Dear: White Mothers With Half Black Children,
I have a beef with some of y’all, and I think it’s high time that I actually address this on my blog. Now, I would like to preface this post by saying I am well aware of the fact that this applies to some black mothers as well, and that it does not apply to ALL white mother’s with half-black children. In fact, although I may have been able to say it a couple decades ago, now I wouldn’t even say that this could apply to the MAJORITY. With the advent of the internet and youtube, and I’m guessing people becoming more educated either before or after giving birth to their biracial children, I actually don’t see some of these things half as often as I used to. Which makes the white mom’s who are still lost and confused stand out like a sore thumb. No more is ignorance an excuse. It’s time to wise up and recognize this basic fact:
Your Kid Running Around With Her Hair A Mess Cuz You Refuse to Learn How to Do it is Sad And Despicable
And right here I’m giving you an out of sorts. Maybe you’re not a lazy, negligent, or clueless mother, maybe it’s the fact that your “Colorblind” attitude is damaging your ability to properly care for your biracial child. Seriously, I get it. You’re not racist. In fact, because of my multiracial family, I always assume that if you’ve had a child with a black man/woman that race is not a major issue or problem to you when it comes to who you love, how you love, whom you respect and trust, etc. Awesome. However, as I’ve already made clear in an earlier post, you are NOT colorblind… EVERYBODY sees race, and pretending you don’t is ridiculous. And here is the perfect forum to explain to you exactly why this silly “everybody is literally exactly the same” attitude can potentially have damaging effects to your biracial child.
One of the things we use to identify someone’s ethnic/racial background are their features. And some of those very visibly different features from ethnicity to ethnicity actually require different attention and care in order to keep them healthy. Black hair, for example, differs radically from many other races in terms of not only the texture, but in regards to the things that it needs in order to be considered properly cared for. This also applies to other aspects of grooming and care, as well as more major issues like health care and disease prevention, and social issues that could have detrimental effects to your child’s future. But that’s a whole ‘nother post. Today I am mainly focusing on all things hair, and am going to break it down for you so that, going forward, you can understand why treating your little girls hair like it is the same as yours is a terrible plan.
Basic Care 101
Let’s start at the top. Black hair is naturally dryer, both the scalp and the hair shaft. If you wash it every day, what you’re doing is robbing it of its ability to build up or maintain any form of natural moisture or protection, which will cause it to break off and get split ends very easily. This means that, depending on the texture of your child’s hair, anywhere from once a week to three times a week is the max. Your child’s scalp is also naturally drier, so those flakes you see are NOT dandruff, and cannot be cured by daily use of Head and Shoulders shampoo.
What you need to do is invest in some scalp oil: there are a large variety of them, in a large assortment of brands, smells, and recipes, so to find the one that works best for your child. What you’ll need to do is, right after washing and drying, use a comb to make parts about 1 inch apart from each other, and put the oil directly on the scalp. Depending on the level of natural dryness you may need to repeat this process sometime throughout the week. Notice how I clarified that this oil is for the scalp? Depending on the texture of your child’s hair (which can go from kinky to some form of curly) what product you’ll need to moisturize the shaft of the hair follicle can vary.
There are many, many black hair care/beauty supply stores and outlets, with staff that can assist you with finding the perfect one for your child. While you’re there, ask them to educate you on the different shampoos and conditioners that are formulated specifically for black hair. While I’m sure you love your Herbal Essences or Pantene Pro-V, those shampoos are not formulated for black hair, and so will probably be more damaging than helpful, regardless of what the bottle advertises. The internet is a powerful place, if you don’t have the time to troll around beauty supply stores reading every label. Google black/biracial hair care and you’ll suddenly have a gazillion guides and videos at your disposal. Here’s a great detangling, washing, and conditioning guide for biracial/black hair to get your started.
Styling: A NECESSITY
Now, here’s the part that some of you definitely miss, and was the inspiration for this post: styling your kids hair. She doesn’t have white-textured hair, so you can’t just wash it, run a comb through it, and then leave it as is and think you’re done. Pull it back into with a halo of frizzy hair circling her head also does not cut it. And if you think that using hairspray will somehow help you, you really need to think again. Those little plastic headbands? Completely useless.
You need to learn how to properly part your child’s hair, the products you need to smooth it down, and how to secure the ponytails so that she looks well-kept and loved. This may take some practice, but the fun thing about your children is, they belong to you – you can use them as practice heads, and what can they really say about it? Just put something they want to watch on the TV, hand them a dolly, they’ll live. As for you, if you don’t have a friend to help you, you can always bring your child to a professional and ask for some guidance/tips…they are normally eager to help you out. But again, I understand, you may not have hours and hours to be visiting salons and learning how to do your child’s hair. In this case, the internet, again, is your friend. By doing a general search on “black hair style for children” or “how to style biracial hair” etc. on youtube, you’ll not only be able to come up with a multitude of videos to use as reference as you walk through the style, but you can actually gauge which videos are being done on hair that is similar to your child’s, and therefore the products/techniques/styles that will work well with your child’s texture of hair. And the styles range from a nice, healthy looking loose style, to ponytails, to single braids and twists, and even to cornrows. Here’s an example of one of the dozens of how to cornrowing videos:
See, not so impossible when someone walks you through it, right? Now, I understand you were probably not raised on cornrowing. It is a skill you should acquire. It will stay neater for longer, and should you need to oil their scalp quickly throughout the week it gives you easy access. But it will take you practice to perfect. And maybe you’ll start with doing just one here and there, or just short cornrows at the front of her hair. Eventually you will get the hang of it if you keep at it, and in the meantime please at least do the rest of the hair-care, and do the simple styling. Your kids halo of frizzy hair, and dry lumpy-looking afro-puff ponytail looks…unkempt.
Absolutely No-No’s – A Lesson in Common Sense
And please stop relaxing your children’s hair when they are like 2, just because you’re too lazy to learn all of the above. This is such a terribly negligent thing to do, it borders on child endangerment. First of all, just because her hair is permed doesn’t mean you can ignore the fact that it needs completely different products and the scalp needs to be oiled. In fact, to keep the hair healthy, once you’ve relaxed it it actually takes more careful adherence to the rules of maintenance, moisturization, etc. to keep the hair from breaking off and the scalp from being dry and flaky. Not only that, but these are CHEMICALS you are putting in your child’s hair, and having them sit under and breathe in every 6 weeks. And do not be fooled by the “Just For Me” so-called kiddie perms…they are just as destructive and harmful as the relaxer made for adults…including the burned scalp with associated scabs and puss, searing pain as your hair is processing, and potential of permanent, irreversible hair loss. Do you realize how much changing your child’s body and hair go through in the younger years? What you’re doing by relaxing their hair at such a young age should be criminal.
Link to the article where I retrieved this image from is found in the above paragraph. Just looking at this picture made me so terribly nauseous. Just one question: WHY??
And please, enough with the fake hair on babies. You’re going to stick weave or braids on your four year old? Do you realize how tacky and inappropriate that is? Not only are you teaching them that their natural hair is not pretty, but that mommy’s is, you’re putting them in a grown-up position long before their time. Do you let her wear mascara and lipstick to school every day? No? Well then you shouldn’t be putting fake hair in her head every day, or dumping chemicals onto her head either. And let me just add in here that the added strain and stress on the hair from putting extensions in or weaves, bonding glue, etc. can have the exact same disastrous results as the chemical treatments can, and requires a certain lifestyle that doesn’t often fit with the carefree and fun life that children live. And it also requires even more maintenance and care than natural hair does in order to remain healthy and strong and to grow. Think your precious little girl will look super cute with a receding hair line or a bald patch? Yeah, didn’t think so.
Think about how old little girls were before their mom would let them get a permanent, or get highlights. in your days…12? 13? Yeah well, relaxer is a chemical, just as a permanent or hair dye is, and if you’ve learned one thing from your mother that you can apply to your biracial/black child’s hair, it’s that some things you can’t do til you’re older…even if it would make mommy’s life easier and allow her to selfishly not learn how to take care of your natural hair properly, and maintain it properly.
This is what you want to inflict on your child? Do you get that once that damage occurs sometimes it is irreversible, and she will live a life where she will always have to have a wig, or weave, or other hair pieces just to cover the damage caused by your laziness and ignorance? She will wonder why she is so unlucky to have weak, breaking hair, that won’t grow past her chin, or is thin and listless, no matter what she does…stop the madness. Please.
An FYI on Identity
As a side note, I understand that you may not be able to cook foods from the other half of their ethnicity. But please make sure that they are exposed to foods, music, cultural experiences and customs and practices, from the other side of their ethnic mix, regardless of the father’s presence within their lives. And make sure that she knows that her black heritage is also something to be proud of: that regardless of the biases, prejudice, and racism of others, or that can be seen in the news or in other media forms, the majority of those who share that ethnicity with her are wonderful, strong, intelligent, worthwhile people and members of society. Otherwise, once she grows up and goes out into the real world, she’s going to feel very self-conscious and very unsure of herself without this firm knowledge and exposure, without that firm grasp on her identity (and research proves it time and time again), and for little girls that often leads them down paths we really would rather they didn’t go down. You can’t have a future when you don’t understand your past. How can you see the big picture when you are missing half the puzzle pieces?
A friend of mine was separated (through no choice of his own) from his gorgeous daughter. He is black and his daughter’s mother is Italian, and comes from a terribly racist family. When he was banned from being a part of his daughter’s life, this Italian family did their very best to raise her as Italian, exposing her to white-only and Italian-only things.
Well, she grew up. And now, in her early twenties, has expressed confusion and fear at the smallest of things. She wants to bond with other black kids in her University, for example, but is afraid of the black kids because she doesn’t know how to act or relate to them. She is twenty years into life, learning about the black half of her culture as though she is a tourist five-steps removed, instead of it being half of her. She wants it so badly…it just seems SO far out of reach, so overwhelming and confusing. And the experience is only made more painful and more confusing by the misinformation she was taught growing up.
Source: The Boondock © 2006 , retrieved from: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/
At best, when a child is raised counter to features and facts that she can plainly see evidence of in the mirror, when she is taught to reject part of herself as somehow unclean or repulsive, she will forever feel like she is inferior, for she will continually strive to become something she is not: free of that black half of her. At worst, she will reach out in all the wrong ways and to all the wrong kind of men. All the men will use and abuse her, and then discard her like yesterdays trash. The white men will have the opportunity when she is desperately seeking to be validated as “white enough”, or “acceptable enough to the white man”. The black men will have the opportunity when they realize they can get her to do anything at all to prove that she doesn’t hate black people, to try and learn “how to be a black girl”, to be accepted by a group she has no idea how to belong to, because she won’t understand that being black is not a choice, and therefore not some actions or general behaviours she has to do to get a “nod” into the society.
Or, like many who fear and don’t understand something, they can begin to hate. They can epitomize and embody hate without even realizing that’s what they are doing…Take a look at this example of a poor, lost biracial girl who has fallen into that terribly trap.
I thank the person who shared this video on YouTube. However, the title of it is DEAD wrong. There is nothing even remotely funny about this video. Pathetic? Yes. Asinine, in reference to her rationalizations and thinking, of course. But there is something so profoundly sad about this girls beliefs, I don’t even know what to say. Sigh.
But like I said, not every biracial child experiences any of this. Some of them, like the ones in my family, or the ones raised by my friends, are taken care of properly. One of my friends does the most gorgeous hairstyles on her daughter’s hair, cornrows and all (her daughter has been featured throughout this piece…isn’t she absolutely GORGEOUS?!?!), and she’s white. So it’s possible to learn, for those of you who have no clue. But please do. If you don’t, you’re doing a GREAT disservice to your daughters. And in this day and age, the last thing a little girl need is more obstacles thrown her way.
Anyone else see any dissonance issues between a parent raising their biracial child and not educating them, or taking care of them, in certain pertinent ways? This could be any mix of ethnicity..
Anyone REALLY dislike the way a certain race of mom raises her biracial children? If so, why?
Do you think it’s criminal to put chemicals in a toddler or child’s hair? (whether it be perm/relaxer, or hair dye, etc.) Are you one of the people who justify chemically treating your child’s hair? Tell us why!
What age do you think is acceptable for children to be wearing weaves or extensions, and under what conditions (if any)? Do you think fake hair is unconscious white-envy, laziness, or something else all together?
Do you think fake hair sexualizes children far before their time?
Toss in your dime…the first two cents are always free! 😉
And that there concludes my first official Black History Month Saga. As a point that- of course black social issues will NOT be confined to the month of February, and of course my whole point is that black history should not need a month because it should be integral year-round, I thought it only fitting to have the final post in March *wink wink*. Thanks for joining me y’all, I had a great time exploring all of these issues, and I hope you enjoyed the ride too.
Happy Monday Y’all!!
Cheers
Classic Ruby: Unadulterated 
That little baby with the bowl hair cut design LOL why did she have a comb over though
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Sigh… Lol probably because she’s in that stage where your hair grows in unevenly, so some places are either almost bald, a different texture, or just much shorter than the other places… Which is how baby hair tends to be… Which is exactly why trying to straighten the hair of a child, and especially a baby, is so insane.
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I need help.. my granddaughter (3) used to have beautiful ringlet curls.. beautiful texture, soft, long girls. Her dad, who got lazy and didn’t want to take care of her hair, took her somewhere and did something to her hair. it is now rough, nappy, and the ringlet are gone. How can I get them back. What can we do? We were told he may have had a “perm” put in that would take out the “curl” .. please anyone with any experience with this please respond. My daughter and I are at our wits end trying to bring back this little girl’s naturally beautiful curls. She is biracial (mom white, dad African) Any help will be appreciated.
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It’s difficult to try and answer without actually seeing the before and after of her hair. It is possible a kiddie perm was put in… in that case the damage is not reversible because it is a chemical and permanent change. However the description you gave me does not necessarily point to a perm.
Another thing that may have happened is that while trying to give her temporarily straight hair they actually ended up giving her heat damage. Last option on that scale would be a botched keratin treatment. The Keratin treatments wash out eventually overtime but unfortunately heat damage is permanent and would require growing out the damaged areas.
However before I jumped to any of the more scary options I would check to see weather her hair was just incredibly dehydrated. When the hair shaft is dehydrated it can turn your curl pattern from curly into a frizzy mess with no trace of a curl insight. Because she’s so young it’s harder to make a suggestion of a hydrating regimen to try out because so many longer standing and very effective natural type rehydrating treatments do take several steps and a lot of time.
For now I would first try several shampoos with a toddler safe clarifying shampoo. If those don’t exist in real life then a tiny bit of baking soda added in to her regular shampoo would give added lift and cleansing. Basically you want to try and strip away any kind of product build up that may be sitting on the hair shaft and preventing it from otherwise absorbing moisture or products.
