Beautiful Both Ways
A few weeks ago, my seven-year-old started asking to get her hair straightened. I wish I was surprised, but my daughter’s favorite Disney princess is Rapunzel. It’s not like any of the Youtubers she follows have any detectable curl pattern, or much melanin. Her best friend is a blond with stick straight hair. My daughter has been working on her hair toss, even when she was wearing pigtails. I knew this day was coming. What I wasn’t expecting were my own feelings about her getting her hair straightened.
I have a complicated relationship with my own hair. In my daughter’s brief lifetime, I’ve done the big chop twice. I’ve probably straightened my hair a few times, and gotten braids once, but my go-to style for most of my adult life has been a completely untamed afro. Even so, I found myself wondering whether I have inadvertently endorsed European beauty standards without even realizing it. Had I taught her that straight hair was better? Did I straighten my hair around special occasions or job interviews? Did I show a preference for long tresses over shorter styles? I want to say no. I really do. But I can’t be 100% sure.
Besides, I know I’m not the only one influencing her. Besides the media, she receives feedback from other people around us. I flinch every time an older black woman tells one of my girls to never cut her hair. (It happens more often than it should.) I don’t stop to correct them, though. Instead, I changed the subject. Years ago, when I was considering locing my hair, an older relative referred to a woman wearing locs as Medusa. I wish I could have turned that relative to stone at that moment. Instead, I was the one who was frozen. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t. I kept my thoughts to myself. I was taught to respect my elders, but how do we teach our elders to respect us? How do we teach our grandmothers that having “Indian in our family” should merely be a statement of fact, and not a standard of beauty?
The fabric of white supremacy isn’t just weaved into the systems of our world, but it has also wormed its way into our collective and individual psyches. I cannot unlearn the beauty standards of my foremothers, but I can create my own. I can push back against antiquated anti-black ideas, even when those ideas are presented by my elders. I can push back against these narratives even when the stories are presented by those whose skin is even more melanin-rich than my own. I can teach my daughter that her afro puffs are just as pretty, (if not, more so) than cascading curls or a bone straight bob.
I allowed my baby girl to get her hair straightened for the first time over the weekend. It’s already starting to curl back up, and tomorrow it’s supposed to rain. I’m not the least bit concerned because I know my baby’s hair is beautiful both ways. The best part is that she knows it, too.
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Gabrielle is a writer, editor, and mom-in-chief. When she is not running around after her three children and editing her husband’s grad school papers, she publishes weekly blogs, as well as some freelance work. She enjoys writing about her family life, religion, and pop-culture. She especially loves when those things intersect.