Dear Fellow Mom Whose Neighbors Can Tell Precisely When the Hairbrush Comes Out:

I’m with you, sister. In these cavernous trenches, enduring the banshee screams. Attempting to retain your cool, and two working eardrums. Convinced tangles are the taunts of the devil and doubting your every ability as a mother.

I get it. The frustration, the fear of judgment, the humanity!

This War of the Hairbrush isn’t for the weak, but sister-soldier, hear me on this:

We don’t need to fight every battle.

Our duty to our girls is not neat hair; it is to understand their hearts. So take a step back.

Some days we have the strength to tackle that bedhead like the she-bawzes we are.

But on those days, those long days, when our girls just ain’t having it, let’s remember the bigger picture.

Unbrushed, partially brushed or barely touched hair is not a health hazard (I checked with the pediatrician. We’re good).

More than that, mamas, we must remember our daughters are little girls. They have more important things on their minds than hair. LET’S BE OKAY WITH THAT.

Let’s allow them the space not to care about anything other than friends, creating, singing, laughing, playing.

Our daughters’ unbrushed hair is not a mark of our failure but rather an indicator of their innocence.

Let’s not rush them away from the very thing that makes them little girls.

At their tender age, it’s okay for them to have hot-mess hair from time to time if it means they hang onto their girlhood that much longer.

Let’s be okay with them not obsessing in front of the mirror every day and allow their full-throttle imaginations to take over a few more times. What beautiful imaginations they have!

Our wholly loved little girls do not give a flip what the world has to tell them about beauty – and the world has A LOT to tell them about beauty, most of it intended to make them feel not beautiful.

Our girls will likely change their minds about hair as they grow older.

The day will likely come when they do care about their hair, and wearing makeup not from the toy section, and picking outfits that actually coordinate.

Someday, long before we are ready, we will be begging them to leave their hair alone and get in the car already.

But today? Today they are little girls. Today they are still truly themselves, in all the glorious meaning of that.

In their opinion, brushing their hair only slows them down from getting into the meat of living.

Let’s remember this as we determine whether to fight another battle in this war.

Let our girls remind us of the freedom we once knew too. The freedom to grab onto the moment with both hands because neither of them was holding a hairbrush, or makeup sponge, or tweezers.

May our girls remind us frequently of the joy that exists when we live for the sake of living instead of impressing.

And then, coffee.