I would then use a hydrating clay mask… again I’m not entirely sure if clay is safe for toddlers? But clay does an awesome job at restoring curls and health. And then a deep conditioner. And finally a vinegar rinse.
The two things I encourage you to Google are the curly girl method and the max hydration method. The reason being is that much of what I’m suggesting was taken or derived from those methods and so any directions and hopefully answers about kid safety would be there. Also check on the cherry lola treatment in the max hydration section. Again incredibly involved but it does such an amazing job
While I’m doing all of this though I would be making a hair appointment stay with a salon or stylist that has experience in her specific hair texture… I really think you need a pro to take a look especially if at home diy stuff didn’t do the trick.
Sigh. Gosh you guys must be going out of your minds. Feel free to email me if there’s anything else I can answer to help and otherwise I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Luckily she’s only 3 So even in a worst case scenario you’ll have that perm or heat damage grown out in no time.
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I am not comparing outward traits only biological difference, brains, bone density, blood, culture which scientists have proved to be different ie a transfusion of black to a white would kill him.
I am not talking skin color. but hair is different. iqs, bone density, immune system.
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Carole,
Certain blood types are more common in certain races, but there is no blood type exclusive to any race. It’s incompatible bloodtypes that could kill a recipient. It has nothing to do with the race. One race can give blood to another as long as they share a blood type. IQ tests were made by white people for white people. They can only properly identify inteligence if the person testing fits with a specific culture. They are not absolute tests. They are faulty. My black daughter has a gifted level IQ. And she is definitely smarter than you.
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Although I 100% agree that biracial children need to be exposed to both sides of their heritage, and that all people see colour whether we want to admit it or not, and that us white Moms need to understand and accept the differences in our children’s hair and style accordingly – the whole tone of your article is so incredibly anti-feminist and mother-blaming that I could barely hear what you had to say. Where is the father and his side of the family (all this ranting about cultural significance/social impact/etc, yet no responsibility being taken??), why is Mom being blamed for everything? Some days, as a single working Mom with mental health issues, its all I can do to get out of bed nevermind intricately braid my kids hair, but I do my best. Thank you for the tips you have provided. Consider easing up a bit on the judgment, and your message would be much more palatable.
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First of all, to put your mind at ease: you read this absolutely correctly. AMD I actually appreciate that. Of the many many people who expressed outrage at the article, you are honestly the only person that I believe honestly and intelligently and coherently assessed the material and then gave a reasoned response.
So yes, I’m sure the tone was entirely anti feminist because in general as a rule my thoughts and opinions tend to run highly anti feminism. Now, I’m not entirely sure HOW that’s possible given the material but, I’ll give you that credit since it’s far more probably anti feminism than entirely unbiased whereas feminism or anti feminism slants are concerned.
Now, here’s the thing. I hear you. I do. Children are 50% more successful in basically every area of life when they are raised in a2 parent home, and although those statistics decrease slightly their success is still much higher when both parents are actively involved. Although it’s quite possible to fully raise and fund and a form a child on your own.. because as feminism states women don’t NEED men for any damn thing at all… it certainly becomes far more challenging to parent and have all that onus solo.
However, to be clear, neither your family nor his were consulted nor present, nor had any say so in conceiving or having the child. So while it’s quite nice, and honestly evolutionarily productive, to have family members who are willing and eager to contribute… it isn’t on them. On either side.
So then it comes down to the parents. Now. I guarantee you’re not gonna like this part… but hear me out. Because if this was a relationship and a baby that was committed and chosen and both parties wanted… and then some time after birth he walked away from the kid because y’all broke up or something… ok… he’s a piece of shit. He should do better.
And?
What does that have to do with YOUR responsibilities to your child? If you love your kid and im guessing you do, the regardless of WHY her father isn’t present in her life it’s YOUR responsibility to fill that gap. Period.
And when it comes to hair? Yeah. That was ALWAYS gonna be your responsibility and problem ANYWAY. The simple fact is, black boys do not sit around in childhood Learning how to braid and care for hair. They just don’t. Just like boys from other ethnicities don’t. As a general rule. That’s a task, interest and skill reserved almost entirely for girls. That’s partially because of developmental differences in fine motor coordination, but also down to differences in interests and future needs (little girls wanna be beautiful… again, generally).
If her father was the same ethnicity as you there’d be no question that daddy would not be involved in the hair styling and hair care decisions and chores… ever. So then it falls on you.
Now here’s the thing… nowhere in this piece did I blame anything on anyone. Is it your fault he’s not part of his kids life? Unless you court ordered it probably not. But I find with the blame game I can find as many men at fault answers as I can women at fault.
What it comes down to is whoever is the primary or sole care giver, the responsibility falls on YOU. Remember that episode of Greys Anatomy when Derek brought Zola to work and everybody was giving him side eye and he thought it was a race thing… when really it was a “your daughter’s hair is a travesty” thing? Yeah.
If you look at the pictures there are certainly intricate braids patterns… that’s just illustrating my friends braiding skills…a white woman brought up by a white woman and who didn’t even know how to French braid before having her daughter at 14. But she learned. And now it’s a cinch.
But you’ll notice there are many pics of her hair in a simple ponytail/poof type style… or pig tails with the hair twisted. The point of all the pics is about the million things including special days where you wear your hair out, that are available… but that for type 3 and 4 hair, styling isn’t just about being cute, it’s about protecting very fragile hair and figuring out the tips and tricks of keeping said hair types moisturized and manageable (the more fully hydrated the hair strands the easier it is to style and comb and the better it’ll hold in that style you worked so hard on).
Can’t really promise less judgement since there really wasn’t judgement per se to begin with… I’m just a smarmy asshole type, what can I say?…. but feel free to email me if you’re looking for more specific help. Seriously. Depending on her age there might be stuff she can do to help, and depending on her hair type I might be able to make some suggestions to help get her hair to a place where you only gotta worry about it once a week, whereas the rest of the time she can do the maintenance on her own… or something.
But yeah I know im a bit of a dick, so if you’re not even willing to risk it, just look up clay hair masks, hair porosity, and the youtu.be channels Green Beauty and I Am Traeh… the first one gives SOOOOOOO many short easy to digest tutorials and info sessions on everything under the sun regardinghair knowledge and different types of treatments… she’s seriously amazing… and the second one shows you how to some easy and quick hair stuff… and she’s done tons of vids featuring her doing her daughter’s hair.
Anyway… thanks for reading and thanks for your response… cheers!
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TOTALLY AGREE! I came here looking for help with my grand daughters hair which was totally neglected by her parents (I now have since adopted her and they no longer want anything to do with her) and all I felt was shame since I’m a “white mom.” I didn’t ask for any part of this hair situation but here we are. Thanks for making me feel like I have no right being any part of my grand daughters life because she is half black.
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Hey… hopefully I’m responding quickly enough that you’ll notice my response to you and actually answer. I am asking you a question that I seriously wonder EVERY time someone says something similar here.. and I’m seriously looking for an answer.
WHY did you come here looking for help and what kind of help were you looking for?
I’m not a hairstylist. This is an opinion/social commentary blog that isn’t even in the realm of hair care or hair styling. Even the title is clearly an open letter, which are most often crafted to express a generalized sentiment to those it’s addressed to.
So I was quite confused the first time I got this whole “I came here for help” thing… but you are the last of dozens and dozens of women who have said the same thing. So I really want to know… what kind of help did you think you’d receive when you got here and what or who told you that by clicking on whatever link to open this post/letter that you’d receive that help?
Onto the rest of your indignance, which I find quite ironic, since the reason you’re here looking for help is the exact reason why I wrote this post. Her parents neglected the special and different care her hair needed and had her living like that, with damage accumulating for YEARS… you have now inherited that neglected hair and realize that it desperately needs TLC… and that what you know works for you and for women with hair you’re familiar with has NOT been working on her hair…
… the difference is, unlike her parents you actually CARE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I’m addressing her parents and their ilk… those who keep on neglecting and damaging their child’s hair and hide behind either “it’s what I do with my hair” or “weeellllll isn’t black hair SUPPOSED to be like a brillo pad?” Or “this is her natural hair and it’s BEAUTIFUL and if you can’t see her damaged, dehydrated, broken, split ends as beautiful then YOU ARE THE PROBLEM… RACIST!”..and so on.
I do give a tad bit of info… but as I said im NOT a stylist… and even if I were, the different variations of hair curl pattern, porosity, density, coarseness, length e.t.c can all make a BIG BIG difference on what works and what doesn’t. You are doing what you’re SUPPOSED to do… you’re doing your research. You’ll have to go through lots of research and lots of trial and error before you find a hair care system that works for her hair… but be warned, that could easily stop working one day out of the blue, with puberty, as she reaches different lengths, when seasons change and so on.
You can see the pics throughout the piece… take a look again. That’s a real biracial child, and her mother and grandmother. She had to learn all of this and learn how to do all those protective styles and cute styles you see (taught herself how to use the baubles and do the braids and the right kinda twists and etc). This article is not to shame women like yourself who realize there’s a difference between her hair and yours and that you’ve got a whole new hair world to learn… it’s to give a lil shake into reality to those who ignorantly and stubbornly refuse to accept this as true…
… having their child grow up seeing her hair as ugly, unruly… the enemy. Having zero connection to the other half of her ethnicity because the father and fathers family don’t care and won’t take part… and so on.
Im sure this is just one of a billion things suddenly dumped on you and it must be overwhelming. All I can suggest is try finding women online who have similar looking hair to your granddaughters and learn from them. Check out a channel on YouTube called GreenBeauty … she’s got a lot of teaching and information on her channel broken down and explained and I know she’s been helpful to a ton of people… including myself…
I applaud you for doing right by your granddaughter… she’s lucky to have you… if you care this deeply about her hair? I know she’s on good hands…
Good luck.
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Thank you, M. Your reply is exactly what I wanted to write.
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Hi- I’m not a hair expert but my little one is mixed race. It sounds like they may have overheated the curls by using a hot iron over 180 degrees – sometimes if it is too hot in breaks down the molecular structure and the curl stops curling. BUT….they will grow back I believe. Until then just condition as much as possible – use raw coconut oil, hair masques and conditioners as well as detangler. Bio oil is great for a treatment aswell. Hope that helps in some way – @littlewinnie42
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This is stupid. The kids you said look bad in the above pix do NOT look bad. NATURAL hair isn’t ugly and you saying it always has to be braided and styled IS saying that what they are born with ISN’T enough! My mixed daughter HATES i mean HATES to have her hair TOUCHED. She’s 2 and it’s not worth the tears, screams, sweat and traumatic occurrence to even just part her hair! Literally she hates it and i dont know why,,,but I do know that her lil self looks might cute with a fro and her puff ponytail is always a hit with her matching color ties with bows. So no im not lazy nor am i too white to have a half black baby, it’s that i actually LIKE my childs NATURAL hair and would rather spend time doing fun stuff with her than 2 hours of lassoing her with my legs while she screams to braid her hair…and sleeping in those braids ain’t fun and hurt lil kids. your post made me have some “beef” with you.
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Hi Ashley, I am also white with a half black son. My mother bugged me for 2 years to cut my son’s hair when he was a baby. I loved his hair and refused to cut it until after he turned 2. After my son’s bath I just put a little cream or oil in his hair and that was that. I loved his hair!. As he got older he wanted to cut it in different ways and we did that. Then he actually grew it out because he wanted an afro. He was happy and I loved that he was adopting both sides. He almost decided to get his hair braided then changed his mind. But I know what you mean about having his hair touched. He was fine when I was just combing it out but if I tried to braid it he refused to sit still, He always looks good and has never had a braid in his life.
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See, the problem is that people read things in a vacuum. And they also dismiss things that are said. I started off this post by directly saying, in the VERY beginning that not only does this not apply to every biracial child, it does not apply to only white mothers.
Then I spent a whole post explaining exactly what I meant. At NO POINT did I say “if you don’t braid your childs hair then it will be ugly or uncared for”.
I was actually incredibly happy to read your post. Because you are one of the countless “other” women I addressed in the first few lines that this post isn’t speaking to. Sounds like from the jump you were aware that your son’s hair needed additional or different products because it is somewhere on the curly to kinky spectrum and right off the bat were adding moisture and sealing in moisture with oils and creams.
I’m sure that your other practices for his hair were on point. And I’m also sure that if you saw that his hair was always dry and frazzled looking, breaking off, looking uneven you probably would have changed something up. Because you actually loved his hair and therefore likely loved caring for his hair and watching it flourish. And I’m sure his afro looked strong and shiny and healthy.
The problem is, there are some people who do NOT love, or perhaps simply don’t understand their child’s biracial hair. This also goes for black women whose children have a much looser curl pattern than their own and therefore has different needs and flourishes best under perhaps even radically different regimes.
I’m not sure where your son’s hair falls on the spectrum of wavy to curly to coily, but I’m guessing it could be anywhere from 3A to 4A. That is only relevant in so far as that people whose biracial child’s hair tends to be in the 4’s, or comes with high or low porosity, tend to experience greater difficulty. And that difficulty is magnified when your child is a girl in a society that blasts them with european beauty as the ideal and the “beauty” aisle doesn’t have products that work well for their hair…
It greatly saddens me to see young children with chemicals in their hair. It saddens me to see young teen girls with their hair fried crispy and broken off and eaten away at the edges, all because they never learned, never knew, that it wasn’t their hair that was lacking and wrong, it’s that that beauty aisle in the store was lacking. And that with the right kinds of products, some protective styling, some little tips and tricks that YES their natural hair can grow long and healthy and luscious, and YES they really do have a curl/coil pattern.
At the end of the day, with my 4c high porosity hair, without protective styling my hair would be ear length at best. Many people with looser textures with either high or low porosity hair also experience dryness and brittleness and breakage issues.
When I was a kid the products just weren’t available. Period. They have been for some time now. And trust me when I say that this post has opened the eyes and TRULY helped those that have been floundering.
You see it as an insult likely because, as I said at the beginning, this post doesn’t address you. You can go back and read the beginning for those who don’t believe me. I clearly say I am NOT overgeneralizing here.
A white kid with straight hair who had their hair cared for like a person with kinky thirsty hair would have oily, stringy hair, dandruff, an incredibly itchy scalp, and thinning or even balding from their scalp being stifled to death. Their hair flourishes best, is healthy and happy and shiny under a different set of circumstances than the kinkier or curlier textures.
It may be harder to spot for someone who was not born and raised into black hair culture. But I can see the difference between healthy, well moisturized, well cared for afro versus dry, damaged, brittle, or knotted afro, I can see the difference between hair that has frizzed out due to humidity and hair that is SO dry and broken off that nothing short of a bucket of gel can keep it in place. There is a direct difference between natural and unkept. Between natural and frizzy.
