The Great What if? - Part 2

Wow you guys!  We have some really great comments from Steph's post yesterday.  Everyone should go back and read the stories the other mom's are sharing about their experiences with relaxers and peer pressure here.  Steph has asked me to weigh in on the conversation with my thoughts about that fateful day, so here it goes....

I absolutely love Mocha Mom's video.  I couldn't agree with her more.  She says it all so beautifully that I think there is little else to say on the subject.  As a Christian woman I completely agree that my goal is to teach my daughters that God created them just the way they are and that he didn't make any mistakes!  He created their beautiful hair, just like he created their beautiful minds and their beautifully athletic bodies and their beautiful personalities.  And it is ALL GOOD!

That being said, I think I am up against an extra set of challenges that Mocha Mom does not have to contend with.  I am a white mother of black children.  I do not have the advantage of being able to lead by example here.  I have a very different hair type than they do.  They are thoroughly aware of the ease of care that my straight hair comes with.  They play with my hair all the time.  They easily run a brush through my dry hair.  They quickly put in one style and then just as quickly take it out and put in another.  I get my hair wet every day and I swim and shower without wearing a cap.  I sleep without wrapping my hair up in any way.  And so does their little sister E.  They will always be confronted with that truth and it might be hard for them to not have moments of jealousy and "Why Me?"  "Why do I have this hair that has to be treated so carefully and is so much work to care for."  "Why can't I just hop out of bed in the morning and run a brush through my hair?"  I don't really have an answer for that.  I have no idea why God made the choices he did when creating humans.  But what I can point out are all of the wonderful benefits of having hair like theirs.  That is, after first recognizing their feelings and letting them know that I understand why they feel the way they do.  I think it is important to validate them in their feelings.  Not to just say, "NO, YOU ARE WRONG TO FEEL THIS WAY.  GOD MADE YOU PERFECT.  END OF STORY."  I want my girls to know that even though I don't know what it feels like to be them, I understand why they might be frustrated.  And then remind them of the awesome versatility that their hair possesses and all of the cool things that their hair can do that mine can't!

Oh, and like I started off saying, I can't lead by example.  I don't have afro hair, so I can't set the tone for them by NOT relaxing my hair.  But I can set an example in how I respond to the rest of my body.  I may struggle with body image issues sometimes, but I am sure to not let them know that.  Not at this age at least.  I don't want them to know that I am irritated about the little pouch of fat that I carry around on my belly since having Little E.  I might not like it, but it is part of life.  God blessed me with the ability to carry a child and the end result is a not-so-flat stomach.  I do my best to teach my children a healthy lifestyle when it comes to diet and exercise, but I don't want to be so obsessed about my weight that they develop an unhealthy view of what a body should look like.  Goodness knows the media already does that for us!  I don't need plastic surgery to change my face or my boobs.  I don't need botox for my wrinkles.  Wrinkles come with age, that is a part of life.  I don't go to the tanner or spend hours laying in the sun to alter my skin color.  Please don't be offended if you do these things.  I am NOT pointing fingers. But for ME, these are ways that I can show my girls that I am ok with myself exactly the way God made me.  I don't even wear makeup!  I am just me.

If I am having a heart to heart conversation with my girls I would let them know that I don't always love everything about my appearance.  As a child I hated my hairy arms.  I have very long, dark and thick hair on my very pale arms.  I always thought it was so ugly.  I didn't like to wear short sleeves to school and if I did, I would avoid raising my hand in class.  I struggled with this for many years.  It was probably sometime in high school that I came to terms with the fact that God gave me hairy arms and that it hadn't stopped ANYONE from liking me or wanting to be my friend!  If I could choose, I would probably have totally hairless arms, but I can't choose, so - oh well!  I also have struggled with acne my whole life and I have done what I can to treat it.  But nothing has ever really gotten rid of it.  Even now there are days I have to look myself in the mirror and tell myself I am beautiful even though I have acne and I force myself to hold my head up high and walk out my front door with confidence.  My acne did not stop me from having friends in high school, and it was BAD.  It did not stop my husband from falling in love with me and marrying me.

On that note, if any man does not like my daughters because of their hair, well, I think it is obvious he is NOT the man for them!  Hopefully they will be able to understand that!

So while I can't identify with having the same hair texture as them, I can identify with not always liking things about my appearance and wishing that I could change them.

But the really great thing here, is that having afro hair isn't like having acne or hairy arms.  Their hair really IS beautiful!  It isn't anything to be ashamed of or want to hide.  More challenging to care for - yes, but unattractive - NO WAY!

So the last thing that I feel I can give my girls is the ability to LOVE their hair!  And I think that Keep Me Curly is playing a big role in that.  Hair has become a big focal point in our house since starting this blog.  The girls feel beautiful every time I give them a new hairstyle and they know that hundreds or even thousands of people are looking at their hair on the internet and LOVING it!  They know we are inspiring people.  They also like to look at pictures of other girls and get inspiration from them.  They are starting to come up with creative ideas of their own.  Their hair is FUN!  And even though we may all get a bit tired toward the end of a hair session, I don't ever give them a reason to think that their hair is a burden in any way.

It turns out I actually have a lot to say about something I didn't think needed anything else to be said about it.  Shocking.

