. Anyone who posted to her got a snippy, profane, bitchy response. And if I want bitchiness, I can get that for free almost ANYWHERE else. I don’t need to pay someone for it.
Given her expertise, I’m sure saucy hairstyler would fault me for washing my own hair instead of paying someone like her to do it. After all, she has special training and a license…
Most people visit a professional to get their hair done. But right now, as many folks are out of work and/or worried about being exposed to the coronavirus, people are learning how to cut each other’s hair. I would imagine that is an especially valuable skill to moms right now, because some places are requiring that kids wear face masks and not all kids can tolerate them. Some places don’t want the parent to go into the salon with the child, which can also lead to disaster. So while I’m not necessarily a Jessa fan, I think she’s probably done a great service to some people who are trying to navigate life during the pandemic.
I also like the way Jessa responded to some rude person who asked her if she was pregnant. This has happened to me before (by a French waiter, no less), and it’s never a welcome topic.
Here’s a tip. It’s NEVER alright to ask a woman if she’s pregnant. If she wants you to know, she will tell you. You don’t need to speculate. Women have “bumps” for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it’s caused by pregnancy. Sometimes it’s caused by medical issues that are none of your business. And sometimes, it’s caused by eating too much. If she’s pregnant and she wants you to know, let her go ahead and announce it when she’s ready. Otherwise, zip it. There’s a good chance you’ll embarrass her and yourself. And if you’re in the service industry, like the disrespectful twatbag that inspired this post is, it’s doubly important to STFU. If you rely on tips, you don’t want to upset your customer. Here’s a visual aid to help you remember when it’s okay to ask a woman if she’s pregnant.
Well, that about does it for today… at least for the time being. Enjoy your Monday.
My mom fired a special education classroom aide for four separate instances of asking [non-pregnant] mothers of students if they were pregnant and/or for alluding to their non-existent pregnancies in casual conversation on the job. God only knows how many other times she may have done it without either my mom’s or the teacher’s knowledge. The first time of which the teacher was aware the aide did it, the teacher somewhat nicely told her not to make such assumptions and not to ask about or to reference a pregnancy in conversation with a parent — even if the mother appeared to he ten months pregnant — until the mother first acknowledged the pregnancy. The teacher was nice about it because she assumed the aide was embarrassed and felt bad. Such was apparently not the case. (In that state, anyway, teachers don’t have the right to place complaints into paraprofessionals’ personnel files. They may report incidents to higher-ups, who then have the power to decide whether or not to document.) The aide then did the same thing fairly soon. This time the teacher reported it to the site principal, who spoke to the aide but didn’t document the incident despite the teacher telling him the situation had occurred previously and that the aide had already been warned not to repeat the behavior. Then she did it a third time. The teacher immediately emailed my mom, who would have liked to terminate the aide but couldn’t because the principal hadn’t documented the previous incident. My mom told the aide even if a parent, grandmother, guardian, babysitter, or, for that matter, a school employee appeared to be in labor, the aide was not to inquire about or allude to a pregnancy until the aide had visible proof the child was crowning at the very least (along the lines of the graphic you attached). She did it again, and this time the alleged pregnant mother actually called the district office to complain. My mom terminated her for cause immediately. The classified employees’ union tried to fight it, but their attorney told them they had no case.
This happened in a special education preschool class in the U.S., where preschool is not mandatory, The point my mom made to the aide at the time of the final warning was that if a parent were sufficiently offended or embarrassed by something an employee said, the parent might very well choose not to bring the child to school anymore, and the child would then not have needed services because of the aide having said something that did not in any way need to be said. There are things teachers and administrators sometimes legitimately need to communicate to parents that will offend them, but the aide’s comments didn’t fall into that category.
I just think that people need to keep their comments about other people’s bodies to themselves. I know people think of the Duggars as public domain, because they’re public figures. I give Jessa credit for being somewhat polite in her response. That was a very rude comment, although I’m sure the person who made it doesn’t see it that way.
Pingback: It’s just… like… my opinion, man… | The Overeducated Housewife