If you knew all that already, great. But many people didn’t. And some of those people were so scared to be ridiculed on here that they emailed me instead. I still get those emails til this day. I have one lady who has been corresponding with me for years now, and her daughters hair, which she originally thought was 4c and naturally frizzy with no curl or coil pattern, and was about shoulder length (which she thought was the terminal length) has now proven to be 3b/c hair, is almost waist length, and is shiny and healthy and can now even maintain a curl pattern with a little avocado or grapeseed or argan oil.
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No but you’re post specifically said a letter to White mother’s not a letter to mothers who don’t care for their children’s hair a letter to white mothers you get it. I myself have children of both cultures white children and biracial children and I have taught myself to take care of all of my children’s hair. I have been with my black husband for 13 years and I love learning his culture in teaching my children their other side of their culture
And being around the family that I have with my husband side I personally know there’s many black mothers who don’t take care of their children’s hair many so once again can you see where your post makes some people disgusted. In this day and age with so many biracial children your post should have said to mothers who don’t take care of their children’s hair never should have been for anyone race because there’s not one race who doesn’t everybody take care of their children’s hair. And I personally myself with the children that my children go to school with see many many young little black girls with frizzy Nappy Heads just as many as biracial children
I absolutely love both sides of my family my white family and my black family and I personally take it upon myself to learn both sides of our culture for our children. It’s people like you who keep hatred and racism in the world. And quite frankly you disgust me you just stereotype all white mothers you said oh I specifically said it’s not all white mothers know you specifically started your post with a letter to white mothers. I will never again watch one of your videos I will never open an email from you I when I want to learn something about my children’s hair I will watch somebody who doesn’t have a view like you have. I will choose to watch a video or somebody loves everybody and their profile somebody in their post and then try to justify themselves by saying it wasn’t to all white mothers but the beginning of the post you said you had a beef with us
Maybe your Beef would be with lazy mother. No matter what race they are there’s lazy mother’s every race who don’t do their children’s hair like I said. And yes like the other white girl said there are days I leave my biracial child’s hair natural she loves it and just because you believe get their hair shouldn’t be natural the world doesn’t revolve around you. You could have easily worded your post in other words but you made it toward white mothers and did it purposely and don’t try to justify Yourself by saying it wasn’t for tall white mothers there are too many biracial relationships in this world for people like you to still exist
And this goes for racist white people also there’s no need for it there’s no need to call out one group of people there’s no need to racially profile one group of people and then try to justify yourself afterwards. I love learning new ideas to do my biracial children’s hair love it and I went on your post specifically to learn something new for my children and this is what I got. I will never take any time to look at anything of yours or open anything of yours your complete waste of time to me.
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“I have a beef with SOME of y’all, and I think it’s high time that I actually address this on my blog.”
– think this pretty much explains …..riiiiiggghhhhtttt off the bat that I mean SOME… not all
“Now, I would like to preface this post by saying I am well aware of the fact that this applies to some black mothers as well,”
– second sentence and i’m already addressing the fact that it applies to some black moms as well…
“and that it does not apply to ALL white mother’s with half-black children. In fact, although I may have been able to say it a couple decades ago, now I wouldn’t even say that this could apply to the MAJORITY.”
– again…. for the record… clarifying that this letter, and the very necessary message within, applies to far less than the majority….
“With the advent of the internet and youtube, and I’m guessing people becoming more educated either before or after giving birth to their biracial children, I actually don’t see some of these things half as often as I used to.”
– giving credit to the obvious efforts, research, and knowledge that the rest of them have put in (obviously) because their kids have nice, healthy, happy hair…
” Which makes the white mom’s who are still lost and confused stand out like a sore thumb. No more is ignorance an excuse.”
– …. does this really need explanation?
” It’s time to wise up and recognize this basic fact:
Your Kid Running Around With Her Hair A Mess Cuz You Refuse to Learn How to Do it is Sad And Despicable”
– STILL 100% TRUE. 100%
The way you’re whining on and on and on reminds me of a saying… “a hit dog will holler”. See now, not only does my introductory sentences makes ALL of my thoughts and intentions clear…. but the entire article is sprinkled with photos of a biracial child, her white mother, and actually a picture of her white grandmother as well… not to mention the fact that I have a biracial sister and several biracial cousins…
Sooooooo…. gotta say, your little tirade sounded like a petulant child throwing a tantrum cause they know they broke a rule and deserve to be punished for it, but think they shouldn’t be punished anyway cause they are special.. and sorry.
The fact that you say stupid shit like “you think it shouldn’t be natural” when I have a whole section on the travesty of perming hair, ..or putting fake ass hair in these children’s hair, ..or even applying heat and how terrible it is…. tells me you didn’t either read the article… ..or you have NO idea what “natural black hair” means.
Just as you seem to have zero idea of the variety of black/biracial hair textures, curl patterns, densities, porosities, and etc. That would affect the health of the hair based on the treatment of it….
Which is kinda the point.
Now as to why the letter isn’t to black mothers (in title)? Because, point blank, black mothers actually understand the pain, identity, struggle, and hardship to deal with, grow, and grow up with black hair in a society like North America… point blank, it’s something you, as a white woman, would have to learn and give to your daughters, but as a third party on the outside looking in. Black mothers instantly understand something things you never can and never will. Therefore their failure to do their children’s hair, or to keep it healthy and happy, tends to stem from different factors than “omg I had no idea….I just cared for it just like mine but omg it’s IMPOSSIBLE”…
Get over yourself. Get out of your feelings. You can’t stop “watching and reading my hair posts” because i’m not a hair blogger first off. Second because there’s only this one. You’ve been through the entire hair collection.
Ok, truth time. I hit a nerve cause you KNOW this was ..or is… true of you. It’s not too late. Go learn something. There’s an entire natural hair movement out there, entirely focused on helping people learn all about the factors I just mentioned and giving tons of suggestions, advice, help….
Maybe search “…the curly girl method” in youtube and see what comes up. Check out the channel green beauty on youtu.be. who knows… might help you out, too…
And I’ll leave you with this thought…. sorry boo, addressing the truth in an honest and open way doesn’t make me a racist. I don’t have to group every race under the sun into my every criticism…
I stand by my title and everything written… and over the years this has actually resonated positively with many… and many have been helped… even many who have reached out for some extra info and help…
See what can happen if you get outta your own way. You can see clearly… learn… and grow.
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I think you are ignorant, condescending, racist, and also you need some grammar lessons or else to use your spell check.
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Hmmmm…. racist against who? 🤔
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This is just another race baiting rant of a insecure woman against white women who adopt black babies or white women who have half black babies. She doesn’t care if a baby cries because braids hurt and cause premature balding, or relaxers and perms cause burns on the scalp. She probably has articles on how white women cant have braids because for some reason only black women can. She wants to degrade white moms of black children and call them lazy for not scarring their babies head with weave. Kinky hair is so natural and white women use oils on their heads too you may want to educate your self. Also dreads came from Jamaica not Africa and they love to dread a white womans hair, you know why because they are not racists. You are derogatory to your own black race insulting half and full black children of white moms. Some children dream they could have hair because they have cancer. Think before you speak and write. Get a white friend maybe 20 white friends because you need therapy. You have no class. Black and half black children of white moms and any moms rock your hair the way you want. Adopt the culture that loves and respects you. Also black women straighten their hair like white women and dye it blonde humm beyonce, does not mean she wants to be white. White women get weave braids and dreads humm does not mean they want to be black. You need to uplift women and children but your garbage article is so clearly stating how sadly insecure you are and how jelous you are of white moms of black children and what they do or don’t do to a babies head. Tsk tsk grow up I hope your hair falls out for being such a racist.
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Personally I feel that it’s prejudice because some white mothers know how to do hair. However I have witnessed my biracial hair not being cared for because my mom didn’t know how to look after my hair properly because it used to super curly. But now my hair is as frizzy and wavy as hell. I respect that u have addressed this but there is two ways to this.
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Nope. Sorry I won’t accept that. ESPECIALLY because not only did I literally say this in the very first few sentences, but because in this day and age there IS no excuse…
I’ve highlighted through the entire article a white mother and her biracial child… one who had to learn from scratch BEFORE there was YouTube and online everything.
There’s no excuse anymore. Your hair being curly or frizzy is not an excuse. You deserved better and mother’s like yours should have been called out when you were still very young and she would have quick times learned….
The truth hurts. Doesn’t make it less true.
As for you… if your hair is frizzy it’s probably because it’s dehydrated… probably because you don’t have the right regime, products, moisturizers etc… a clay mask or an acv rinse can go a long way, however since you seem old enough…I hope you’re doing your research and trying out new things. There’s something called the mhm… depending this might be a great place to start exploring, I know my cousin with wavy hair has a lot of success with the rules and methods from the maximum hydration method but ymmv because your texture, density, porosity, and hair thickness, not to mention length might vary greatly.
Not to brush off your feelings, I know people get defensive about their moms…I know I do… but these days there’s way too much coddling and I see no color and difference blindness that’s coming in and destroying people’s ability to think critically and rationally about something that often deeply impacts little girls and sets them up for a life long hate/hate or hate/love/hate relationship with their natural hair
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😍😍😍😍😍
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Lol thats sounds like my daughter there was this one instance at these apartments we used to live at the police were called to a domestic disturbance to the apartments upstairs across from ours well i had just gotten my daughter out of the shower and sat her down infront of the sofa with her hair stuff and i started brushing her hair and every time i would brush her hair she would completly lose it no matter what i put on tv or what i gave her to play w so thats BS iv been there done that it doesnt work well u know my daughter was making such a fuss and saying “mommy mommy stop ur hurting me” so of course what happens i have the police knocking on my door i open the door they’re like whats going on in here come in past me and they ask my daughter are u ok honey she says NOOOO MY MOMMY IS BRUSHING MY HAIR!!!!!! All they could do was laugh and say sorry walked out my apartment and said good luck have a good night ma’am!LMAO This blogger doesnt know our kids some kids are just easier to deal w than others when it comes to their hair it is pretty insulting to b called lazy just because i put my daughters hair in simple pony tails and pig tails but shes happy and so am i i know how loved and cared for she is so she can just go on w all that BS REALLY!
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i am a biracial child. and my mom is very obviously white. I disagree a lot with all that is being said here. CHILDREN ARE GOING TO BE CHILDREN. that’s something in general. when I was little I never wanted my hair to be done I loved my little afro that I would always rock. when my hair was done it was done very cute and well put together. yes, there are white women out there who do not know exactly what to do with their children’s hair. but you are calling them lazy? I think you have the wrong choice of words. what woman would intentionally have their child look completely a mess by choice? think about it. it is pure ignorance for you to say what you’ve said. children are children. there beauty comes from within. their hair shouldn’t matter.
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Exactly! who do these people think they are telling moms how to do their own childrens hair? Have an opinion about something that really matters and keep the rest to yourself. I think the pics of the children with “uncared for hair” looks adorable
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You know, I’m so glad to see people speaking up. I am a white mom, and my daughter is 100% African American. She has always been a “tender headed” child – a term I was introduced to by many an African American hair stylist. In fact I knew I was not knowledgeable, so I sought professional advice ASAP, and as soon as she was old enough, tried to introduce her to going to the salon. Hugh disaster!!!! Tried many different salons – all resulted in the same crying, screaming, etc… that moms have described above!!!! She has the tightest of little curls – they are so cute – like little micro curls. So we just tried to go as natural as possible, with maybe a few little puffy pony tails. Once she got to be about 5, she found her two favorite sports – swimming and horse back riding. So let’s talk chlorine, very fine stable dust, and helmet hair!!!!!! Ever try to wear braids in a helmet? Not comfortable….. her hair needs to be washed more than usual – complicating things. We went though a few tough years when complete strangers would approach us, touch my daughter’s hair and proceed to tell me what’s “wrong” with it – right in front of her. Ugh!!! We would walk away with my daughter crying and asking me why people think her hair is “bad.” She is now 11 and does her own hair – but you can imagine how much oil and conditioner we’ve gone though over the years. All worth it because she now loves her natural hair.
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Yup. I did all of the above as a child and I can tell you that a helmet that fits and accounts for the extra space the braids take up does the trick nicely.
Im glad your daughter is doing her own hair. Hopefully she finds the natural hair movement online and it educates her on why it was such a painful mission to do her hair as a child (suboptimal hydration to completely dehydrated hair, polarized hair porosity, products that were not right for her hair, styling tools that were not ideal for her hair, timing, ways and frequency of detangling, washing, drying, styling e.t.c) and therefore introduce her to the ways she can properly balance her hair for strong, healthy happy hair that is quite quick and easy to do and maintain.
Cheers
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Oh please! You say that as though I was an easy kid and haven’t been there done that. As an adult, MANY of the hilarious childhood stories revolve around wash day. I still remember the abject fear, the being scissored in tightly between my moms legs, the deep almost hate and yet entire envy I had of my mom’s permed and not horribly painful to comb out hair.
Of course, we’re talking in the 80’s and 90’s, and truly there just wasn’t much available in regards to information or products back then.
As an adult who went back to natural, i can tell you that now detangling my hair literally isn’t painful or terrible. Because now, unlike then, I have the proper tools, information, and hair products, as well as techniques, so that at no point really does my hair get matted or tangled really. It all comes down to slip and moisture, and only doing the detangling while you have both slip and moisture in the hair, only using things like your fingers and wide tooth combs, detangling from the tips to the root, keeping hair sectioned and twisted and only untwisting when you are shampooing or washing out that particular section, etc etc etc…there are many great bloggers on youtube these days that can walk you through awesome hair care routines including literally being in the shower going through the washing to all the aftercare. And these bloggers come in all hair textures, so you could find one that most resembles your daughters hair texture and go from there.
One excellent vlogger is IamTraeh …and I say this because she not only does her hair but she has also done some hair care vids with her young daughter, who has hair in the type 4 range.
I remember when my little cousin was a kid. She wouldn’t let anybody touch her hair. I mean to the point where it would go a month without seeing a comb. Her hair was about type 3a/b. Her parents just tried cutting it off all the time. At the end of the day it come down to moisture and technique. Because while she wouldn’t let anybody else touch her hair, she’d let my mother. Granted, my hairs shrinkage, 4c texture and high porosity made it a nightmare without the right products and levels of moisture, but my mom’s techniques were awesome, and not only would my cousin sit there and have her hair detangled, she’d even let my mom style it. Only person she’d let near her hair. Her whole childhood.
I’m guessing your child is out of childhood by now? But I hope anybody else who reads this will take some of my advice. As I said, many people have found that this info has helped them hugely.
