How's this for a study in adulting contrasts? (Do people still say adulting?)
In Poth, Texas, high school student Newt Johnson, 16, was threatened with suspension if he didn't cut his hair, which violated the student handbook by extending "beyond the ear opening on the sides (and) beyond the top of a dress shirt collar in the back."
Newt was growing his hair long to make a wig for his 11-year-old sister, Maggie, who has a rare autoimmune disease called granulomatosis with polyangiitis. She's being treated with chemotherapy, which makes her hair fall out.
Newt opted to withdraw from school rather than cut his hair. His parents say the principal knew their son was growing his hair out to donate to his sister, but he still sent Newt home when he returned to school with long hair after a warning. He's now being home-schooled.
"If he's got his mind made up and that's what he believes then that's what he can do," Alan Johnson, Newt's dad, told NBC News. "I'm proud of him ... it's disappointing it's come to this. No one wants something like this to happen. But he loves his sister so much, he's made up his mind he's going to help her."
Also this week, retired NBA star Dwyane Wade appeared on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" to discuss his 12-year-old's gender identity.
"We are proud parents of a child in the LGBTQ+ community, and we are proud allies as well," Wade told DeGeneres. "We take our roles and responsibility as parents very seriously. So when a child comes home with a question, when a child comes home with an issue, when a child comes home with anything, it's our job as parents to listen to that, to give them the best information we can, the best feedback we can. And that doesn't change because sexuality is now involved in it."
Wade has a history of defending his child from critics who fear or resent any bucking of strict gender norms. On Tuesday, on "Ellen," he doubled down.
"Zion, born as a boy, came home and said, 'Hey, I want to talk to you guys. I think going forward I'm ready to live my truth. And I want to be referenced as she and her. I would love for you guys to call me Zaya,'" Wade said. "And so internally that was our job to go out and get information, to reach out to every relationship that we have. ... We just tried to figure out as much information as we can to make sure we give our child the best opportunity to be her best self."
Wade said his wife, actress and author Gabrielle Union, reached out to the cast of "Pose," an FX series about New York City's LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming ballroom scene in the '80s and '90s, for guidance.
What a gift. For Zaya, but also for the rest of us following along at home.
Imagine if more adults took an approach like Wade's and Union's, an approach like the Johnsons', when they're entrusted with the privilege of guiding and growing young people: This is new to me. It goes against some norms. Let me start from a place of trust and look at the whole picture and educate myself the best I can. And then let me act.
Imagine if Newt Johnson's principal took that approach. Imagine if DeAndre Arnold's did. Arnold's school threatened to suspend him and bar him from graduation if he didn't cut his long hair. He transferred schools. (He also went to the Oscars with Wade and Union, who produced the Oscar-winning animated short, "Hair Love.")
If I ruled the world, I'd toss hair length requirements out of every student handbook. They're antiquated, arbitrary and pointless. They leave too little room for cultural diversity and creative expression. They're rooted in gender expectations that feel hopelessly outdated in 2020.
But I don't rule the world. (To the relief of many.) So I'll just sit in my corner of it and collect little pearls of wisdom and parenting pointers and examples of glowing, all-encompassing, loving goodness. And then try to emulate them in my own life.
Thanks, Newt's parents. Thanks, Zaya's parents. A lot of us are watching and learning and applauding. And our kids are better for it.
