The Busy Signal > Member Voices

when is a choice really a choice?

By Dawn Thomas-Cameron | Summer/Fall 2026

As I read this CBC First Person article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/first-person-hair-healing-9.7224039 I found myself asking, “Was it really his choice?” 

A father reflects on his nine-year-old son’s decision to cut his braid—a decision that carries a very different meaning for the boy than it did for his father’s generation, when Indigenous children had their hair cut without consent as part of a deliberate effort to strip away their identity and culture.

I agree that there is something powerful about the difference. The child was listened to. His father respected his child’s decision and kept the braid as a reminder that cutting his hair did not mean rejecting his culture.

But was it really his choice?

Yes, in the sense that no one physically forced him. But the boy had been repeatedly mistaken for a girl, told he was in the wrong washroom and subjected to scrutiny because of his appearance. At just nine years old, he was tired of it.

A decision can be voluntary and still be shaped by pressure. When someone changes something meaningful about themselves because other people have made it uncomfortable to be who they are, how freely are they really choosing?

There is a BIG difference between choosing what we want and choosing what will make life easier.

I don't question the father’s response. He gave his son something previous generations were denied: the freedom to make his own decision. But why should a child have to choose between his dignity and his cultural expression? He should be able to keep his braid without being bullied, just as he should be able to cut it without being made to feel he has abandoned his culture.

I get that this was about healing in way.  About being heard, respected and trusted to decide for oneself. But there is still work to do when a child feels compelled to change something about himself simply to avoid mistreatment.

This extends beyond this story. In our workplaces and communities, how often do people stay silent, hide parts of themselves or abandon something important because challenging expectations is exhausting? We may tell ourselves that everyone has a choice, but when one option comes with ridicule, exclusion or constant scrutiny, how free is that choice?

Having a choice is not the same as being free to choose.

The father has helped break a cycle by ensuring his son’s decision belongs to him. But perhaps the next step is creating a world where children—and adults—don't have to change who they are just to feel accepted.

Because when social pressure makes one option so painful that the other becomes the easiest way out, we need to ask not only what someone chose, but why they felt they had to.