Why the Term “Mom Haircut” Should Be Banished

Of all hair genres in modern history, the mom haircut might be the most dreaded. Perhaps because it is viewed as somewhat unavoidable—a hairstyle that chooses you and not vice-versa. You style your hair however you please for a couple decades but when you give birth to a child, bam, time to commit to something fairly short and reminiscent of a helmet.

Of course, the nuances of that helmet have changed through the decades, as evidenced in the hairstyles of iconic TV moms—Donna Reed and Betty Draper’s prim ’50s/’60s roller curls, Carol Brady’s ’70s power-mullet, Clair Huxtable’s hairspray-heavy ’80s waves, Patty Chase’s short-with-bangs ’90s situation on My So Called Life. Then came Kate Gosselin in 2007 with that spiky-smooth mashup that launched a thousand “modern” mom haircuts. “A soft waterfall in the front, but knives in the back,” as a recent hilarious SNL skit described it (in the tradition of their iconic Mom Jeans bit).

But flash forward to today, and we find ourselves asking: Is the mom haircut really even a thing anymore? According to the New York Times, yes—mom hair not only exists but is a rampant aesthetic problem plaguing suburban America. City dwellers, it reports, are better at avoiding this notorious “longer-in-back, slightly–shorter-in-front bob that should read sleek but is inescapably frumpy.” Hmm. Well, as a former Manhattan and Brooklyn mom who now lives in a suburb about as suburban as they come—in New Jersey, a place not historically known for skipping a hair trend—I have to say, I am not seeing a lot of that particular frumpy haircut. Nor any one hairstyle that seems uniquely popular among women with kids, actually.

In fact, the mothers I’ve met in the ‘burbs have every kind of haircut. Things I see lots of include: long beachy waves (professionally blown out weekly), blunt-cut and stick-straight (professionally keratin-ed), sleek angled bobs, natural curls worn mid-length, and lately a lot of really cute lobs. If I had to guess, I’d say 75 percent of the suburban moms I know have long hair. Two reasons: That old rule about long hair being aging as you breach your mid 30s is out the window—just look at Demi Moore. And lots of moms have realized that short hair isn’t always easier. You can wear long hair in a braid or messy bun Monday through Friday if you want.

I chopped my long hair after baby No. 2, in 2013 (all the details of my mom haircut here), and while I adored it at the salon, it turned out that fine-but-thick hair was harder for me to blow out/style/keep from frizzing when shorter. Yet the moms I know who’ve successfully gone shorter look the opposite of frumpy, maybe because we now live in a time of ample celebrity short-hair inspiration and YouTube styling tutorials. Some swear by The Beachwaver to get their bobs to look more like this mom haircut than the notorious sort.

If you Google-Image “mom haircut”, Gosselin’s spiky/sleek hybrid circa Kate Plus Eight will still dominate your computer screen. Yet even she has long since moved on to layerless straight hair, and our TVs have been lit up with moms of every hair length, from bombshell Gloria on Modern Family to Kris Jenner’s signature chop on KUWTK (not to mention Kim and Kourtney, now that they’re moms too). With the possible exceptions of Lisa Rinna and Luann (sorry guys), there aren’t many styles you’d call a mom haircut on our modern-day Real Housewives. Even mom jeans aren’t really a thing anymore. Higher-waisted options no longer must involve pleats and a baggy-yet-tapered leg. My own mom’s latest jeans are actually kind of…cool.

I think it’s safe to say that being a mom no longer means being automatically uncool. Which in turn means that a mom may be entrusted to choose whatever hairstyle works for her. And if it doesn’t work, well that’s not because she’s a mom—it’s just because a bad haircut can happen to anyone. On that note, if you read that NYT story, I gently suggest you be wary of the tip about intentionally cutting too-short bangs to give your hair a “teenage feeling of irresponsibility and youthfulness.” Just call it mother’s wisdom.

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