We all have that one relative, don’t we? The one who shows up for a holiday visit, and you just start a mental countdown for when they’re going to say something infuriating about your parenting, your house, or your life. For one ex-Mormon mom on Reddit, that person is her own mom, and the topic is her 3-year-old son’s hair.
Our narrator is a 32-year-old woman who has left the Mormon church. Her mom, however, is still “very much in the cult,” with all the “typical Mormon mindset regarding gender roles and all that bullsh*t.” They usually get along… as long as they don’t talk about religion. But when it comes to her kids’ appearance, it’s apparently fair game.
The mom is visiting for the narrator’s birthday. And the narrator has two sons: a 5-year-old with a mohawk, and a 3-year-old with “shaggy, shoulder length hair.” This is the problem.
Almost immediately, Grandma starts in on the toddler’s hair. This isn’t her first time at this rodeo, either. She unloads the classic, tired script. “Why don’t I cut it?” “Don’t I want to prevent him from being bullied?” And the ultimate, pearl-clutching, “Or from people thinking he’s a… GIRL???” The sheer horror.
But our narrator has her reasons. And they are all, frankly, perfect. She wants it to be his choice. He “acts like I’m murdering him” just trying to brush his teeth or hair. He “flails around like he’s having an exorcism,” and she’s not about to mix that energy with a pair of scissors. If someone assumes he’s a girl, “that’s on them.” And, the most important and valid reason of all: “mostly it’s because I don’t f**king want to.” A complete sentence.
This reasonable, multi-point takedown just made Grandma mad. So she finally just said the quiet part out loud: “Well I just don’t like long hair on boys.” Ah, there it is. The real, old-fashioned, gender-policing truth.
And let’s just pause to appreciate the glorious hypocrisy. She “doesn’t like long hair on boys,” but she has zero problem with the 5-year-old’s mohawk. Because that, apparently, is “boyish enough” for her. The logic is just… not.
But the real crime? She said all of this in front of both kids. That, for our narrator, was the final straw. You do not get to insult a child’s appearance to their face.
So, she let the first thing that came to her head fly. And it was a work of art. A masterpiece of petty, theological justice. She looked her mother dead in the eye and said:
“If you have a problem with long hair on boys, I suggest you take it up with your lord and savior Jesus Christ. You can start by asking him to get a haircut. Call John the Barber.”
I am deceased. I am buried. I am in “outer darkness,” which is exactly where her mom’s look said she should be. This is a level of savage, targeted clapback that most of us can only dream of deploying.
The mom, predictably, “steeped in her anger” but said nothing else. The roast worked. The message was received.
Now, the narrator is wondering if she was the ahole. She admits it was a “low blow” and she has a “speak first, regret later” tendency. But let’s be real. Was it a low blow? Yes. Was it deserved? Also yes. You cannot just poke and poke and poke a bear and then act all scandalized when it mauls you with biblical facts.
She’s not the ahole. She’s a hero. She just taught a masterclass in how to handle a boundary-stomping, hypocritical grandparent.