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Exactly what i thought! Nice one xx
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Take ya ass on Becky
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I agree!!! The natural hair is beautiful! Especially the little girl in the middle photo. I find this article disturbing. It actually seems like the author wants to go to great lengths to conceal the natural appearance of the hair. I think braids would be all right for a teenager old enough to speak for themselves, but are definitely not needed for smaller children who may not even be given the right to choose in the matter. Braids that are too tight can cause alopecia! It was also offensive to hear that the children’s head belongs to you to practice on whether they want you to or not. When I see kids in public with large plastic decorative objects adhered all over their skull I actually feel really bad for them because it must be painful for them to rest their head on something. I don’t think little girls should be treated like dolls no matter what race. They should be free to be comfortable and natural. I am glad that a new generation is embracing a more human standard of beauty.
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I’m going to guess that you are not black. It isn’t a hard guess , specifically because your comment especially towards the end shows a direct lack of understanding of what is both beautiful and exciting to a little girl who has type 4 hair. Beads, baubles, barrettes, for us gave our hair pretty, gave it swing, gave it cool. When we go to sleep at night the baubles or larger things are removed, and then in the morning before going out the hair is smoothed and the baubles are put back on.
You say the new generation is embracing a more human standard of beauty. What is that exactly? A more eurocentric standard? Are you trying to state that white people do not french braid or fishtail braid their childrens hair? Use barrettes and ponytail holders and bows and headbands? Quite frankly your comment saddens me DEEPLY, because at the end of the day what is normal and necessary for you and your hair may be radically different than from someone else’s.
I think people’s skin and hair should be cared for in the way that it will succeed and flourish and shine and be radiant. Now, for a white child with type 1 hair, that involves frequent washing, the occasional conditioner, maybe some ponytails in harsher months.
All scalps produce sebum. Sebum travels down the length of the hair shaft to coat and protect it. With dead straight hair, this is a very easy thing, and this is why after a few days dead straight type 1 hair will begin to look oily and stringy. The curlier your hair is, the harder it is for sebum to make it’s way down the hair shaft.
Likewise, each place the hair rotates, or curls, is a new point of weakness as far as hair strength and breakage. This is why, for example, type 1 hair gets dead ends only at the tip of their hair. Their ends are likely to be the only truly dry place on their hair shaft (especially the longer it gets) and due to friction and the elements is likely only to split or show damage there.
The curlier your hair is, the more this situation changes. Sebum isn’t making it all the way down the shaft, each turn in your curl pattern becomes weaker and stays unprotected, and you start getting multiple splits up the same shaft of hair, starting at various points up the hair shaft. This dryness also causes knotting, breakage, matting, and tangling.
The obvious style you see with the twists and the braids and multiple ponytails is to keep the hair neat, untangled, and to help it hold in moisture from the leave in conditioners and moisturizers and oils. The baubles and such give it swing and style and all of that jazz.
Please do some research on the topic before you make such statements, because point blank it’s backwards thinking and statements like this that make little girls start wanting perms and weaves and hair extensions…because the world tells them their baubles and styles are weird or ugly.
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Thankyou! I’m so sick of black ladies shaming mixed people.
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Generalizing is ignorance!!!
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In all fairness I never shamed mixed people…I personally don’t think I shamed ANYBODY…
But if I did…I shamed lazy, ignorant mothers who have children who are half black and decide that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander… DESPITE the fact that the gander has entirely different needs to maintain hair (and possibly skin) health and vitality.
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I am 20 and had a biracial baby 10 months ago I’ve been using cantu and I came here to learn about maintaining her hair. I’ve been searching a shit ton of videos and ways to style her hair I use cantu so far when I style her hair I usually make a spray bottle with jojoba oil leave in conditioner and water and spray it around her head and comb little by little then I put the styling cream then I make the part I wanna make to put her hair in pig tails !! She has hair but like def not long enough for braids nor is she big enough to sit for that lol ! But once I get her little hairs in the pig tails I use the edge cream for where he part is and her edges and I use the kids plastic bands so they dont snag her hair ! I like everything so far EXCEPT for the cantu extra hold edge gel it is automatically sticky as soon as I put it on my fingers and it makes a mess and is sticky. I def want a gel that is softer and smoother that is almost like a soft jelly oil when styling and takes a little while to dry that would be ideal.
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Sorry for the late reply…
Just as an aside… for the MOST PART if you can get your babies hair to be maximally hydrated from within regardless of texture you can almost get it to lay bone flat with nothing but a quick brush and clip. But that takes some time research and knowledge to understand and achieve cuz it involves truly understanding the various factors of her hair type and texture (pattern, thickness, porosity, density) and honestly at such a young age a lot of that is still very variable.
Have you ever tried something all natural and diy? For example some home made flax seed gel, which you can make literally with just flax seeds and water (or add a lil oil if it tickles your fancy). Not quite as strong as an edge control product but baby hair tends to be much easier to manipulate and manage so it could do the trick.
Short of that though I would definitely check out a channel by a lady called Traeh. She often styles her daughter’s hair but she reviews products as she does it and explains stuff… so she might be a good resource. Another channel that I love is Green Beauty. She tries out a lot of diy options and products herself over the course of time, explains the science behind why it works, compares and contrasts… so she MIGHT have something within this topic or any other area of hair interest including that complete hydration thing I mentioned earlier that you might really appreciate.
Cheers
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I agree 100% 👍 Not everyone wants (or needs!) braids.
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Agree 100%! I’m a white mom with 3 half black kids. My 2yo daughter has neither the patience nor the hair length to do all those funky styles. And to be honest, I don’t like the look of slicked back hair on a kid anyways. But I keep that to myself, because it’s a matter of personal preference, which you have no right to judge people on. When my daughter is old enough (like my 4yo son) to ask for styles I’ll be more than happy to do them for her! But until then, we both like her natural, “unkempt”, KID hair. She loves her pony’s. If I raise my daughter to care more about the opinions of random internet strangers than her own, then THAT is the true disservice.
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I feel sorry for you and your daughter that at any point you could consider “unkempt” and “natural” or “afro” to be synonymous. I feel VERY sad for you that you seem to be fighting against a message that tells people to learn how to care for their own childs hair, to not just try and treat it like their own because it ISN’T like their own, to do some research and figure out what products are best, what regimens are best, and how to keep their hair healthy and happy and moisturized so that it grows long and strong.
I find it very sad that you think somehow that because I mentioned and have pictured braids and that a white mother taught herself to cornrow after having a biracial child whose hair needed protective styling that somehow the other 100 paragraphs are irrelevant. Thank God not everybody is a skim reader. Hopefully despite your comments your biracial child has their black side also involved in their lives and so you are getting help and guidance and that child’s hair, whether you have it in a pony tail, pigtails, a barette or bow, a headband, flowing natural, is soft and hydrated and healthy.
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I dont like corn rows necessarily unless they are angled and parted in a curvy way not straight back. But I have always been a fan of the twist braids and the mini braids that aren’t fully her head but in the front of their heads than a big curly puff in the back. Dont have to braid their hair every day if you like their natural curls down BUT a Protective Style at night is important for sure. And your right scalp braids are best for that. So to me it is important to learn that part. Cuz the ROOT is the most important part of the hair
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Heyyyyy we’ve all got personal preferences… and honestly with individual differences in not just taste but in facial features and shape, some styles are just gonna look better on some than on others.
For type 3 and 4 hair, the root is definitely important you’re right… but the BIG deal is length retention, and at the end of the day between porosity, the natural fragility of curly and coily hair, and hair shaft thickness/thinness… trying to retain length is the number 1 challenge… to the point where it’s commonly believed that “black hair doesn’t grow”, despite how ridiculous that statement is since everybody’s hair grows at approximately the same rate.
In either case, if you’re pro protective styling and especially at night regardless of what the daytime style is that day then you have the right mindset. Really, protecting your hair at night is important for everybody of every hair type, it’s just that some people have incredibly thick shafts and the sebum easily coats their strands so they might suffer less damage. But regardless of your hair type and texture, if you’ve got any hair thinness, breakage, splitting, dryness etc…. try and the very least sleeping with a silk pillow case at night or with your hair covered by a silk scarf. Preferably with your hair pulled back in a braid.
It’s ALLLLLL about healthy happy shiny hair.
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One more thing I dont think children should wear weave hair dye or chemical changes!! Children are children and I heard for kids with 3a 3b I could be wrong is actually way easier to break their hair. They can get weave when they 18 and can make their own personal choices on if they wanna mess up they hair or not lol
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Ok well first of all for clarification… type 3 and especially type 4 hair IS far more fragile. Basically the more natural curl a hair strand has, the more areas of weakness that hair shaft has… on top of that the curlier the hair the more difficult it is for sebum to travel down the length of the hair shaft to coat, moisturize and protect it.
You’ll also find in general that the closer you get to type 4c the higher the incidence of fine (read skinnier) hair shafts. Which of course is true in any hair type 1-4, the skinnier the hair shaft, the more fragile and breakable the hair shaft.
But a BIG thing that often goes unknown and therefore overlooked is hair porosity. Type 3 and 4 hair tends to natural be outside of the normal or mid porosity range (this is about the cuticle on the hair and how “open” it is). Mostly you’ll see naturally low porosity hair, although there are also many like myself who were born with naturally high porosity hair. And of course damaged hair, say through chemical processes or from heat damage, can also become high porosity. The porosity affects the ability for the hair shaft to both allow moisture in, but also to RETAIN that moisture when it’s in. Hair that doesn’t do this in a balanced manner becomes dehydrated, and therefore more prone to breakage.
Now, with that being said, the ENTIRE heart and soul of this article specifically addresses your first point… and in fact I also specifically state that hair weave, chemical processes and even heat styling is ALSO a travesty.
Do you know WHY any body would do such nonsensical things to their CHILD’S hair? No? 🤔
I do. And it’s the reason I decided to create this article. And for the record, every single person who sat here and rather than learn something got in their feelings and outraged and decided to say that braids and barrettes and baubles are akin to child abuse are, if not perpetrators of these crimes against their children’s hair, then they are certainly part of the cause of why other people do these things to poor innocent children’s hair… or why the second those kids GET some autonomy that they feel the need to do it to themselves.
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Lol NO KID WANTS THEIR HAIR TOUCHED. I am a mixed child and the reason it needs to be “done” is because it needs to be moisturizered and combed through or it will matte and tangle. ALSO, if you would slowly introduce doing her hair she wouldn’t be so distraught every time you tried. Also braids are not painful if you know what your doing, my mom did them my whole life.
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I totally agree Ashely. I am actually offended after reading this. I am an African American mom to a biracial daughter and I have never braided her hair. Like you, I love her natural curly puffs and everyone I know says it is awesome. This entire article is riddled with jealousy. Nothing about those children looked unkempt. It’s almost as if the author is trying to discourage white women from being parents to biracial children…..presenting hair as an obstacle.
Foo foo.
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I dont think the intent was to dis natural hair. However, natural hair should be healthy hair, and just like you should be concerned with the nutritional health of your child, hair health is very important. So no one accused you of being lazy IF you are educating yourself and taking the time to make sure your child’s hair is healthy. Dry hair is damaged and does not grow. It’s not about keeping it in perfect styles…its about just making sure you keep mixed hair hydrated and recognize that their hair takes extra steps and should not just be treated like typical “white” hair…regardless to how the child responds. Even just shampooing less or using deep conditioners regularly with detangle and oil….will make a ton of difference. And perhaps then your child may dislike her hair being touched a tad less especially as she grows. Just a thought.
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So I have a question, my son is 1/4 African American. I have never had a problem with his hair until recently he had started having flakes, he has very soft textured hair like an hispanic person. I use shampoo and conditioner on his hair but he still has flakes, I need some advice, I’m afraid if I use oil it will leave his hair greasy (or do I use it at night?) Thanks
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By the way he is 11 years old
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My question would be…what shampoo, conditioner, and styling products if any is he using? Some gels and curling type creams actually end up flaking on their own and can look an awful lot like dandruff….
But if you’re talking about dryness and flakes that you are seeing directly on the scalp I would look at a few things.
First. I would want to know what kind of shampoo and conditioner and products that are being used, and see if they have ingredients that are drying, or perhaps even irritating. Second I would look to see if there are ingredients that cause buildup on hair and scalp, like say silicones or parabens. If there are, I would then try a clarifying shampoo and see if getting all that extra residue off solves the problem, because sulfate-free shampoos don’t do a great job of removing the coating that silicone and parabens create on the hair and scalp.
At this point, if it isn’t your products actually flaking, you have all natural shampoos and conditioners and products and no silicones or irritants in sight, I would then consider using something to moisturize the scalp.
You do not have to use hair grease. In fact, I don’t at all. Most hair grease or scalp oils are basically vaseline with additives, and while vaseline does a great job of sealing in moisture, it does a terrible job of adding new moisture or allowing new moisture in.
Sometimes you see with the beginning of puberty you have hormonal changes that cause changes in your hair, skin and nails, among other things. Try something light at first that doesn’t cause pore clogging. You can actually look up natural oils online. Jojoba oil is the most similar to our own natural sebum produced by our scalp. Some people find that works for them. For me, I am currently using a mixture of shea butter, avocado oil, jamaican black castor oil, carrot seed oil, grapeseed oil, and olive oil (TOTALLY not necessary for you by the way, i just make it from scratch and have added things along the way til I came up with a mix that is good for both my body and scalp/hair).
What most people like about avocado and almond oil is that they are both absorbed into the hair and skin. they don’t sit on top. And a little can go a long way. My baby sister, who has very baby fine hair that is maybe 3a/b/c, and also has eczema on her scalp and everywhere else (poor kid) and is allergic to too many things (again poor kid lol) uses shea butter or coconut oil. However, she can’t use the coconut oil as a leave in oil since it is way too heavy for her hair texture and weighs it down and makes it look a greasy mess.
She does what is called prepooing. So she puts the coconut oil on her hair and scalp and allows it to sit for a bit and then shampoos and conditions, especially good before a clarifying shampoo. It’s good cause it gives extra moisture and protection before the harsh wash routine ahead. Leave in wise she would use a tiny bit of shea just on her ends and on her scalp in dry areas and then massage it in (at night, so it has a chance to absorb in by morning).
Currently she’s having an eczema outbreak and instead of using her go to mineral oil (because it is SO heavy and greasy) she is trying the jamaican black castor oil (though any pure unprocessed castor oil will do) and with good results.
You can also try a vinegar rinse, since sometimes a PH imbalance can be triggering to the hair and scalp. A vinegar rinse is good for hair and scalp in general and leaves hair with a healthy shine. Just make sure hair has been detangled first, since it does smooth closed cuticles .
