You did what?

I was reading a forum today, as I do fairly regularly, it is easy to become engrossed in other people's lives as they share them.  It is often a good reminder of the things I have to be thankful for in my own life, be it good health or my children, or functional relationships, my life isn't perfect, but it's not the worst.

One poster described  a situation with her mother and asked if she (the poster) was over reacting.  Now as a general rule, my default position on whether other people are overreacting is Yes, you probably are.  People are so uptight and get their knickers knotted so easily over the smallest of slights.  Move on, move on, you'll be fine.  But as I read this, I felt genuinely irritated on this poor woman's behalf.  The scenario is thus - the poster has a three year old son, a sweet little boy with longish hair that touches his shoulders.  There is a picture of her husband in her signature, and he has the same hairstyle she describes for her son.  It's long for a bloke, but he's a nice looking fellow, and I imagine that it looks cute on her little boy too.  The son went for a visit to Nanny's house.  Nanny, despite knowing that the poster liked the child's hair the way it was and had absolutely no intention of cutting it, decided that she would cut it.  And did.  Shearing it off with clippers, if you please, so not just a wee trim of the ends, but inches, then posted photos of it on Facebook, which the mother saw, before she saw her son or knew about it at all.  The poster asked if it was overreacting to feel angry about this.

Now some people fussed about first hair cuts being special, and I've never been that precious myself about that kind of thing, I'm not saying it's wrong, just that that wouldn't bother me in itself.  What bothers me about this, is that the grandmother deliberately went against her daughters wishes and did something to the child.  Something that is going to take longer to rectify than changing a t-shirt say.  So she did that, behind her daughters back, then posted pictures about it on social media, then laughed and said it wasn't a big deal and not to fuss.  Not a big deal.  Not to fuss.  Are. You. For. Serious?

Wrong wrong wrong.  You get to do this stuff with your own kids.  Not anyone else's, regardless of whether you are the grandparent.  It is not your decision, not your right, not anything to do with you, you had your turn, so back the hell off and don't be so disrespectful.

This is right up there with piercing someone else's kids ears.  It's just not on.

The best suggestion was that Grandma get her head shorn too, after all, it's just hair.  It'll grow back.