Facial hair: a story, a journey of judgement, a failure :)

February 2019 was the snowiest month on record, ever, in the Tahoe Basin. Squaw received over 300 inches (25 feet!!!) of snow within those 28 days; it snowed 24 of the 28 days. I shoveled and blew every one of those 300+ inches (in addition to work, family logistics [driving], etc). It was already old by the middle of the month.

While that may be my excuse, regardless I didn’t shave for the month (I’ve never been prompt about shaving, but this was extreme). After a few weeks I told the girls it wasn’t a beard, but rather it was simply a side effect of not shaving.

By the end of the month it was officially a beard.

I hadn’t thought about it at all; not looking in the mirror made that an easy task. Annika, on the other hand, had to look at it a lot and did not like what she saw. She began an unsuccessful campaign to have Niki and Britta agree with her that I should shave.

Which got me to thinking.

Given that human beings, and young human beings in particular, are tempted by superficial clues (how someone looks, in particular) to judge people (for better or worse), I thought it would be interesting to challenge these impulses. If their Papa, who they know and love, suddenly looks different (and admittedly worse), but is still the underlying same person, maybe they might realize that looks are not a good first clue as to who a person is (and how they should be judged).

Sounds great, but the exercise was a failure for the most part. Annika continued to focus on me looking worse and not doing anything about it – which is a fair reaction. I was coming across as stubborn, which I don’t think I am and was not the point, anyway.

So then I thought of another exercise: Annika should learn how to influence people, a skill that will be useful in life. So I encouraged her to try and influence her sisters to “vote” that I shave; if she was successful I would shave. However, Annika’s attempt at influence essentially boiled down to trying to convince her sisters that I looked terrible (which they didn’t want to subscribe to as they thought they would be insulting me).

Sounds great, but that exercise was a failure for the most part, too.

So then I thought I’d continue the “challenge these impulses” regarding superficial judgement based on physical attributes, with the intent that this would end with my being clean shaven. Which led to this:

When the girls saw it they didn’t react at all; I think they were tired of this facial hair exercise.

I persevered being silly; why not have fun with it?

It turns out 16 is not a time of frivolity or goofiness; I was stressing Annika out, which was never my intent. So Niki, Britta and I went to work removing all facial hair, albeit incrementally in one short 5 minute session.

In summary, it is possible for me to overthink things, to see moral or ethical learning opportunities when in fact none exists. But also: I don’t recall 16 being such a fraught time…