Mix 50/50 Apple cider vinegar (i love the Bragg’s version) with water. After you have washed and conditioned the hair, you pour the ACV mix directly onto the hair and scalp. Let it sit as you maybe shower your body or whatnot (5 minutes or so….doesn’t need to be long) then rinse out. Yes at first you will smell vinegar in the hair, but as it dries the smell disappears I promise! When I have my hair in a puff or afro, I actually daily spray a vinegar water mix onto my hair after I moisturize and even though i don’t rinse it out the smell disappears!
Hopefully this doesn’t come too late and it helps a bit!
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Thank you so much!! I have very fine thin hair. My son has much thicker coarser hsir than me. He is 10 and recently decided to start growing it out. He now wants it braided and I know nothing. Unfortunately, his dad is not much help so I genuinely appreciate you taking the time.. maybe some moms are afraid to ask but just because I don’t know the answer doesn’t mean my baby is gonna run around wirh a beautiful face and nappy hair!! I literally Googled “Tips for white moms taking car of biracial child’s hair!” You were the first link that popped up!
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I hated this post. I like natural hair better than braids.
As a proud black woman, I am offended by this post.
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I’m sorry you’ve been offended although I in no way understand how. I think my message was pretty clear: black hair needs to be cared for and nurtured properly. Chemicals, fake hair, extensions, etc. that is going to be used to be used, especially on young children, is a travesty. Young black/biracial girls need to be taught that their hair is beautiful, and with proper maintenance and care it will be beautiful and healthy. What is offensive about that?
I have many pictures here depicting beautiful natural hair styles, including her hair being down and her natural curl pattern being apparent, to ponytails and pigtails where the style is more afro than curly, as well as a variety of braids, cornrows, and twists… the point was not that either you cornrow your child hair or it looks terrible: the point is that either you take care of your child hair the way it needs to be, and it can look beautiful and add to her beauty, not detract from it.
What’s unnatural about braiding your hair, exactly? I don’t know, I suppose I must be missing your point. Further elaboration would be greatly appreciated… But thank you for your feedback
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I am not at all offended and totally understand where you are coming from…. Not all biracial children have hair that looks ‘cute’ naturally… My daughter is 9, her hair is dry, slightly wavy, and very hard to manage. Combing it and putting oils or cream in it and calling it a day just isn’t enough anymore. She too has always hated me touching her hair…. So now my daughter is starting to care more and want me to style her hair in cute styles and I’m completely ignorant to how the he’ll to do it! Because what worked for the last 9 years…. Is just not good enough for her any more and it’s embarasing to say the least, that mommy is clueless…. So I personally appreciate the tips… And wish I would have been more stern with enforcing better care with her hair when she was younger and hated to do her hair…. I mean if your child hates brushing their teeth at the age of 2…are you going to just let them be negligent and wait until they understand the importance of being well kempt? I wish I had taken a different approach, and now I’m struggling because I didn’t. 😒
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As a teacher, I think it’s vile that people are so obsessed with the looks of a child rather than whether s/he is happy. Especially girls. It’s why so many kids are screwed up.
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The point does not matter until you present it in a way that does not offend people. You offended many people. The tone of the blog was an attack and it also came off as prejudiced and mildly racist. It could have been informative and helpful if presented in a different tone but instead gave no specific help other than part hair, put in oil no head and shoulders. Since minimal actual help was given the only point was “stop letting your biracial kids hair look like that I don’t like it.” You simply could have changed the voice of the post by outlining your struggle and making it more relatable instead of the tone of “I’m doing this right and I’m tired of everyone else doing it wrong.”
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I’m not biracial and I don’t have biracial children. So, I’m not really saying I’m doing this right and everybody else is doing it wrong. I have biracial cousins and a biracial half sister. I have white, and black, friends with biracial children. I have black friends with black children. And as I said right at the very beginning. Made sure to clarify point blank period at the beginning, this doesn’t even apply to the majority, which I’m happy to say, and doesn’t just apply to white women with biracial children, and for the black women it can apply to those who have full black children.
Funnily enough, you were so busy focusing on the one line in the whole post that was meant to seriously shake you out of your comfort zone and wake up if this applies to you, there was a LOT of tips and tricks and help and references. Many many people have thought so. The people who wanted and needed this kind of reference to get started, to understand point blank where they were even going wrong, when they had started going wrong. Whether in the comments or in personal emails.
The person featured in this article is NOT me. I had her permission and was given the pictures by her specifically to create this post. She read it and approved of it before I posted.
So if this article didn’t apply to you and you found it offensive and unhelpful, that’s OK. It wasn’t meant for you anyway. If it totally applied to you but you found it offensive so you won’t listen well then, I’m sad for you. Because you were obviously so busy getting your back up that you decided to either ignore or demonize everything I said after the first paragraph instead of taking whatever info could have been valuable to you.
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What YOU don’t seem to understand, is that although biracial hair can be thick, nappy, or whatever you want to call it….it is still mildly different from straight AA hair and it cannot always withstand the tightness endured from braids. My daughter’s hair is thick, nappy, and dry….but very straight at the roots and ends and curls immensely when wet. Pulling a comb thru her hair is not the same as pulling it thru mine, even though both textures are coarse. She is also what some refer to as “tender headed”.
You said yourself that you don’t have a biracial child, so how did you become the expert on biracial hair care? Your nieces don’t count….unless you are doing their hair everyday and you are a witness to the constant texture changes that often occur.
Furthermore, you using kids photos in a public post to demean them is disgusting on many fronts. I wish someone would make my daughter the poster child for having “unkempt biracial hair” especially when I KNOW IT’S BEAUTIFUL.
You are low key jealous.
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??? What??? That makes no sense, it was just examples of styles….braids using your own hair is still natural hair. She also said, the internet is a good source for gaining more info. She was humble, straightforward, and a little humorous, and gave many sources and examples. Great post, interesting topic.
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Because white people don’t always braid, pony tail, curl, or wrap head up, some days they just leave it frizzy and down…why can’t a mix or black girl just have them days without being stupidly judged or a childs parent being called lazy? i love my daughters hair and the fro is way cuter than braids anyday in my opinion. and my friends daughter with her beads all in her head knocking and constant noise when she moves and how uncomfortable she says it is to sleep in and then hit her in the face when her wave cap falls off at night does not seem that appealing. I get don’t keep it dry and nasty just as a white person wouldn’t keep theirs oily and greasy but saying you got to braid and style every day to look good is ridicolous. Mixed girls who rock that fro keep it up, don’t listen to them people that say you have to have all these styles to look cute…many people can’t afford that, it ain’t cheap, so all they can do is rock it truly natural and that is a ok and cute!
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@Ashley It’s not cheap for you to braid your own child’s hair? To put it in a few ponytails with some @ baubles? Seriously? Lol wow. Yeah. Thank you for saying this. This is exactly my point, JUST BECAUSE WHITE PEOPLE CAN DO THEIR HAIR A CERTAIN WAY and it stays healthy and happy DOES NOT MEAN BLACK HAIR CAN BE TREATED THAT WAY TOO! I mean it can be treated that way, and then when it’s dry, frizzy, breaks off and is unmanageable you’ll blame it on the natural texture and go perm it, rather than acknowledging that anything that is improperly cared for well eventually break down. You can make excuses all day about how uncomfortable beads in hair are, and considering that’s one option out of like 5 easily doable at home styles I can think of off the top of my head. Not to mention that while beads or getting your hair done or whatever might be temporarily uncomfortable, I and anybody who had their hair done regularly would probably agree that I far hated the after wash hair styling over the next day now it’s all detangled and moist styling.
If you had to walk around for 30 days with dirty, filthy, oily stringy hair, because nobody ever showed you how to wash your own hair, so you had to wait to go to a salon, even though there are Billions of YouTube videos out and random people on the street, coworkers, friends etc that wash their own damn hair every day that could maybe teach you how. ..would you learn how to wash your own hair?
Probably yes, right. Cause dirty oily hair for a month is nasty. Right? And unnecessary, right? That’s just silly, it’s easy tu learn how to quickly and efficiently wash your own hair in the shower a few times a week at least. Right?
Yeah. That’s how I feel about people being able to properly care for their childs hair. And that’s how ridiculous every excuse you gave sounds to me.
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I don’t think the things you said were necessary wrong. It just didn’t help me at all when looking for specific haircare (this blog came up in a Google search for biraciaI haircare) I already knew all of the actual information given. It just offended and frustrated me. I just think going about this in an angry aggressive manner caused the message to get lost. Being relatable usually helps carry a message. Maybe try this post again by outlining your journey and struggles learning how to take care of your kids hair. It sounds like you and your friends have a lot of experience with this and could compile a lot of specific stories that would be much more helpful to struggling mothers. The three C’s are important (consideration, communication, compassion) in all situations.
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Thank you! I’m glad you totally got it and appreciated my delivery! 🙂
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I have a 6 yr old biracial son w a fade only one side of his scalp is peeling I grease his scalp daily brush put on a durag and only wash once a week any suggestions besides see a dr.
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Grease can be incredibly occlusive to the scalp. It’s kinda basically just like putting vaseline on your skin. If you put vaseline on already dry skin, it doesn’t help much. Like vaseline, grease is great at sealing moisture in and preventing it from escaping. Unfortunately that means it’s also great at blocking new moisture from being added.
Depending on the ingredients especially, some of the grease residue may even remain on your sons scalp after you shampoo. Meaning that now there are areas that are not even getting the moisturization of the water itself from wash day.
I suggest off the bat doing a few deep cleanses with a clarifying shampoo to remove all buildup. Now, depending on the length of his hair, and the texture, it’s quite possible that a good solution for him would be to cowash frequently throughout the week (like every other day) and then to do a full shampoo/condition on the weekend. Using some leave in conditioner and then a penetrating oil of some or, like avocado oil, or a sealing oil like coconut oil. Try and use a conditioner that does not cause build up, so ones that are silicone free and paraben free.
Personally I really love the Shea Moisture lines, because they seem to have a line for everybody, and all the ingredients tend to be natural and great for curly or kinky textures. My go to leave in conditioner is Shea moisture’s jamaican black castor oil leave in. It seems to add a TON of moisture, on both my hair and scalp, without weighing it down or causing that suffocating feeling…Right now I’m using a homemade mix on my scalp which includes, olive oil, shea butter, avocado oil, and a Jamaican black castor oil that also contains grapeseed oil, carrot oil and soybean oil, plus rosemary, ylang ylang, tea tree, lavendar and geranium essential oils. But, I worked up to that.
at first I was just spritzing my scalp with water or all natural rose water, and then sealing with coconut oil, but eventually I found that wasn’t moisturizing enough. I upgraded to a mix of olive oil and shea butter and that was way better.
A purchase I made was the palmers coconut hair dress. I originally got it for my hair, but it works way better in my opinion as a hair oil, if you’re looking for a premade product to try *shea moisture I love, but it tends to be on the pricey side.
You can also try a vinegar rinse, or a couple drops of tea tree oil. That will help balance out any ph issues as well as attack any possible fungal or skin issues.
Hopefully you’ve found an answer, and if not hopefully some of this helped!
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i bet your kids hair a mess…… 🙂
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I cleverly have no children, just to beat comments like these. 😉
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I love the natural look! I have a biracial son and his hair has always looked good whether growing it out and maintaining an afro or taking it down and rocking a blow-out and I he has never had a braid in his hair in his life. That was his choice, not mine.
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Your concerns about mixed race children being provided with a healthy balance of exposure to both/all of their racial/cultural heritage is valid; it’s crucial to identity formation. However, the issue of black hair is fraught with tension (I think the documentary hosted by Chris Rock, “Hair” covers the issue with depth and humour). There is a wealth of academic literature (i.e. solidly researched valid data/analysis) that support many of the points you make about bi-racial identity politics. Some of the literature discusses eurocentric biases that impose the dominant ideology (i.e. White) on Black bodies. This means that even well-intentioned folks hoping to convey the importance of respecting bi-racial/lBlack identity as bi-racial parents can be offensive when they try to impose eurocentric ideas of Black beauty on Black bodies. My point is that I understand Proud Black Woman’s post. I prefer natural styles on all races, though also admire and enjoy more complicated stylings on special occassions or from time to time. I may misunderstand your post, though the pictures of the lovely little girls with natural hair show children as loved and cared for as those with more complex braidings. To suggest that only your preferred stylings are valid expressions of Black/bi-racial beauty or parental care/love shows bias and negative judgement. It’s not uncommon for people to be offended by these things!
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I think to some extent you do misunderstand my post. Because I agree with everything you’ve said, including imposing euro ideals on black beauty and bodies. Yes, because black hair tends to get dry very quickly in north american weather, it is good to have it in some kind of style that will protect it from drying out and breaking off or splitting ends. However, that is Not to say that natural styles, where the hair is left out, either full afro or the ponytail ends left out, can also be beautiful. It’s harsh on the hair in the winter or during rainy seasons, but generally if the child’s hair is cared for properly daily, is beautiful.
My issue is euro people caring for black hair using euro ideals: daily hair washing, white hair products, no oiling scalp, and no moisture on the hair itself. They are using hair care rules they grew up with, and hair care products that are for, perhaps at best, euro or Asian curly hair. That leads to dry, frizzy, doing hair that looks brittle and unhealthy. I nix the idea of perming hair, and have even taken the perm out of my hair. It is Not with the damage or chemicals… it took me decades not to idealize what the media told me was beautiful hair: which was not my own. Black hair is beautiful when cared for properly, and I think the majority of improperly cared for, unkempt hair is soooooo due to ignorance (I.e. not knowing).
Thanks for your feedback! Great input!
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You wrote a great, awesone,helpful article. There were reference people can find other styles, etc. I see so many biracial kids that look homeless and unkempt because of their hair. If the parent don’t want to comb it daily, at least oil and get a precision cut so their kids won’t look like alfalfa and The Little Rascals.
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It’s seriously so offensive that you would consider natural hair to be homeless and unkempt looking
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The title of this article is offensive. I know more black moms with mixed babies than white who ‘don’t know how to do it’ . They are mixed.. Not black therefore you must care for the hair on an individual basis. I had a neighbor who son and mine are only two weeks apart. I’m the white mom.. She black. Our sons look alike and hair very similar… She had absolutely no clue how to care for it and constantly tried to do what I did with my child’s. He has the most gorgeous curly locks.. And to be quite honest when kids have that black/ white hair.. Black moms are just as..if not more clueless how to care for it because ..they just treat it like black hair.. And you can’t do that. You need to buy MIXED hair care products and properly care for the curl pattern and beware of cuts.. Cause most hairdressers also have no clue. You need to find a MIXED hair stylist who understand curls/ curl pattern… And BRAIDS left in white hair breaks it so that is NOT always a good idea. Your post sucks.
