Jessa Duggar Got Super Sentimental Over Her Son’s First Haircut, & Parents Will Totally Relate

With so many children in the Duggar family, it seems like one of them reaches a new milestone just about every day. Last July, Jessa Duggar Seewald gave her oldest son, Spurgeon Elliot Seewald, his very first haircut. She and her husband Ben Seewald shared before-and-after photos of the haircut at the time, and now, eight months later, fans can finally watch footage of the haircut going down. Jessa Duggar got really sentimental while cutting Spurgeon's hair, as many parents do during their child's first haircut.

“The strategy for giving Spurgeon his haircut is to distract him so he doesn’t really know what’s going on,” Jessa, 25, tells the camera in the clip, which was shared by People. It will air as part of Monday evening's episode of Counting On. The entire episode is also available for early viewing on TLC's website.

“I think the plan is that I’m going to hold him and turn on a cartoon for him,” adds husband Ben Seewald. “If we can get him focused on something, then maybe he won’t move his head around a lot or try to grab Jessa’s hand or anything like that. And we should be able to get the job done.”

Spurgeon was about 18 months old during the haircut, which Jessa and Ben first shared photos of in a blog post on their website last July. In the episode, Ben asks Jessa for a haircut, and she decides that she should also give one to Spurgeon, whose his hair was becoming unruly. And even though the haircut was a big deal for Jessa, she was determined to make it seem like the opposite to Spurgeon. In the clip, she explains:

I don't want to make a big deal about it, like, "Mommy's gonna cut your hair! Here's the scissors!" I don't want him to get any ideas and try this on his own. I have seen kids do that. After their first haircut, they're like, "Oh, I can cut my own hair."

"So sad!" Jessa says as she cuts one of the first ringlets. "His precious little curls! Nope, don't look," she tells herself as she places the ringlet aside. Ben's strategy of distracting him with cartoons on a phone seemed to work, because he remains calm during the haircut, happily distracted by the screen, only interacting with Jessa and the scissors a couple of times.

Once Jessa declares the job done, Ben asks her if she wants to trim any more in the back. “I don’t want to cut anything — I didn’t want to cut anything," she responds with a laugh. "I don't want to cut any more." Afterwards, Jessa saved a few of Spurgeon's curliest ringlets, which many parents choose to do after their kid's first haircut.

Perhaps Jessa felt more emotional about the haircut than Ben did because she was the one actually cutting the hair. “Spurgeon’s first haircut is kind of a milestone. I think it’s more significant for Jessa than for me," says Ben. "I know he's gonna have a lot more haircuts, and I know that this is the first of many, but she's a little sentimental about those curls."

In the episode, several other family members reflect on their first haircuts, as well as share stories about Jessa cutting their hair. Jessa is the go-to hairdresser for the boys and men of the Duggar family, according to Jana, so it's no surprise Jessa was the one to give her son his first trim.

It's totally normal to feel emotional about your child's first haircut — but no parent should ever feel pressure to rush the milestone. In fact, many parents choose to put off cutting their sons' hair, for a number of reasons. In the episode, Jessa mentions that she and Ben were bothered by strangers thinking Spurgeon was a girl due to his long hair, despite being dressed in "boy clothes." It's unfortunate that comments like those were catalysts for Spurgeon's first haircut (why can't boys and men have long hair?), but the choice to cut his hair was 100 percent up to his parents, and it seems like Jessa and Ben are happy with the decision.

Check out Romper's new video series, Bearing The Motherload, where disagreeing parents from different sides of an issue sit down with a mediator and talk about how to support (and not judge) each other’s parenting perspectives. New episodes air Mondays on Facebook.