I recognize that I am blessed to have a 10 going on 11 year old son. And while I his mother gets on my nerves, I am also blessed and very thankful that she gave me him. But then there are times last night, when all that being thankful bullshit goes right out of the window, and I am just plain irritated.

I know I've mentioned it before, but this story bears me mentioning it again. My son's mother is white, and while that always has presented small obstacles in the parenting department, as my son gets older, some of them become more glaring, and one of those issues is the barbershop. My son's mother is terrified of black barbershops because she says that the men hit on her and make her uncomfortable. I tried to explain to her that the men in barbershops hit on every damn body, and that's basically their job, but she still says no. I explained to her that most barbers cultivate a father/son type relationship with younger kids, regardless of whether a kid comes in their with his dad or not, but she didn't understand. I have a cousin that lives less than 10 minutes away from her, and I tried to suggest that she let him take my son to the barbershop, but she never follows through. Whenever I make that three hour drive down to Hampton to see my son, the first thing I do is make a beeline to the barbershop, but I don't see him every weekend, so that still leaves a void. And unfortunately, my son is a bit too passive to just demand that his mom take him somewhere to get it cut. So why am I bringing this up?

I got my son's school pictures yesterday, and I must admit I smiled because he looked very handsome. He was in those dumb, action figure like poses that they make you strike when you take school pictures but he looked good. But when my eyes glanced up at my son's haircut it was just a war zone. It was if my son's mother looked at Ron Artest, and said, THAT'S what I want my son to look like. There was no shape up, it was way too long, and as handsome as my son looks, his hair sticks out like a sore thumb, and it just irritates me man. I get my haircut every week and a half or so, and when I step out of the barbershop, I feel invincible, and I don't think its too much to ask for my son to get that same feeling. I suspect I'll have to resort to drastic measures to make sure this happens on a consistent basis.