Would you/did you “go ballistic”? It’s long been my opinion that comic strip parents (even more so than other comic strip characters) tend to go ballistic as default reaction.
(Spoiler: when my older son was just about Peter Fox’s age…)
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Comics I Don't Understand 
My father reacted surprisingly well when I shaved my head (peach fuzz, not cueball) in grade 10. One of my classmates reacted less well, as he was concerned about our presentation that afternoon (the teacher insisted on business attire for presentations.) I had warned my mom, the rest of the family knew I was cutting my hair, but thought I was keeping some. (Cancer fundraiser.) My sister freaked, but it was mostly the shock. But my mom had an express policy of “it’s hair, it grows back” (previous haircuts, an ill-advised attempt to use allegedly wash-out dye, etc.)
Pro tip: Many women’s business clothes are hand-wash only. Don’t choose them to wear the day that you’re getting your head shaved. Especially not if they have frills. Those capes aren’t 100% effective.
I don’t have any similar experiences to share, but I can’t help noting how much Peter looks like a lizard–like an iguana, with his nose being one of those horns they have.
If I was this particular dad of this particular boy, I’d ask what the bet was, maybe ask if my razor was involved, but Peter always wears a cap anyway, he’ll go bald like his dad, so this is practice.
Not a parent, but…. My first reaction is that I’d worry he might get mistaken for a skinhead. But, as Christine pointed out, there are other reasons to have a shaved head, so maybe not a problem. So if it were my son in the “lost bet” situation, I would either say “cool!” or laugh at him. Probably laugh at him, since it was a lost bet. I don’t know why it would be something to go ballistic over. But I don’t live in the comics. Even though it seems like it sometimes.
The thing about comic strips is that you really get only a tiny little window (OK, three or four windows) into a life. Does Peter have a gambling problem that has had other significant consequences? Then losing a bet and shaving his head might justify ballisticality. We do know that Peter’s judgment is… not excellent… but we only see those examples of poor judgment that are comic in nature.
Plus, of course, the Foxes usually have to deal with Jason. That might tend to produce a tendency to strong parental reactions to their other children, as well.
I would probably be fairly shocked if either of my kids did this, but after a short time, I would be resigned to the “it’s hair, it grows back” point of view. I’ve been considering buzzing my son’s hair fairly short (about 1/2 to 1 cm long) for the summer for many years, but it’s such a pretty red that I hate to cut it off, and there’s also the consideration that redheads are more prone to sunburn.
In case there’s someone reading here for whom the line did not ping, “It’s a puzzlement” [or I think originally more like “Is a puzzlement”] was an expression put in the mouth of very bald Yul Brynner as the King of Siam in “The King and I.”
The Little Pup once had an eyebrow grooming accident that cut off the outer half of each brow. For 6 months, she had to colort hem in.
You deal.
My daughter (now 30) posted a video last week showing her shaving her head. This is the second time: the first was when she was 17. Of course, she didn’t tell us ahead of time.
Her forms of teenage rebellion were this, and turning vegetarian. In order to make her teenage rebellion effective, we had to some mild shock / disapproval. That’s the way teenage rebellion theater works. But it was only mild disapproval. It’s only hair, and it grows back.
Compared to what some other parents of teenagers went through, we thought ourselves very, very lucky.
My parents probably would have loved it if I had had buzzed like that. Wouldn’t bother me too much if my kids did that, I don’t think, but my daughter would probably look kind of weird.
Not a parent, but I’ve always wanted to shave my head, I just never had the nerve.
I figured if I was going to shave my head or dye it green or something, college would have been the place to do it.
I guess I’m just not rebellious enough. Of course, I was in college in my late 40s, so that may have had something to do with it.
I loved the “puzzlement” line – it’s one of our family’s favorite comments when confronted with a small domestic mystery. None of us are bald, though.
Nah. Didn’t go ballistic, just laughed when my son shaved his head (oddly enough, for a bet), called him an idiot and confiscated his hats.
When second daughter did it, I paid her £50 (she donated her hair). :P
One of our friend’s daughter played “hair salon” with another girl, with disasterous results. Her mom was shocked, of course, but took it in stride, and had a “real” haircutter mitigate the damage (as much as possible, which wasn’t very much). This was excellent preparation for us when our own daughter managed to pull the same stunt (luckily, the damage in our case was rather small, but we still needed to have it “professionally corrected”.
I can see my son being concerned we would go “ballistic.” He has a poor record of knowing what is a good choice or a bad choice (nothing major. He’s just a normal teenage boy.)
My wife MIGHT go ballistic if he came home suddenly with a bald head. Me, I’d laugh and laugh and laugh…
I went to wake my son up on Halloween morning, and saw that all that remained of his long hair was stubble. When I asked him about it, he told me he was going to be his (similarly hairless) friend Peter for Halloween.
So I go back upstairs where my wife is getting ready for work and tell her “So apparently your crazy son is going to be Peter for Halloween.”
“Well, as long as he doesn’t cut off all his hair.”
“Okay, about that…”
Oh, and for the record I WAS upset with him once I thought about it: because we’d just spent $25 for his haircut two days earlier. Couldn’t he have thought of this a little sooner?
I’ve been told that when I was a wee tot the older-than-me neighbor girl cut my hair. I don’t remember it. I do know I was younger than four because I celebrated my fourth birthday in the new house. I I do have many memories from the old house, but apparently the hair-cutting incident was not memorable to me.
Zbicyclist – my niece (who is Jewish also) went through a rebellious period as she finished high school and started college. She decided that she was Orthodox Jewish – she had to go to a college and share an apartment with other Orthodox girls. My sister had to buy niece her own pots, dishes, etc. to use at home and so on. She grew out of it.
Cut your hair for St; Baldo day for cancer seems to very common around here – students, parents, politicians have all been shown having it done.
My father went ballistic; I was 25 and balding.