…had shaved her head.
Not trimmed.
Not styled.
Shaved.
My sweet Lily — who loved her long, curly hair and refused even tiny trims without a pep talk — was sitting stiffly on his lap in the photo. Her eyes were red like she’d been crying. And her bare scalp was uneven, nicked in places.
The caption on his Instagram story read:
“Fresh start for my girl. No more princess nonsense. Raising her strong.”
My hands started shaking.
He knew exactly how much her hair meant to her. After our divorce, he’d constantly complained that I was “turning her into a girly-girl.” Bows, sparkly shoes, unicorn backpacks — he hated all of it.
But this?
This wasn’t parenting.
This was punishment.
I called him immediately. No answer.
I called again.
Finally, he picked up, sounding annoyed. “What?”
“Why did you shave her head?” I demanded.
“It’s just hair,” he said flatly. “She’ll live. I’m her father. I can make decisions too.”
“She was crying in that picture!”
“She’ll get over it. You coddle her too much.”
I didn’t scream.
I hung up.
Then I called my lawyer.
Within hours, I had screenshots of his post, copies saved, and an emergency custody motion drafted. I also called Lily’s pediatrician and a child therapist for documentation.
When he brought her home Sunday night, she ran into my arms and burst into tears.
“He said princesses are weak,” she whispered. “He said I had to be tough.”
I knelt down, holding her little face in my hands.
“You can be strong and still love unicorns,” I told her. “And no one — no one — gets to change your body to prove a point.”
Two weeks later, a judge reviewed the evidence.
His “fresh start” cost him his unsupervised weekends.
As for Lily?
We went shopping for the brightest, sparkliest hats we could find.
And while her curls slowly grew back, so did her smile.
