Dad Talk: Getting to the Root of a Man's Fear

Sex. A career. Nice house. A wife. Kids. Going bald. The end.

These are thoughts that cram a young boy's mind. Or maybe it was just me. One particular thought grabbed hold and wouldn’t let go during one nasty stretch of pre-teen years, and it wasn’t what you might think.

What is it about hair—or the lack of it—that causes such torment? 

I remember asking family, friends, anyone who would listen, someone who could help with the Riddle of Balding. Nothing was settled. Life before Google. 

I grilled Mom one day. I suspected my fate rested with Dad.

Good news. His sandy hair was thin, but it was all there, and he was already in his 40s. But my mother suggested men's hair destiny rested with grandfathers on the mother’s side. Now, dear Grandpa—her Dad—was at that moment relaxing in a living room chair, a refined and bushy mustache above his lip but not a lick of hair sprouting up high.

Gulp.

Gramps himself was a retired British Army officer whose snazzy attire was always topped by a hat of some sort. He looked and me and said: You wear a hat long enough and you’ll go bald.

To this day I think about that when doffing a ball cap.

To make a long column short, it turns out I didn’t go bald. That fate fell to my brother. By his late 20s, it was obvious his follicles would indeed go gentle into that good night. (He triumped with a modicum of revenge, though, with way-cool chest hair and, today, a goatee I can only dream about. All in all, he looks pretty suave.)

I’m still not sure who is responsible for passing down hair loss—Dad, grandpa, grandma, the Great Hair Decider in the Sky—but I’ve read it comes from both sides of the family. I’ve also read that men who don’t start showing balding patterns by age 26 or so are less likely to lose hair later. This makes sense. I know a 26-year-old who’s stressing about his male-pattern baldness. I know a 19-year-old who is showing signs.

So I lucked out, you could say. It’s only the last few years that digging out clumps of hair in the shower became a daily ritual. Indeed, I’m thinning out faster than Nicole Richie. So I perked up when I read last week that scientists at UCLA have discovered a potential cure for baldness. Subjects—and when I say subjects I mean mice—grew full heads of hair only three months after daily doses of a stress-blocking chemical compound. 

Of course, experts quickly took all the fun out of the discovery by noting that the “cure” probably would not help those men genetically predisposed to baldness. But some do say that it could prevent any future hair loss that’s a result of stress.

Still, I’m more encouraged by today’s attitudes toward hair loss than in my Dad’s era, and even back when I was a worrisome boy. My Dad’s friends would shrug and accept their hair loss, living with a few patches on the side and at back. Others thought nothing wrong with an island of hair out front while the rest was absent (think Phil Collins a few years back). 

Today’s youth shave it all off. Or go with sylish crew cuts. They take charge of their hair, show it who’s boss. I like that attitude. I think I’ll be adopting it during the hairless years to come. 

I think I can even forgive Dad. Or Grandpa. Or whoever.