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Manscaping Mishaps: Hide Your Razors
By Courtney Bennett
When my 15-year-old son with autism started sprouting a baby mustache, his sisters promptly campaigned to shave it.
“It’s not a good look, Mom,” they said, and I agreed. But their brother balked at the idea – until I bribed him with dessert.
We met in the bathroom to shave the dark fuzz from his upper lip. I quickly realized I needed reading glasses for the task. When I returned, glasses in hand, I found him finishing the job independently.
“That went well, he’s showing some interest,” I thought, always looking for opportunities to increase his self-care skills.
A little too much interest, as it turned out.
My son appeared in the family room about an hour later.
“Mom, I’m sick,” he said. “I hurt myself.”
Alarmed, I followed him to his bedroom. He pulled down his pants to reveal a freshly manscaped groin area, complete with a Band-Aid on his right [ahem].
“I hurt myself here, and on my bottom,” he said, pointing to the bandage. “I don’t think I can go to school tomorrow.”
“Honey, please don’t shave other parts of your body, just your face,” I said, desperately suppressing my laugher.
“And you are going to school tomorrow,” I noted, dashing any hopes for time off to recover from a manscaping mishap.
“I know, I’m sorry,” he said, chastened by the natural consequences of aggressive shaving.
In the bathroom, a light dusting of pubic hairs coated the bathtub, corroborating his story. I found his older sister and told her what happened, laughing until tears streamed down my face.
“Can you please get me a new razor?” was her reasonable follow-up request.
I will, of course, and my son will also get his own electric razor. In the meantime, my advice to both daughters – hide your razors.
Courtney Bennett is a mom of three kids, two typically developing girls and a boy with special needs. Her blog, Long Hello, shares her family’s experience raising a special needs child. In addition to parenting and blogging, she works in higher education for a private college. She writes whenever she has time and has contributed to Sunset magazine, Psychology Today, parenting magazines, public radio and the op-ed pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer. You can visit her blog here.