Culture clash; can you help me?

My husband who is Indonesian; says it's is customary to shave off the male's head hair at around 1 year of age. Apparently it supposed to make it grow back thinker and nicer.
Another reason behind this is, supposedly when you do that, it prevents males from becoming bald as adults?

I see no medical backing or evidence of such claims and quite frankly do not want anyone shaving my baby鈥檚 hair off. That is what makes my little guy unique; is his gorgeous mop of hair.

We are going to Indonesia in December and I鈥檓 sure his parents are going to want him to get a hair cut. But I鈥檓 very against it. How do I cope and I do I nicely say that I don鈥檛 want them shaving my baby's hair off?

Actually not only the Indonesians believe this, Chinese do so too. Anyway, the hair will grow back fast, especially for baby, so even if you shave it off, it will grow back fast within months.

This may be old wives' tale, but seems like this had been brought down from generations spanning Asian countries too, so might have some truth even though there had been no scientific research done on this. But, it is generally known that hair tend to grow back thicker after the first shave.

So, maybe you can compromise this once and see if indeed your baby hair will grow thicker after the shave. After all you have nothing to lose. On the other hand, there are a group of in-laws that can get upset, including your hubby.

Ultimately, it is still your battle, whether you want a peaceful compromise or be ready to fight for your belief.

Tell them if they touch your child's hair with scissors you'll cut off their fingers! Seriously, it's your child, make it clear you are the mother and you make the decisions. Plain and simple.

Actually, nothing wrong in shaving the hair. Maybe there's no medical backing about it, but it does grow back thicker and nicer than ever.
I'm not an Indonesian but I've seen different races doing the same thing.
Just tell your husband that you're against shaving your son's hair before you go to Indonesia and make sure you reach a compromise so you will have a united front when confronted with that situation.
Good luck.

There's also religious (Islam) reason behind this. In Islam, the hair that a baby has from birth is considered as unclean. Therefore it's suggested to shave, usually it has done after 7 days of the baby birthday.
But some Islamic scholars said it's only required to cut minimum 3 hairs of the baby, not necessarily to shave them all. If your in-laws are muslims, then you can "negotiate" with them to cut only 3 pieces of your baby's hair.
There's a ceremony and ritual for this haircut, so called "aqiqah". All baby's hair that was gotten from shaving then sometimes must be scaled to get its weight, and the parents are required to buy gold with the same weight as hair. This gold will be sent to the poor as charity. So the thicker your baby's hair the more you need to spend for charity. :)
The parents also should sacrifice one or two goats and sent the meat to poor people.