In the end, I am pretty sure I know exactly how I will handle this issue.  For now, relaxers are off limits.  They are too young for a relaxer in the same way that they aren't allowed to wear makeup.  They are still of an age where it is my job as their mother to make a lot of their decisions for them.  I am not sure at what age I will decide that they can decide what to do with their hair.  Probably around 16.  But, maturity comes at different ages for all children, so I don't have a set age.  Just assume that they ask me for a relaxer at age 10.  I would tell them that they are not old enough yet but that we will discuss it when they are 16.  If they come to me at age 16 and still want a relaxer I would probably sit down with them and show them all of the facts.  I would warn them of the possible trauma they would be causing their hair.  I would warn them that it might burn.  I would warn them that it could cause their hair to become weak and break off.  After reminding them of all of the benefits of keeping their hair in its natural state, I would encourage them to take a few days to think it through.  And then I would let them choose.  If they chose to relax their hair and they ended up unhappy with it, I will be there to help them restore it.  But I will support them and love them no matter what choice they make.

Whew!  I think that is it!

Katie

The Great What If??

This post is about the future. The what if. The great unknown. Namely, that time when we release our children into the world to care for themselves, physically, spiritually, mentally, and in every other way. At that time, we as parents will be there for support and unconditional love, but decisions of every kind will be up to them. Surely, before they hit the legal age of 18, they will already be making many choices and decisions on their own, and we as supportive parents will allow that, even if some of the choices are not what we would make for them. Growing up is a process, not an end result. We can't control all aspects of their lives until some magic moment when the calendar says they are 18 and on that day they are capable of making all the choices and decisions for themselves, whereas the day before, they were not. That would be like throwing them to the wolves. I believe we have to teach them to manage their own lives, in increments, many years before that magic 18th birthday.

Since G is 7 and can't see completely through me and all my tricks yet (i.e. - the fake phonecall to cancel a playdate or inform a teacher that G will be late due to poor and bratty choices still works GREAT to turn behavior around on a dime), I will confess to a little bit of....what shall I call it....slightly deceptive influencing? LOL I don't have a name for it. You know....sort of exaggerating things to make, say, removing locs and going back to free hair seem much more drastic than it might actually be (I can neither confirm nor deny that she may assume that she has to go virtually bald and then painstakingly grow her hair back out long again for about forever before it could even possibly be straightened.)

I jest, but in the midst of affirming how wonderful and all-right she is just the way she is now, I try to insert a little bit of overly-dramatic seriousness about how NOT ok it is to want to change the core of who you are. Our site is named Keep Me Curly and I do believe that now it is their wish to be curly girls! But what if, someday, they don't? It is hard as a mom who has so much love and care and positive energy invested in my daughter's curls to think that someday she might choose to straighten them, but what if she does? She knows about relaxers and what they are. Here's a funny story of the first time she heard about them.

I have recently read a lot of science-y info on what happens inside the hair when it's relaxed, and it's pretty awful (post coming up on that book later!). I had a "moment" happen in Wa-l.mart when she was 6, but after we had put the locs in...with a disclaimer that it IS my intention to impart to my young child that relaxing hair is damaging both to hair and skin, and she doesn't need it to be beautiful, it's NOT my intention to personally insult anyone who chooses to chemically alter their child's hair, just know that it DOES damage it, just like perming straight hair is inherently damaging in the same way, too, and many of us have done that to our own hair.

This was originally written on the day it happened, Feb. 1, 2009:

Today, this was brought to me and held a foot in front of my face. I will admit I HAVE been waiting for this topic to surface, as I'd say that many of the black women and girls G sees do have straight hair.

Except the question at first was not "Mommy, how come this chocolate girl has straight hair and I demand that you put this in my hair right here in the store," the question was "Mommy can we get this, I want to have curls like THAT!"

So before I could create an elaborate lie and veer the conversation away from the fact that it IS possible for her to actually HAVE straight hair, I panicked and told the truth.

"No, honey, this doesn't make curls like that, this makes hair straight." I pointed at the box girl's bangs.

She then just silently looked at me, box held out, for one of those pregnant pauses.

"I wanna do that."

Here we were in Walmart, with like 4 other people in the aisle, while I was in that aisle to search for hair color for me to do a touch up (oh the irony!!!) and what, to me, is one of the most crucial moments in self-esteem history has just presented itself...what to do?!?!

So I said "Oh, honey, this is not good at all for children. It's made of a chemical that can burn your skin."

"How, Mommy?"

"Well the things they use to make black girls' hair straight is a very strong chemical and it can burn your scalp. And anyway, you have locs, and so to put this on and make straight hair, we'd have to cut the locs off and start over from the beginning."

She didn't seem to make an argument about that.

"I would never put anything like THAT on your hair that can burn you. And anyway, you are my curly-haired girl from Haiti, and that's what I wanted, you don't need to have straight hair like a white girl, that's not YOU!"

And then I started squooshing her face and kissing her and I scooped her up there in the aisle and told her I loved her just like she is, and all her friends know Gyrlande just like she is and she doesn't need to have white girl hair, and a brown girl with white girl hair is not the girl I adopted from Haiti, anyway! I like my girl just like she is, with locs that curl on the ends and beautiful brown skin.

And she laughed and reveled in it and asked me to scoop her up again, and the box of relaxer was forgotten.

For now :)

This is a video post that is definitely worth watching. It's by one of our Beautiful Blogger awardees, Mocha Mom. If you recall, her blog is called CherishMyDaughter.  Please check out this video she made called:  "What If My Girls Grow Up And Relax Their Hair?" It was very insightful to me, as I think about this kind of thing more and more as G grows and becomes more influenced by the world around her. And my "tricks" become less effective and more transparent! ;-) Next up, the "eye roll" and "Mooo-ooommmm!"

Have you thought about the "what if" issue? Have any of you dealt with teenage or young adult daughters who despite being raised with natural hair, have decided to relax it? Please tell us about it.