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I noticed you are the first person to acknowledge the fact this post is mostly about taking care of BLACK hair and not MIXED hair my daughter is mixed and her hair super curly but has white texture if I greased her scalp and followed the black hair care it would be a disaster I don’t wash her hair every day, but I don’t wash my white hair every day either. As far as mixed care hair your right you have to follow your child’s hair texture and needs not just a blanket for how to take care of black hair.
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I don’t think the things you said were necessary wrong. It just didn’t help me at all when looking for specific haircare (this blog came up in a Google search for biraciaI haircare) I already knew all of the actual information given. It just offended and frustrated me. I just think going about this in an angry aggressive manner caused the message to get lost. Being relatable usually helps carry a message. Maybe try this post again by outlining your journey and struggles learning how to take care of your kids hair. It sounds like you and your friends have a lot of experience with this and could compile a lot of specific stories that would be much more helpful to struggling mothers. The three C’s are important (consideration, communication, compassion) in all situations.
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The little girls whose pictures you depicted as bad examples of caring for natural biracial hair look wonderful to me. They look like little girls, and their natural hair pattern (curly) is shown because they do not have their hair pulled back into a protective style. For you to assert that something is wrong with their choice to not have their hair in a protective, pulled back style is a subjective judgment based on your preferences. Their hairs do not look dirty or unkempt. Your same argument applied to my hair in its natural state (4c, kinky and nappy) would be classified as offensive. We have to carefully discern the difference between our style preferences and what is clearly offensive or unacceptable appearance.
My daughter is biracial, and I am black. Her hair is rather kinky, but has a much looser curl than mine. She is 1. I sometimes moisturize her hair and just let her wear it in an afro. As she plays throughout the day, it gets messy. The same holds true when she has her hair pulled up. Because of her texture, it frizzes and gets messy rather quickly. I have to remember, she is a child, and she is 1. And, I also have to remember that there is absolutely nothing wrong with her hair in its natural curly, frizzy state.
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I think you’ve entirely missed my point, actually. If you look at the pictures of the little girl that is featured on here, there are many where her hair is neither pulled back or braided. But because her hair is cared for properly on a daily basis, her hair and scalp is properly moisturized and brushed, so her hair doesn’t look dry and frizzy and unhealthy, and then the natural curl pattern can shine through.
You can also see at the bottom of unkempt hair that the hair is clearly tangled and/or matted together. This has nothing to do with style preferences, this has to do with proper hair care. And the simple fact is, even what you’ve said in your own personal story further highlights my point: you properly moisturize your child’s hair before leaving it in an afro style. You also say the word sometimes, and have used the words protective style. This all supports my point as well.
Black and biracial hair in general cannot be treated the same as white or Asian hair. Without being regularly and properly moisturized it gets dry and frizzy, split ends abound, the hair becomes much more difficult to manage because the split ends and dryness are causing it to matte and tangle, and the breakage prevents the hair from growing, or from being the soft, beautiful shiny hair that it is meant to be.
The thing I take issue with is you thinking that black hair in its natural state should be frizzy. No, it should not be frizzy, just as white people with curly or thick hair can get frizzy, but it doesn’t mean that it should be that way. Properly moisturized and cared for black hair is Not frizzy and dry looking. I’m positive that you’re hair, which you should never describe as nappy by the way, is lustrous and cared for and beautiful. And I’m sure your daughters hair is the same, since you clearly have the knowledge and experience of what proper black hair care is about…. But many many women I encounter really don’t know that washing their child’s hair every day, no pull or moisturizer and then slapping a hair band or barrette in there and calling it a day is not good for black hair. Our hair is different and should be cared for the way it deserves to be and one it is, it’s beauty will come shining through.
Thanks for your comment!
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This is the most racist thing I’ve ever heard coming from a lady with only black children..what in the hell would she know about rasing bi racial children since she has none…the other thing is my kids are kids not black or white . just children ..so let me tell u this my 18 year old biracical daught. Just excepted a scholarship to a very good collge playing Soccer and she is a force.. on that field and has mostly white friends and she dates a bi racisl high school football teams player who is awesom..keep you petty shit to yourself..i would new take my daught back to the hoood to shoot hoops ..so she can validate herself as black ..and if u look at it soccer is rich white sport ..but she got a scholarship and took her highschool team to there first title ..we know how to take care of there hair ..all yall care about his hair and nails ..and the newest high heel air jordans ..just curious should she leave her white school and soccer to go play baskey ball and get in touch with her black side..i intentionally kept her from the hood so she wouldnt follow your culture and get pregnant at 13 ….also i grew up in the south..white girls and men can cook soul food better than most blacks ..considering that soul food is a white food …because who do u think taught the slaves how to cook it..there was no okra ., black eye pies …corn bread and turnips in africa …it was learned in American..taught by slave owners ..do u think they were gonna eay zebra and or snake.. because thats your culture..,grow up and until u have mixed kids ..keep out of it ,, more worried about how than grades ..just as long as they get fried chicken and watermelon….and korn rolls ..u should corn roll your hair until your brain comes out your ear.. what a joke ..your probably black lives matter groupie …😂😂😂 u worry bout yours and im gonna do me ..you dig ..keep it 100 and thats real talk ..gotta slang that dope buy these fifty inch rims put them on 2 dollar car ..,chase young fat white girls..to take there drug charges for them …and let the man chrat in there face and still dont care ..my kids are biracial and one his high school football star and one is on scholarship..and the both hate sagging ass thugs ..you point being missed is so retarded ..as a parent of bi racisl children ill do as i please with mine ..the oldest girl straightens her hair with curling iron so it will look more like white girls long straight soft shiny hair and it’s beautiful..
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This is the most racist thing I’ve ever heard coming from a lady with only black children..what in the hell would she know about rasing bi racial children since she has none…the other thing is my kids are kids not black or white . just children ..so let me tell u this my 18 year old biracical daught. Just excepted a scholarship to a very good collge playing Soccer and she is a force.. on that field and has mostly white friends and she dates a bi racisl high school football teams player who is awesom..keep you petty shit to yourself..i would new take my daught back to the hoood to shoot hoops ..so she can validate herself as black ..and if u look at it soccer is rich white sport ..but she got a scholarship and took her highschool team to there first title ..we know how to take care of there hair ..all yall care about his hair and nails ..and the newest high heel air jordans ..just curious should she leave her white school and soccer to go play baskey ball and get in touch with her black side..i intentionally kept her from the hood so she wouldnt follow your culture and get pregnant at 13 ….also i grew up in the south..white girls and men can cook soul food better than most blacks ..considering that soul food is a white food …because who do u think taught the slaves how to cook it..there was no okra ., black eye pies …corn bread and turnips in africa …it was learned in American..taught by slave owners ..do u think they were gonna eay zebra and or snake.. because thats your culture..,grow up and until u have mixed kids ..keep out of it ,, more worried about how than grades ..just as long as they get fried chicken and watermelon….and korn rolls ..u should corn roll your hair until your brain comes out your ear.. what a joke ..your probably black lives matter groupie …😂😂😂 u worry bout yours and im gonna do me ..you dig ..keep it 100 and thats real talk ..gotta slang that dope buy these fifty inch rims put them on 2 dollar car ..,chase young fat white girls..to take there drug charges for them …and let the man chrat in there face and still dont care ..my kids are biracial and one his high school football star and one is on scholarship..and the both hate sagging ass thugs ..you point being missed is so retarded ..as a parent of bi racisl children ill do as i please with mine ..the oldest girl straightens her hair with curling iron so it will look more like white girls long straight soft shiny hair and it’s beautiful..
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There are 17 pics on this post besides the run of one’s where you depicted “mid cared for” hair only 2 pics show girls with out braided hair one of which the girl appears to be sitting down to get her hair braided and the other one is up….its clear you like braided hair nothing wrong with that but nothing wrong with a healthy natural afro either….there is no pics of that on here and I believe that is what people mean
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I was also very put off by your post. I thought those lovely natural little girls you featured first as “unkempt and messy,” looked wholesome, loved, and happy. I was angry from that point until the end of your post. Your idea that their hair needs to be “parted” is annoying. I love afros, with and without a part! You also touted that we need to get the right smoothing products. It comes across like you look down on natural hair allowed to kink or curl out of its “proper” place. I believe that those kinks, curls, whisps, and fuzzies in all the variety of texture out there, look super sweet on little ones.
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Well, as you rightfully said, you were angry from the beginning to the end, which then clearly colored your perception of everything that followed. I thought I was clear, and many comments have shown me I was. But then let me be clearer because I’ve Clearly been misunderstood here. I don’t know about you, but I can tell the difference between healthy natural black hair, and dry, breaking, frizzy black hair. Can you? Natural black hair does not need to be rough or dry or frizzy or breaking or unmanageable. It gets that way when it’s dry and improperly cared for. Period.
Hell ya you need some proper, non gel smoothing products and moisturizers and scalp oil and etc etc etc. Why? Because when your intention is to put your little girls hair in a nice neat ponytail or pig trail tails, or to say smooth back the front and hold it in place with a headband, the wide spectrum of black hair tends to require something to not only help keep the hair flat, but to repel moisture so that the hair doesn’t automatically frizz out of the style you just worked so hard on for picture day. All the other products are to help keep the hair healthy and moisturized, something black hair tends to need desperately since unlike white hair, we don’t get adequate moisture to stand up to the elements from our scalp. Also why unlike white hair we should not be washing our hair daily.
Nor did I ever say at any point that hair must be parted in every style. I wouldn’t even know what you mean exactly by a parted afro, because I’ve never heard of one. However, again, , many people unfamiliar with black hair, and who have always had very easy maintenance free wash and go hair really do not know how to part hair, should they need to. At best, they’ve sort of used their fingers. Knowing how to part hair properly with a comb, to oil scalp, to put the hair in pig tails, or to braid it, is incredibly useful in black hair care maintenance.
Last thing I’ll just quickly address here is the fact that, again, Iin the article I’ve fully explained and outlined why protective styling is a required thing for black hair to keep healthy and happy and not breaking off. …eespecially during the cooler months or in times of a lot of physical activity. If you think your little girls hair is not going to break ofF and get dry and tangled often if you leave it in an untamed afro 24/7 then I guess be my guest. You’ll continue to be one of the people I’m talking about, and I’ll keep talking about them. We are who we are.
If, however, you believe that a little girls hair is her crown, that her hair Should be taken care of the way it’s best for her hair type, even if that means you’ve gotta learn a whole new set of skills, and that those children who look otherwise wholesome, happy, and loved are probably exactly that and just have mom’s that maybe really don’t know or understand the difference between their own hair care and their childs…then maybe you have understood my point after all
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Ok…you addressed this article to white mom’s to take care of BIRACIAL HAIR why are you talking about BLACK hair????? BLACK hair and BIRACIAL hair are not the same
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I think it is clear that you wildly failed in presenting your point in the original post. You have given better information and have better explained yourself in the comments than in the post. You angered and offended many people. You need to look over your writing strategies they are not effective in this post.
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I agree to some of what you are saying but not all.all biracial hair is not all the same texture.not even all black hair is the same.example I ask an African American mother with a biracial child.my daughters hair is more caucasian than black.I can’t use geese on her hair.braiding her hair seems to break off.so you are only using the biracial children with more of African American hair textures.I can do my child hair in ponytails but mostly I wear it down which is neat.I may misunderstand your post but how I read it is like you are criticizing everyone with mixed children.obviously you don’t know about the different textures and how you said your Childs hair isn’t white you should have said if your child has a more black texture instead of insinuating that ask biracial hair is a black texture.also I was wondering why you are writing this post and what right you have to write this post.are you a parent of a biracial child.initially not because you are talking about hire your friend keeps her biracial Childs hair.are you a hairdresser.obviously not because you don’t have any education on different hair textures.so why are you ridiculing mothers of biracial children.what room do you have to insult us?
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Well, I actually do preface this by saying I’m not talking to all mothers of biracial children, and actually also mention this also will apply to some black mothers as well who just don’t know what the heck they are doing. Really didn’t think I’d have to repeat those sentences over and over and over again before and after every point for people to think they were still relevant. This is why I prefaced my letter by saying exactly that this doesn’t apply to everybody. Etc etc And throughout I also clarify things, that black hair comes in a variety of textures and that you’ll need to use to moisturize your child’s hair, or shampoo, or condition will vary.
For the record, only a small percentage of people still use greaese anymore, and it tends to be puerile with incredibly dry and incredibly kinky and thick hair textures. For the most part, and what I’d, and most stylists and mothers would recommend is some type of oil. You have everything from light oils that leave literally no pull or residue but still add and lock in moisture to scalp, to heavier oils that can still stain a napkin with oil 48 hours later. There’s a large variety of options nowadays for your child’s dry scalp. However, if your child’s scalp tends not to be dry and flaky, then clearly that statement and the following advice doesn’t apply to you.
In fact, if your child’s hair is well done, moist, manageable, and healthy and happy, not brittle and dry and out of control, then clearly none of this post regarding hair applies to you.
For the record, my baby sister came out with baby fine white textured hair, that was also incredibly curly. And I mention in this article the variety of mixed raced couples in my family, and children, and continually mention over and over and over again the differences in texture. So where exactly you decided I didn’t so much as know about them or acknowledge them, I really don’t know.
Not for anything, but if your biracial child has basically white textured hair with all white characteristics, then any portion of it talking about differences would be moot wouldn’t it? And then I would have literally not have written the article. Because there would have been nothing to tall about. So yeah, clearly I’m talking about a subsection oF the population. If that’s not you, as you are clearly trying to illustrate, then why so mad? Cause if you did your due diligence, learned everything about your child’s hair and hair care, and take care of and style your child’s beautiful, healthy hair, then shouldn’t you sorta be pissed off at all the people who didn’t make that same effort for the wellbeing of their childs hair?
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Oh I just found the problem: You just said you are angry with mothers of biracial kids because according to you they tend to do their hair wrong. This anger comes across in the article and the pointedness offends and frustrates people. Don’t write articles intended to be helpful and informative with an angry mindset. It got you nowhere.
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Actually no. I didn’t say I was angry. Are toy talking about the place where I said “I have a beef with SOME of y’all”? That paragraph right at the beginning where I then point out that this may also apply to some black mothers and also definitely doesn’t even apoly to the majority of white mothers?
Yeah. Must be the place.
Also, while I’m sure you’re right in that it got YOU NOWHERE, likely because you made a choice very early on about my thoughts, attitude and opinions etc that were ENTIRELY opposed to the direct words I was writing…I won’t even refer to the countless emails I received. I’ll just suggest you scroll through the comments and check out that there were definitely some people who got somewhere.
