I recently devoted an entire post to my daughter's hair. Even as I type that it seems mildly ridiculous. I mean, there are far more important parenting issues to be discussed, right? Well, maybe. I think I speak for many transracial adoptive mamas when I say that, to some degree, I measure my success as a mother of a brown curly girl by the current state (an length) of her hair. Before bringing L home I read a bit about the care of curly hair, checking out pictures, imagining the cute styles I would create. After L joined our family I realized I was way over my head. So, I followed blogs on haircare & styles, read articles, tried a million different products, and slowly started the hair styling ritual we have today. When her hair was shorter I learned how to do puffs, create ruler-straight parts, and attempt the occasional coil or twist style. Now that L is 4, I've advanced to cornrows, twists, braid and twist-outs, you name it, we've tried it. And products? I honestly don't even want to think about how much time and money I've spent on finding that perfect product (hint: it doesn't exist). When women of color compliment L's hair or even her hairstyle, I practically glow with pride, eager to run home and tell my husband of my recent hair triumph. When a woman at the grocery store started asking my what products I used, I pretty much skipped the entire way home. She, a woman of color, was asking little old moi for product advice!!
Throughout this hair journey, I've frequently questioned why I spend so much time not only doing, but thinking about doing L's hair (it's one of my favorite things to think about when I can't sleep). When did I start believing that my success as a mother was somehow related to L's hair? Whenever I thought about writing a blog post about the social issues that surround the care of my daughter's hair, I felt completely overwhelmed. The topic is so tricky and potentially polarizing I hesitated every time I went to sit down and write. Okay, I chickened out. But no longer! I will dip my tippy toes into the fray. I will start out by saying that, as a white woman, I absolutely do not pretend to understand the relationship a woman of color has with her own hair. I am speaking, rather, to the judgement passed on mothers based on the condition/health/style (or lack thereof)/length of their daughters' hair.
What got me all fired up? I read this article by Allison Samuels for Newsweek. In the article, Samuels slams Angelina Jolie for allowing her daughter, Zahara, to walk around "sporting hair that is wild and unstyled, uncombed and dry. Basically: a 'hot mess.'" She goes on to add that "to many, she'll be just a little black girl - and a black girl with bad hair at that." I can't even begin to articulate how this article made me feel. Sure, Samuels may be directing her comments to the mother, there is no denying the fact that she wrote cruel things about A FREAKIN' 4-YEAR-OLD GIRLS HAIR. Unacceptable. There is simply no excuse. Samuels frequently uses the words "neat," "in place," and "nice" to describe the ideal, and words like "wild" and "unruly" to describe Zahara's hair. I very much resist the idea that L's hair when in its natural curly state (meaning, not manipulated in any way past some leave-in conditioner) is somehow wrong. That is the texture God gave her and it's beautiful. Is it wild? Sure, in the most wonderful sense of the word. And let me say one other thing: I often put much more time, effort and love into L's loose hair than when it's in cornrows. Daily conditioning, finger detangling, styling...etc. "Wild" loose hair does NOT mean hair that has been ignored or is somehow unkempt. At least not in my experience.
And what of the accusations leveled at Angelina Jolie? Is she to be labeled as a bad mother because her daughter's hair is found to be socially unacceptable? Samuels makes her opinion clear in this follow-up article along with the insinuation that Madonna is a better adoptive mother for making sure that "Mercy all the attention she needs from head to toe and inside and out" because Mercy's hair is most often in tidy cornrows. Clearly Samuels does not take into consideration that many Ethiopians have a hair texture that does not take to cornrows very well at all. The times that I do L's hair in cornrows are few simply because her curls do not hold the style for more than a few days.
Now, on one point I do agree with Samuels: all transracial adoptive parents need to put in the work to understand all aspects of their child's birth culture. That includes history, religion, and yes, grooming. Yet Samuels' idea of what constitutes "acceptable" hair just doesn't sit right with me. In this second article, she attempts to clarify that her definition of unacceptable hair was "uncombed, unconditioned, and unbrushed." Yet the language she used in both articles to describe both acceptable and unacceptable hair indicates (at least in my opinion) a major bias against curly hair in its natural state. My L loves to wear her hair (or as she likes to call it, her mane) big and free. There is nothing "neat" or "in place" about L's hair when we style it loose.
I want my daughter to LOVE her hair and all that it can be: big and curly, twisted, braided, in puffs and piggy tails, up or down, intricately styled or wash-and-go. I do take considerable time to make sure L's hair is healthy and well-maintained. I do frequently worry what African American women think of L's hair and I definitely bask in the glow of their praise when she is complimented by women of color. But I worry that I'm inadvertantly feeding into this bad hair/bad mommy syndrome. I like what Latoya Peterson wrote in this article: "We can help shap a world in which she [Zahara] doesn't feel pressured to relax her hair to conform, nor does she feel deficient if she decides to wear her hair the way the way it grows out of her head. We can shape a world where a decision to relax one's hair is inconsequential as a decision to dye or cut it." I really hope my L grows up in that world.
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