Hairy Little Girl

If you're a female like me, take a minute to think back to when you were a little girl. See if you can remember the first time you shaved. Do you remember it, do you remember how old you were, but most importantly, do you remember why? Maybe you share my story.

I was 11 years old, it was grade 6 and time for gym class. As usual class started by students sitting in rows of boys and girls, to wait for the teachers, since class was separated by gender. The girls' line was typically more of a warped semi-circle than a line because there was a group of mean girls who always had to talk to one another. I was shy and new to the area, so I knew no one. This made me the perfect target for this group of mean girls. This particular day, the girls were feeling each other's legs, oohing and aahing over how smooth they were. They all had just started shaving.

One of the girls looks over at me and checks out my legs. Of course, they're covered in fine baby hairs. She looks up at me and says, with all the attitude you can imagine an 11-year-old, city girl would have,

"Ew, look, Claes doesn't shave."

Queue chirping of the other girls. "That's so disgusting." "I would die if I were seen in public with legs that hairy." "That's dirty." "You know boys don't like hairy girls right?" "OMG her arms are super hairy too! Nasty!" "I bet she has a hairy back too." They continue to harass me until the teachers arrive and I'm so thankful because I was about to cry. I go home that day, ball my eyes out and beg my [ex]step-mother, to let me shave. She says no, I'm too young and of course, I hated her for it, I didn't want to be made fun of any more for this and I was.

The next weekend I visit my mother, I have a bath while she's making dinner. While bathing I notice my mom's safety razor sitting on the edge of the tub, tucked behind the shampoo and conditioner bottles. Without a second thought, I'm running the blade along my calfs. I feel how smooth they are.

"Ooooh" ... "Aaaah", was the conditioned response.

So I continue to shave my thighs but I don't stop there. "Those girls said I had hairy arms, better shave those too.""What is this? Hairy on my belly! Shave that.""Do I really have hair on my back?" *feels blindly* "I DO!"

I shaved everything that had hair on it beside my eyebrows and head. By the end, I realized I had no idea what I was doing or what I had done and was just sobbing in the tub, going over everything to make sure I had gotten it all.

Eventually, I had been in the bathroom for so long, my mom had finished dinner and got very worried about me. I heard her yell for me, from the kitchen all the way to the bathroom, where she burst through the door without knocking, letting out a huge "Praise God, you're alright," grasping her chest and bending over. When she comes back up, she sees that I'm not alright.

"Claes, what are you doing?" She sees the razor in my hand.

"I'm, I'm shaving." I manage to muster through the gasps and tears.

My mother lowers herself to her knees, next to the tub. "Why?" is all she says next.

"Because girls at school said not shaving is gross and so that makes me gross... and I asked Nancy if I could shave and she said no... and the girls are still being mean to me... and I can't deal with it anymore... I have to... I had to shave, mom, I'm sorry."

She wipes a tear from my cheek and kissed my forehead. "Don't be sorry. I see you nicked yourself a few times, did you know what you were doing?"

"Not at all, mum," I say, sniffling up the last of my tears.

"Well let me show you how, for next time," she said.

She continues to reach for a new razor from the cabinet, while I hop out of the tub and towel off. I can remember how flawless she was. She lathered up her legs with shaving cream and gracefully slides the razor up her legs, swirling it into a cup of water and back up her leg.

"You don't need to shave above the knee," she says as she finishes up her legs and moves on to her armpits.

"Mom, I shaved everything," I said, somewhat embarrassed but mostly confused because to some extent I believed it all had to go.

"It's okay if you shaved above the knee this time, it'll grow back...," I cut her off as she's slipping the blade up and down each armpit, then wipes them off with a wet cloth.

"No mom, I shaved eeeverything!" I said as I point to my arms. She looks and sort of smirks. "My arms, my pits, my back, my stomach, my toes... Mom, I shaved, my, toes!"

She puts on this big loving smile and hugs me while laughing. I loved her hugs, they made everything better. "It's just hair, it'll grow back. But body hair is normal, for some people it's just harder to see, but it's there. Some people have dark hair, some have light hair. Some is thick, some is thin."

Without a doubt, my momma was right.

"And you don't have to shave, eeeverything," she says mocking me as we pull away from the hug. "You don't have to shave anything if you really don't want to, but most women shave."

"I want to keep shaving my legs," I snap thinking about the girls teasing me.

"Okay, I'll send you home with some razors and shaving cream," was her reply.

I just smile and hug her again. "Thank you, Mom!" I stop being excited and immediately pull back and worry, "What about Nancy! She said I couldn't shave, she'll be so mad!"

"If she has a problem with it and you get in trouble, tell me," she comforts.

"Alright," I say and lean back into the hug.

When I returned home to my Dad's, Nancy immediately found the razors. She always went through my bags the moment I returned home, to make sure I didn't bring back anything she wouldn't allow or that my mom didn't give me too much, as "not to spoil me." Yet, she didn't take the razors away.

"So your mom said you could shave?" She blurts.

"Yes," I quickly and timidly reply.

"Have you shaved already?" she speaks without any emotion.

"Yes," quickly repeating myself.

"Well I guess there's no point in stopping now," she sighs and walks away. I'm left in complete shock, I wasn't in trouble. Instead, I was elated that I could shave and not be teased in gym class anymore.

I've thought about this moment in my life quite often, especially when I made the decision to stop shaving in spring 2016. How many other hairy little girls went through the same bullying I did?

Why did those girls bully me over it? Was it because I was an easy target? Because they saw someone else get teased for it or were teased themselves? Were they taught strictly that shaving your legs and armpits is just something women have to do? I'm confident that it was a good mix of all of the above.

If I ever have children one day, I hope that they'll always look at me and my body hair, and feel reassured that they can make the choice on their own. Also, that they're not bullied into the decision like I was. If you have children, I encourage you to explain shaving to them, before most of what they learn is from their peers, that way they can make that educated judgment when it's their time to.

No woman, or human being for that matter, should ever feel ugly for what they were born with or whatever occurs naturally with their body.