A Texas woman has shared footage of the moment her 2-year-old daughter saw her dad without a beard for the first time in 15 years.
Kelsy Salvaggio told Newsweek her husband John hadn’t actually planned on shaving his beard off that day. “We were just having a slow day, no plans, my husband needed a hair cut so I told him to shave his face to see if the baby would recognize him,” she said.
Their daughter Sage, aged 2, had never seen John without a beard before.
Salvaggio said the idea was inspired by seeing videos of parents doing similar things with their young kids. “We have seen a bunch of baby reaction videos online and John hasn’t seen his face in 15 years so we were like ‘okay let’s just do it, it’ll grow back.’”
Sage was certainly surprised by her dad’s new look. In a video posted to TikTok under the handle @kelsy_rae13, Salvaggio captured her daughter’s surprised reaction to seeing her dad without facial hair. Salvaggio said: “My daughter was probably thinking, ‘who is this human and why does he sound like dada.’ She was probably so confused.”
The presence of a beard can often influence how an individual is perceived. What might surprise some is that the presence of a beard is seen in a positive light. In a 2014 study published in the journal Psychology, participants were presented with a series of experimental questions along with two facial photographs. One was of a bearded face while the other was of a non-bearded one.
Participants were then asked to choose which they perceived to be more trustworthy within the context of the question. The results revealed that participants were more likely to choose bearded faces as trustworthy.
Sage had certainly gotten used to her dad having a beard, which explains her reaction. It was a response which, according to Salvaggio’s video, left her husband John feeling a “little hurt.” Sadly, Sage wasn’t the only one to dislike the new look, initially. “My reaction was almost the same as babies,” Salvaggio said. “It was hard to look at him the first 15 minutes.”
Thankfully for John, the initial shock of seeing her dad clean-shaven has worn off for Sage. “She has definitely gotten used to it now,” Salvaggio said.
However, just because she has gotten used to it doesn’t mean John is going to stay beardless for the foreseeable future.
It would appear that mom is keen for things to go back to the way they were before, with John sporting a beard. “We are definitely growing it back,” she said. “He’s got some scruff now and is starting to look normal.”
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