A mom on TikTok says her trust was broken after she sent her 8-year-old son to quarantine with his grandparents for three weeks. When he came back, she learned that they hadn’t brushed his back-long hair once.
“I will never let them hurt him again,” she vowed.
The mom explained that it all went down while her son was quarantining with his grandparents.
The video shows the back of the boy's head, which unfortunately is tangled beyond fixing.
“They neglected him because they felt that boy’s shouldn’t have long hair,” the mom, who goes by @xanthehorrorfan online, explained in the video’s text overlay.
As the video continues, her son is shown at the salon, as stylists use detangling sprays to try to get the knots out.
The mom explained that her son had been growing his hair out for four years "with the intention of donation."
After 12 hours of hairstylists trying to get his matted hair combed out, her son finally agreed to cut it. The video then shows a stylist sectioning off the matted hair and shaving it from her son’s head.
“He is able to brush his own hair but sometimes has trouble with the back,” the mom explained.
"His grandparents refused to help because of their own personal beliefs and claimed my son is to blame for his hair matting," the mom continued.
"My son still wanted to keep as much as he could for when he is ready to donate to Wigs for Kids,” she added. "He is old enough to make his own choices about his hair and body.”
At the end of the video, her son is left with an undercut and thankfully was able to keep most of his long hair, but the mom is still furious at what happened.
"Matted hair happens from neglect and abuse,” she wrote. “No child should have to go through this physical and emotional pain. The last three weeks with his grandparents have changed his life and I will never let that happen again."
With over 25 million views, many people chimed in with their own anger.
"My child simply would never see their grandparents again," wrote one commenter.
"Guess he doesn’t have grandparents anymore," another commenter quipped.
"Where do his grandparents live, I just wanna talk," a third person added.
But a few people agreed that boys shouldn't have long hair.
"Omg this is all blown out of proportion," one person commented. "That’s is not abuse he was not harmed get a grip."
"I'm not defending the grandparents but that's way too long unless if the parents suggested for him to cut and he insisted not to," another person agreed.
In a follow-up video, the mom explained that her son had been visiting his grandparents when they all became exposed to COVID.
They then had to make appointments to get PCR tests, she explained, and together they agreed that it was better for her son to quarantine with his grandparents until they got their test results back.
“By the time they got their results, it had already been five days in quarantine before the 14 days start,” she explained, “which is why they were quarantined for three weeks.”
Unfortunately, her son did contract COVID and their only contact during that time was when the mom spoke with her son through FaceTime.
“He had a fever, headaches, body aches, and more. His grandparents said their experience was like having a minor cold,” she added.
The mom said she frequently reminded her son to brush his hair and his teeth, but he told her that he was having a hard time reaching the back.
“He asked his grandma to help brush his hair, but it just turned into a major verbal disagreement,” she recalled. “She would yell at him to sit still and say some very unkind words that I’m not going to repeat.”
Eventually, her son would just go hide in his room to avoid his grandparents and the boy's mom would call and try to advise them on how to speak to her son and how to comb his hair, but — "I wasn’t able to get through to her," she said.
In the end, her son’s hygiene went "completely neglected" and he’d only bathed twice while in his grandparents’ care.
“What happened during that quarantine was completely unacceptable,” she said. “As soon as it ended, he was back in my care.”
The mom said she’s no longer going to allow her son to stay with his grandparents and said that they haven’t been in contact since.
“I did what I thought was best to assist him in quarantine,” she said at the end of the video. “Other people might have their own opinions, but at this point we can’t fix the past.”
"I will always support my son so long as he is not hurting himself or others," she added in the comments. "He already has good moral values and I am raising a wonderful tiny human."