I’m a social commentary blogger. NOT a hair blogger. This was a commentary, with a dash of info for follow up, for those who were interested in more than just one woman’s unadulterated view and opinion on the subject. 😉
Thanks for sharing though
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Thank you for posting this, it is very informative and definitely those of us raising biracial kids should keep these things in mind.
Before my daughter was born, I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube about styling black hair. I also practiced some on my husband (now ex husband) as he was growing his hair out at the time. But to both our surprise, our daughter was born with straight black hair. She has so many of her father’s features, but seems to have gotten my hair texture. I kept thinking it might get thicker and curlier as she got older, but so far it hasn’t. Even more surprising, was people’s reactions to her hair. White people tell me I’m “lucky” that I don’t have to deal with that thick curly hair. They even say this in front of my child. I always make a point to respond by saying “all hair is good hair.” I don’t want my daughter growing up thinking that her straight hair is somehow superior to her half-sister’s and cousins’ braids and locks. I also was shocked when my ex husband’s sister said casually in conversation that my daughter, her niece, was “not black.” As though hair type the only thing that makes someone black? Other people have accused me of straightening her hair (I buy organic everything, there is literally no way I would chemically straighten my baby’s hair.) I hope I handle each of these situations appropriately, but they sometimes catch me by surprise and I dont know how to respond. Why don’t more people just accept and celebrate the amazing diversity of features, hair colors and textures, and skin colors that is present throughout the diaspora?
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Sounds to me like you’re totally on the right track with this, and that’s awesome. It’s heart warming to hear, really, especially the part about good hair. ….I have incredibly thick, though long, very very kinky hair. And I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood, which made me feel very out of place. ..my mom totally bigged up my hair for its thickness and kink. It wasn’t till I got to high school that I found out apparently those weren’t good things to the majority.
One thing you might find as your daughter ages is that, either at puberty or at adulthood or both, the needs of her hair changes. I have 5 cousins plus mysister on one side of my family, all girls, and all of them are biracial. All of them got generally Caucasian hair with some form of curl, ranging from my sister who has baby baby fine hair like her mom but a tin tiny curl pattern, to my baby cousin who has a very thick hair shaft, and incredibly long heavy hair that seemed to be what o could only call a very tight wave pattern. My sister needed nothing on her hair or scalp to keep it moisturized as child, whereas my cousin did a little on her scalp but other wise she was good. For both of them, nearing the end of adolescence, they both suddenly developed hair that was always dry and breaking. Suddenly, my little sister whose hair could handle even a tiny bit of oil as kid can now slather on the Moroccan oil without her hair looking oily. We’ve yet to find the right solution to get my cousins hair moist and stop the horrible breaking. ..her hair was at butt length at age 4, now it’s barely shoulder length and still breaking!
Dnot worry though, the odds are such a dramatic shift won’t happen to you, while my other cousins experienced some age relaTed changes to their hair texture or pattern many were for the better or had easy solutions.
So I guess my long winded point is, sounds like you’re totally on the right track, but if you do see changes in the way your child’s hair responds to how you’ve been caring for it, don’t panic! Changes around puberty are bound to happen in some way or another in most if not all hair textures and racial backgrounds, and if they do happens its just about tweaking your regime tIL you find what’s best for her hair during that period. If need be until you do, you’ve got a little styling experience under your belt 😉 … maybe hit some protective styles till you can get her into a professional to get the issues and new changes identified, diagnosed, and corrected 😉
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I live in South Carolina and unfortunately I see biracial children with matted uncombed dirty hair ALL the time in public. I am black and the mixed kids I see with their neglected hair that no one cared enough to keep groomed are always with their white relatives (mom, grandparents, etc.) so it pisses me off as a black woman to see this. When I see this I wonder WHY did they choose to have sex and children with someone black and then they are too lazy or ignorant or just don’t care? As a mom I cannot understand how people let their 1/2 black children or family members walk around looking like that. Here in SC it is common to see a white woman with her brown kids.
This article was well written and actually offers some good advice for parents of biracial kids. I enjoyed reading it and I hope that people do the research necessary to educate themselves about natural hair care, grooming and styling for afro or curly textured hair. If they love their children they will do what is best for them and make their kids hair look nice.
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Typical black chicks think the white caregiver is lazy cause the see the kuds ON ONE OCCASION with messy head. Who gives a f@&k. Come Monday perhaps it’s gloriously beautiful and maybe they are just letting the kid be Fred in that moment. The real issue is a lot of black women have a real problem with white women having babies with black men. They act down right asinine at times about. Here’s a thought.. Mind your own ding business.. Maybe we think y’all are damn insane put fake white people extensions all up
In your heads???
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Thank you! I found your post to be both intelligent and insightful.
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You’re welcome!
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I would have loved to read this through but your condescending, patronizing nature didn’t allow me past the second paragraph.
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Nah. This time I was certainly being neither. By all means, if you wanna see me be patronizing or condescending, check out my posts on feminazi’s or man skirts, among many others I’ve posted. Guess this one hit the nail on the head for you though huh? Otherwise you wouldn’t have bothered to comment at all. Come on, tell the truth. You really did read it the whole way though didn’t you? And then it basically called you out on many deep, personalized levels and now you feel offended but also feel terrible cause somewhere deep inside you knew you were doing a lot of things wrong, and now you feel all indignant cause you actually feel terrible about your mistakes? Come on. That’s what really happened though right? You can tell me. I won’t tell. Promise. Oh, yeah. See this whole comment right here? THAT’S me being condescending and patronizing. 😉
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You missed out on a really good article. You’re being overly sensitive, acting as if she was talking to you directly.
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Wow. The fact that so much judgment is put upon a child’s hair is unbelievable to me. I comb and moisturize my child’s hair every morning. Some days when I pick her up it’s still looking combed. Sometimes it’s not. She’s 3 and that’s ok…black, white, or biracial. I do take pride in how my kids look but I also realize they are kids. My youngest’s afro is incredibly cute and I love to let it flow. I’m appalled at the judgment on white mothers of biracial children and how much studying we do on how some people think we should style their hair.
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I’m sorry Bobby, but perhaps you’ve missed my point. I am absolutely not judging the child based on their hair, nor am I saYing that if your child’s hair has gotten messy throughout the day that it makes you a terrible mother. Let me reiterate my main point: black hair needs different things than white hair, and as result requires different things in order to be healthy, strong, and grow. If, as a mother, you have not taken the time to not only learn about these differences but also on how to take care of your child’s hair, and style it accordingly, it reflects very poorly on you as a mother. This is my opinion, and I will stick to this wholeheartedly 100%. And this shouldn’t be shocking news,or offensive in any way. Even shows like Grey’s Anatomy have addressed this issue. . remember the dirty looks Derek was getting with his newly adopted African baby Zola in arm. ..and how he thought it was a race thing? And how Dr. Bailey finally set him straight. ..that Zolas hair looked a mess and she sat him down and taught him not just about hair care but about terms like “kitchen” and how to style her hair?
If you think that it’s not plain negligent to not properly care for your child in every way possible, based mainly on the ignorance that “all races are equal and equal means sameness” then I don’t know what else to say to that. If I had a child who was biracial and had white textured hair and quality, I would not be oiling their scalp and washing their hair only once or twice a week. …the result would would be oily, greasy, thin, dead looking hair, and yes, people would look at me and think I’m not bathing or taking care of my child. …this is the same. If your child’s hair is healthy and taken care of properly, then when you do leave it out in an afro or afro puffs style, it will look healthy and strong and beautiful. If it’s not cared for properly and is always left out for lack of knowledge on how to “handle” it, it’ll look dry and dead and broken.
And perming it is not a solution, putting harsh, toxic chemicals in a child’s hair before they’ve even hit puberty, so you have an easier time managing it while you neglect it just as much, because permed hair still requires just a s much specialized treatment, if not more, is not only lazy, it also ensures your child will never understand the true beauty and potential of their natural hair, because it’ll be broken and over processed and dry and damaged. As many many white women of biracial children have proven, including the one featured in this article, it is very very possible to take the initiative and learn everything you need to to effectively take care of a child’s hair when it differs from your own. ..especially with Google and youtube.
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All I can say, as a biracial ‘child’ who is now pushing 50… some of our white mothers knew no better. I’ve see plenty of black kids w/ black parents whose hair is godawful crazy. There’s a distinct difference in ignorance and inattentiveness. Don’t assume kids whose hair looks ‘messy’ is because a white mom can’t/won’t take care of it.
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Well, actually, I directly said that. Directly. In the preface, and made sure to repeat over a few paragraphs. That while there are clearly some white, and quite frankly black, moms who don’t take care of their kids hair due to laziness, inattentiveness, lack of care etc, that I’m gonna go ahead and assume by and large that the reason that most of the moms that don’t take care of their kids hair properly are failing because they don’t know how, and they don’t know what they are doing wrong or why it’s wrong.
I repeat, over and over, that the major flaw seems to be that they (meaning white moms) are treating their biracial childs hair like their own, and despite it having ill effects continuing to treat it like their own, not understanding that there are key differences between black and white hair, so that your biracial childs hair, should it be anywhere down the spectrum away from white textures and patterns, will never respond to any of the tried and true tricks you have. It’s time to learn something new, learn WHY and WHAT is different.
However, if you missed me stating, and then reiterating that point several times throughout the piece, perhaps the actual content of the piece might have given you the impression that I am speaking to people to educate them on something they clearly don’t know?
You’re pushing 50. Meaning your childhood and adolescence came and went long before the advent of the internet, blogs, and youtube. This also means that your childhood was smack dab in the middle of a time where biracial hair care wasn’t discussed, cared about, or acknowledged in pop culture in general.
I would think, and maybe I’m crazy here, but I would think it’s clear that this article is addressing CURRENT parents that can actually DO something to change their current hair care habits for their children. If I wanted to simply rag on everybody who has ever failed at it, for whatever reason, I wouldn’t have bothered inserting information, directions, helpful keywords to google, and helpful videos to get a jump start.
Just saying
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Great read. As a mother of 2 beautiful biracial girls I always do my best to take care of my girls and I’m always looking for better tips an tricks…. So thank you for this blog 🙂
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I’m so happy you found it useful. 🙂 Trust me, I’ve been on this earth for 31 years and I’m still looking for the next best useful tip and trick for my natural hair!
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Why is on the mother? Why isn’t the father responsible for grooming and cooking and cultural education? Where is the father’s responsibility?!?!??
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Not for anything but IN GENERAL,regardless of one’s race, men are not responsible for a girl child’s hair. IN GENERAL little girls learn about being Woman, grooming,personal hygiene etc etc from their mother or a female role model if the mother isn’t around anymore. Just as little boys learn about those things from a father or male rOle model….this is why the epidemic of dead beat dad’s in society today is REALLY hurting the communities where MIA fatherhood is prevalent. But that’s a whole other can of worms.
As for the rest of it, it comes down to simple math. If the father and the fathers family is around then it’s unlikely that much of this post applies to you in any way.
HOWEVER in my experience when a woman finds out that her man is a boy wearing grown up clothes, or when two young immature irresponsible people accidentally get pregnant, or the million other ways a child could end up being raised and cared for by only 1 parent, it is most often the WOMAN who puts the big girl panties on, grows up, gets wicked strong, and becomes that child’s everything to the best of her ability. For those women, the ones who don’t have the father or the fathers family around, don’t have many friends or resources around that share their child’s other half ethnicity, these things were written for them.
Or perhaps the father is around but like most men are not super into the fine details, know less than nothing about female hair in general, and has no close ties or any ties with their biological family.
Or or or. In any case, I’m addressing the mothers. Because yes I hold a mother, a mom, in high regard. I EXPECT her to give a crap. I expect her to wanna think 20 steps ahead to both prepare and protect her child from a life and experiences she can hardly imagine, since not only is life and the world hugely different nowadays, but there are just some inherent differences when the world and society looks at you and sees something about you that you cannot change, be that your skin color, hair texture, a physical disability etc.
I don’t care WHAT parent it is. If you love your child and have primary or sole guardianship…even if the other parent SHOULD step up and do this that or the next…if they AREN’T and you love your kids you do what you need to do,regardless of how unfair it is. Because it isn’t about you. It’s about your child’s well being.
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Hey your just jealous because you all the way black, keep your Unwanted comments to yourself.
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I’m sorry, I just wanna understand. Can you clarify? What does “all the way black” mean? I mean, for the record. What if I’m only nearly all the way black? Or just partially all the way black? And more importantly…how can I tell? What’s the definition of all the way black? Does it mean both of my parents look black? What if they just look black but are technically both biracial? Would I still qualify as all the way black? What if my dad was white, my mom was half black but I came out dark skinned but with white textured hair? All the way black yet? No? What if I was 3 quarters white heritage, with light skin but a full bushy afro, but aerian features?
&#% outta here with your “all the way back” bullshit. Seriously.
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And hey you’re just jealous because you’re all the way stupid….. Hopefully u don’t have biracial children because u obviously don’t see the true beauty of black skin, hair, culture ect….
