When Russell Fredrick’s 12-year-old son wouldn’t do his homework and behave in class, Mr. Fredrick took matters into his own hands. Well, he took barber clippers into his hands and shaved his son bald.
Fredrick considers this a valid form of parental discipline. He promised his son that if he didn’t get his behavior in line, the haircuts would get more creative—and more embarrassing. It turns out the Snellville, Georgia, barber didn’t have to go there. “He straightened up his act,” says the dad.
The Fredricks may be one success story in a social media trend: parents taking razors to the heads of misbehaving kids to create ugly cuts as a form of punishment. Many post their handiwork on YouTube, Facebook, or other sites. When other parents saw Fredrick’s Instagram post, they asked for haircuts to embarrass their own problem kids into obedience. Fredrick says he accommodates the parents, and prefers a kid to endure a bad haircut than other forms of punishment—such as eventual jail time for serious misbehavior. He even offers the “shaming” cuts for free. But he has two limits: age and gender. Fredrick won’t force a cut on a child under age nine, and he won’t shame girls by cutting off their long locks.
Public shaming as punishment for crime or misbehavior has been around for a long time. Maybe you’ve seen pictures of Colonial-era people with hands and heads in the stocks in the town square. A teacher sometimes made a child sit with his nose in a circle in the corner of the classroom or wear a pointed hat called a “dunce cap.” The idea is that if everyone knows you did something bad and can point and jeer, you won’t do it again.
Humans are hard-wired to feel shame. It’s been that way ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and then hid from God. They didn’t want to face Him. Their sin and resulting shame threatened the fellowship they had with God at first. But in His great love, God called them out of hiding. He asked them to confess. He even covered their shame so that they wouldn’t have to hide any longer.
Wayman Gresham of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, says he would never embarrass his child as punishment. “Good parenting is letting your child know that you love him regardless. . . . I’m not against discipline, but I am against humiliation,” he says.
That’s the point behind Jesus’s loving sacrifice for us. His goodness is so good, it covers all our sin and the shame that goes with it. In Christ, we can stand before God with confidence, knowing that we are accepted—even though we’ve sinned. The shame is gone.
