I love your hair, I love my hair
The first time she really noticed it, my oldest was 4 years old. I picked her up from school, and she told me she wanted her gorgeous red, curly hair into straight blonde hair just like her friend.
“I want to cut my hair straight and yellow, mommy.”
It was the first time she had been aware of the fact that her hair was different then most of the people she went to school with; who coincidentally, also didn’t all look like each other at her very diverse school.
We had always talked about her hair, but never really made a big deal out of it to draw attention to it. (What a twist of fate that everybody talks about her youngest sister’s bright red hair.) Around that age, people started commenting on it and saying how much they loved her hair and wanted their hair to be just like hers.
Our second daughter went through a brief phase of wanting anything but red and curly hair, too. We reminded them then and now how amazing and awesome they are just the way they were made. I even wrote a post titled 11 of the most awesome things about being a mom of a red head, just for them!
But, if you ask either of them now, they will tell you just how awesome their red hair is and that they wouldn’t change it for the world, curly, red and all. (I’m holding my breath that they keep these same feelings, but at least colored hair can grow out.) I’m hoping that I’ve made a difference to help ensure they grow up feeling confident; in their looks, their intellect and their personalities. We’re celebrating it all now so they love it in the future.
Growing up, I hated hair (and deeply rooted from that, I still have those feelings), but I have to be a good role model to my girls and embrace the hair I was born with, crazy wavy frizz and all. There is a narrow depiction of what “beautiful hair” is traditionally thought to look like. In a study, Dove Hair found that 8 in 10 women feel pressure to wear their hair a certain way. And just like me, for many people, these pressures begin at an early age.
Dove Hair has set out to help change that. believes a positive role model can greatly impact a girl’s confidence. In fact, a recent Dove study found that 82% of girls learn to care about themselves from their mother. So, I’m making all of my best efforts to make sure they know how to care about themselves in the most positive of ways.
Dove Hair is helping us share why we love our daughter’s hair and why you want her to love her hair. They are hosting a website, where anybody can personalize a mother/daughter photo with creative text and images that can be shared across social media, or saved to a computer.
They know they are all my little unicorns and they are perfect just the way they are created!
How to you encourage your daughter to love her hair? Make sure to visit and create a picture just for her.
I love your girls’ hair. I envy that red too.
Think you’ll go back to red after the blue/purple?
It may be because your girls have red hair but I see more children with red hair lately than I have ever noticed before. Most also with non-red parents. I love your girls red hair.
And the parents without red hair like to tell us how they wish they have kids with red hair.
I had a love/hate relationship with my red hair growing up. On one hand, I liked how my sister (who also had red hair) and I looked alike, we were in it together, attention and all. On the other hand, I disliked how my red hair made me stand out at school, there was teasing. Now that I have my daughter who was born with bright red hair, I am learning to appreciate my hair in a different way. I want my daughter to be proud of her red hair, so I have to show her that I am proud of mine. I will have to check out the Love Your Hair link with Dove. Thanks for another great red head article.
Thanks for checking it out! I had such a hate/hate relationship with my non-red hair. I never knew what to do with it, so it just looked like I didn’t own a brush. But, having kids has helped!
Definitely make a little video/picture!
I love this! I was always worried about Grace liking her hair because so many people commented on her brothers’ blond hair all the time. I know she always loved their hair too. I actually colored my hair to match hers so that she would know how much I like her hair. That does seem to help and she likes her hair (but especially when she and I match).
I love that your girls have learned to love their hair. ?
I never realized as a kid that hair was different textures, only colors. And that people could hate it? But I guess that’s because mom ALWAYS made me wear my hair up at school. Years later, she told me it was to help avoid lice. Had she told me that IN THE MOMENT, I would have stopped trying to take it down all the time!!