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I came across your post doing research on caring for my son’s hair. I am white and my son in bi-racial (half white and half black) and he will be turning 2 this month. I love his natrule curls. In the beginning, I was washing his hair everyday, until I excepted that it was better for his hair not too. I’m a clean fanatic and he is my baby who I bathe and keep as clean and kept as you can with a toddler, so it was a little hard for me, but doing the research assured me that it was what was best, I wash his hair 3 times a week now. I found a loreal product, I think it’s called curl Everlast or something but it is sulfate free, and the conditioner moisturizes his hair very well and it’s cheap compared to a lot of sulfate free shampoos and conditioners. I found it at wal-mart. He has really kinky hair in the back and lose curls on the top. I tried using the thick paste like cream ( it was a Shea Butter product) but it was too thick on his hair and made it look greasy, I tied 2 other brands but they all turned out greasy as well. Then I tried using what I use on my hair ( I have frizzy thick wavy hair) which is a garnia fruites anti-frizz serum and it works wonderfully! Better then any of the products that I have bought made for black hair. You can’t count all the products that white people use out. 😉 It’s just been a learning process and the most important part of it to me, is keeping his hair healthy. Find what works. I have tried about every different kind of brush and sought advise from black family members about brushing his hair as well because for me this is the more difficult part, especially the back.. Some tell me to use the thicker kind of brush and brush it down and around, some tell me to use a wide tooth comb and brush it out. What I found works best is a combination of the two. I brush his hair out in the shower when the conditioner is in his hair with a wide tooth comb to detangle, then when his hair is towel dried I put the serum on the scalp and pull it up through the curls to the end of the his hair. Next I use a thicker bristle brush and brush the top up, almost like I was teasing it and then I’m done. I am constantly being pressured by family and friends to cut his hair, and I suppose that would be the easy road considering he is a boy, but I love boys with long hair, even if he was white I wouldn’t want to cut his hair. I know I will eventually have to get it trimmed but my point is, I am growing it out and in doing so, I am trying to learn as much as I can about it. As far as the more serious topics, I thought the girl in the video who hated her black side was very sad. I would never want to teach my son to hate any part of himself. He should always be proud of who he is and all of his heritages. But sometimes, as much as I style and take care of his hair, it still ends of frizzy and unbalanced….because he is a toddler. He lays on his side and rolls a toy truck across the floor, and when he gets up, his hair flattens on one side. Or if he lays down on his back, the hair flattens in the back. Also he pulls on it, plays with it, puts applesauce in it, and in general messes it up. And if it happens to be messed up in public, I get my fair share of comments made about not knowing how to do his hair. He is a toddler. Lol but I don’t take offense, I simply tell them that his hair is healthy and I take special care of it, just like I do him. But he is only 2. You can’t expect him to have hair like Polamalu just yet. Lmao God Bless and I hope this helped someone. Don’t stress if you haven’t found products that work for your child, keep searching. Mixed Chick’s products are awesome if you can afford it. Bought it once but it’s really not for my budget. People will make comments but remember, as long as it’s healthy, and your kid is happy, then so should you. 🙂
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Yup, what works for one person, brand wise, heaviness wise, etc etc may not work for another. You can have 6 people in a family, all with relatively similar hair, and all of their hair responds completely differently to the same products. Such is the fun guessing game with black hair!
There is definitely a difference between your kids hair getting a bit messy (although yeah, people still side eye that) and your kids hair being off the bat messy and frizzy BECAUSE it is dry and unhealthy and rough and damaged. I can definitely see the difference between the two.
There’s also a huge difference between regular every day and photo day. Kids should be allowed to be kids, and as long as the proper healthy maintenance and protection and moisture etc is being regularly maintained, I don’t see why you’d ever wanna think of cutting his hair (unless he chooses it…but I too love the little boys with their long hair…I’m always so traumatized when my friends and family cut my little nephews’ hair off….like ugh…he looks too bald and old now! lol)
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Honestly I was completely clueless for about a year about the necessity of styling (or how it looks to other people when your child has wild curls running amok) until my fiancée and I went to dinner and we got gently scolded by the waitress for not dressing our toddler’s hair. Since then I have been more diligent on it and have wandered down the hair care isle…although I noticed the scalp dryness early on and at her infancy was rubbing oil into her little scalp. But then when her hair startled curling when she was 6 or 7 months old it turned into a completely different story with her hair care, and now at 17 months it is a battle. She has super curly hair that will frizz if I let it dry out too much…..and she hates getting her hair combed with a passion. I started just using a comb but she shrieked and so I figured a brush would get it done quicker and she bawls. And she is strong, so holding onto her while she tries to wrestle away to keep from getting her hair done sometime just makes me let her spend the day leaving her hair be. And her daddy refuses to do her hair because of how tender headed she is, he can’t stand the thought of hurting her. While I have been only washing her hair once a week to keep down the dryness the best I can I am still frustrated on getting her to sit still so I can do any stylization at all. I can’t even French braid which is pretty pathetic on my part as I never learned to do it….but having her scream bloody murder while I try to just smooth and ponytail her hair and maybe add a couple of barrettes (if I am lucky enough for her to sit still that long) is very frustrating for both her and myself. I keep telling myself it will get easier as she gets older but it is hard on us. I have found the Johnson and Johnson detangling spray to be worthless and have been using Soft and Beautiful Botanicals Lite Crème Moisturizer on her hair with better success and have found out the hard way of not combing when the hair is dry. To make a long response a bit shorter, THANK YOU for giving me some hope and some pointing in the right direction.
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I hope you’ve found some luck. I’d suggest maybe looking into one more thing. Now, you obviously wouldn’t do this to your baby’s hair, but just to get an idea…it’s called the Max Hydration Method.
As you’ve already noticed, the dryer her hair gets, the frizzier it gets. This also means the tougher, more knotted, and therefore more painful to deal with that it gets. If you can keep her hair uber moisturized as much as possible, and only handle/comb when it’s moist, as you’ve learned, that should really help.
When I was a kid, my mom used to have to hold me between her thighs so I couldn’t run away…back then there wasn’t a whole lotta products available, or information. Oh the agony come wash day lol. And I had long hair down my back to almost my butt, and the second water hit it, it would shrink to about 3 inches long…lol. I smile now at the torture. lol
But, to make life a bit easier, she literally did very little except twist or braid my hair into huge chunks to let it dry fully. Because the twist or braid was giving a little tension to my hair, that meant it would dry a little stretched out, and less likely to be tangled up.
Now, back to the Max Hydration Method. The reason I bring this up is because in essence MANY of the mainstream moisturizing hair products are actually moisturizing so much. This is because they contain things like paraffins and vaseline derivatives,and silicones, which basically sit on top of the hair and coat the shaft. So that means its not getting INTO the hair shaft to moisturize it. It also means that it’s not letting any other moisture penetrate the shaft. And things like silicones don’t wash away so well without sulphates…meaning eventually you have a tattered silicone coating on your shaft, creating more damage than help.
Try finding, or honestly even DIY, some more moisturizing products. Also, do some research and see if maybe the conditioner only wash can be your new best friend. I’ve actually done the research on this, and conditioner does a darn good job of washing your hair just fine without using harsh surfectants founds in shampoos.
If you do try conditioner washing, just make sure its a silicone/paraffin free formula. And then, in place of shampooing just condition instead. And then continue as usual. Use shampoos only when necessary, like after swimming or getting REALLY dirty, otherwise once or twice a month if necessary. I went shampoo free a few months ago, and I must say the difference in my hair is outstanding. My scalp is not ever flaky, my hair doesn’t get rough and brillo pad like, and the hair that I swore did NOT have a curl pattern, because the ONLY thing it did was frizz crimp, is actually starting to make these teeny tiny coil curls!
Currently, I’m either using a DIY formula or, when I’m too lazy, I’m using the creme of nature argan oil conditioner. And then I use a combination of grapeseed oil, jojoba, coconut oil, and castor oil on my hair right after a wash, and once a week or so directly on my scalp as well
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As a white mum of a bi-racial child who tries to bring my son up, I completely agree with this article. My son (now 9) had long hair up until the aged of 5 when he decided he wanted it cut off. I could only single plait for a long time but tried my best with other styles. He has since decided (about a year ago) to re-grow his hair. As a result that means I have an extra duty of care to insure it is well looked after and that I personally can manage it so that I can in turn teach him how to manage it as he grows and becomes more independent. He regularly flits between single plaits and cornrows. I also believe that if you choose to have a child who would be of mixed heritage then you have a duty to learn about that heritage.
This too works for the whole up bringing. His dad and myself have not been together for around 7yrs but I still ensure that he regularly has meals from his dad’s carribean culture. I have had to learn to make these as I feel that just because we are no longer together that does not mean that my son then takes on more of my white heritage.
Anywho I have babbled on far too much. Great article. xx
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Well said Lucy. It truly makes me smile to hear that your son has such a great mom, and knew he could freely turn back to long hair and somehow you’d make it work (and you totally did!)
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A mother of 4 biracial children, it was hard to figure out what works best for each of my girls. I have one girl that has long curls and I love to keep it down with the curls, I’ve done figure coils and braids. With my other girls, it’s not so easy I’ll find a product that works great so their hair staysan aged all day. All my kids are smart children and I tell them that education is first, but your appearance is something people look at. Besides I have to teach them to take care of themselves they’ll be women one day and most of all they’ll have children one day to take care of.
Thank you, good blog!
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It’s interesting isn’t it how your children are all YOUR children and yet what works for one doesn’t work for the others?
Thank you for sharing, I personally know of a few people who had a breeze with their first child’s hair and so it was like slamming into a brick wall when their second child came out and their hair and their hair needs were SO radically different.
One of my friends had two girls, only a year apart, who had hair that LOOKED exactly the same when wet, seemingly the same texture of curl/wave, the same level of coarseness, the same mildly silky feel…but the one daughter, the youngest, had hair that was very low maintenance, and with a shampoo, conditioner, leave in conditioner and some styling gel or putty a couple times a week head long beautiful healthy curls.
The eldest daughter had hair that would immediately frizz when dry , was so overly stressed it was breaking off mid shaft, and ONLY had a visible curl pattern when sopping wet in the shower with the deep conditioner in.
Come to find out that her daughter had high porosity hair, so her hair shaft couldn’t hold in moisture. Some extra steps and a tweak in products and now her daughters have identical corkscrew curls.
This made it much easier to identify the issue when her youngest daughter, born several years later, was having hair issues. Even more interesting? Her youngest had LOW POROSITY hair. Of course after her ordeal years before she knew how to do hair investigations and quickly caught on and long before day care she had a routine that worked for her.
Anyway thank you for sharing, I’m sure lots of ladies will find it helpful to know!
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When you see a biracial girl out in public with her white mother, do not assume that the mother neglects her child’s hair if it looks a mess. As you know, biracial and black hair takes time and effort to style, and different styles last different lengths of time. Sometimes I have to go places unexpectedly or on too short of notice to style or wash my biracial daughters hair, so we go wherever we go and her hair might look a mess. 9 times out of 10 I will still attempt to do anything I can with whatever little time allowed to make her hair look as best I can at the moment before we go.
Also, for the first few years, I didn’t know much about my daughters hair, and I didn’t do nearly as much research as I could have. I have a black friend that I would ask for advice, but I later learned that she was only recommending products for her hair type because she didn’t know much more than I did about biracial hair. But I eventually took it upon myself to utilize Google to the max and find as much as I could about hair products, practices, styles, etc. doing her hair is a breeze ever since, but that doesn’t mean you won’t ever see us at Target and oops, her hair is a mess that day. My bad, but I do love and care for her and her hair! (As well as educate her about her Jamaican half!)
All that said, I mostly liked your article and you made a lot of great points.
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Well Natalie, you may not realize or actually see the difference so much yourself, but for me, I can see the difference in a kids hair that is actually healthy and properly cared for, versus hair that is not. The damaged uncared for hair may be styled to the T that day, and I can STILL see it. A kid’s hair might look a disaster that day, but you can see that it is clearly healthy, happy hair, and so therefore the disaster is not that kids regular styling regime lol.
Kudos to you for taking the time to learn your kids hair, and to realize that your friends tips didn’t fit for her either. Quite frankly, you could have gotten advice from another parent to a biracial child that just didn’t work for your kids hair either, since there is such a large variety and combinations of black hair textures, patterns and qualities.
Honestly though, not sure if anybody has ever told you this little secret, but there ARE actually tips/tricks and styling products and secrets on how to take 2 minutes to freshen up a ‘do so it looks brand new. If your child’s hair is already healthy and happy, then any of those tips and tricks would definitely work for you…might be worth looking into…especially as girls get older, they start to care more and more about what they look like when they go out, so it might be nice for her to know some fast, easy, and NON damaging ways to freshen her hair up a little to make the style last. 😉
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This post is pathetic. I agree with some of the commenters, both black and white moms, who rightly said you are wrong to assume that a child wearing her hair in a natural style, without being “parted” or pulled back, is somehow the child of a “clueless” mom. How on earth could you know the personal situation of a mother (of any race) by seeing her child one time out in public? Maybe they are on their way home from the emergency room where they had to go in the middle of the night because the child was sick – would you do your child’s hair before leaving the house in that scenario? Maybe they had to run out to the store for something and the child was doing what toddlers do and refusing to get her hair done before they left. The truth is that you have no idea what goes on in someone’s life if you see them one time on the street or on the bus or wherever you are making these judgements about people. I send my biracial daughter to preschool with perfectly moisturized, perfectly parted puffs, and guess how she looks when I pick her up? Hairs coming out, part messed up, one puff higher than the other – that’s just what happens when kids play or lie on the floor or tousle each other. And if you saw me (I’m white) for one minute as we walk home from school, you’d probably “tsk tsk” as you walked by us, so certain I am “clueless” and must be on my way home to shampoo her for the seventh time that week with my favorite Pantene. Or here’s another scenario – my husband, daughter and I were driving home from a vacation last week and when we left the hotel my daughter’s hair was in cute little puffs. Midway through the 6-hour drive she got sleepy and asked me to take them out so she could rest her head on the side of the car seat. When we stopped for a rest stop, she had to go really bad so we rushed out of the car to the bathroom – her hair looked crazy! But she had to pee, so what was I going to do, make her wait while I did her hair? That’s some terrible parenting right there – putting your child’s appearance over her personal comfort. We went into the rest stop and I’m sure the people there thought I was one of those “clueless” moms. Let’s all stop judging one another when we really have no idea what goes on in other people’s lives. What’s sad is that you have some helpful advice in this post, but it gets lost in your unnecessarily sarcastic and rude attitude. Goodbye!
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I wholeheartedly agree with this comment
Maybe these “clueless moms” are entitled to an off day every now and then?!
This is a sad post to me….sooo much judgement. And by the number of comments suggesting the same, I see I am not alone when I say the tone of this post comes across as harsh and unaccepting
But then again….maybe that was not your intent …. Much like some of the kids with “unruly, unparted hair” probably have parents with the best of intentions
Of course there are some negligent parents out there…. Regardless of race, but I would bet that the majority are trying their best with what they have, what they know, and what they have to deal with day to day.
The world will be a better place when we can all be a little more supportive of each other
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I think it’s actually relatively sad that you have no idea that there is a difference between healthy, though currently messy black hair, and dry, damaged hair. I really do. It kinda makes me wonder if you’re trying to justify something? I dunno, in all of your stories, your child’s hair was in a relatively looser type style. Actually, really just puffs. While an afro puff is certainly adorable, and definitely a great quick go to for most parents, are you aware of the fact that black and biracial hair textures tend not to absorb moisture readily and tend to lose it even faster? If you are never putting your child’s hair in a protective style, one that isn’t always leaving the ends out to dry out, split and break, and are always pulling it back into a similar one or two ponytail style, you are actually causing a lot of tension to the hairline as well as the length of the shaft, and in all cases this leads to thinning, breaking, splitting, and lack of growth, lack of growth retention, dryer more tangled, more difficult to manage, less defined curl definition…etc etc etc
Sorry, but to me when I look at natural black hair on a child or woman, I’m looking for more than oh is it cute today? You see, I can actually, by looking at you and your kid for 30 seconds, tell exactly how healthy her hair is. Messy or not, perfect or not in that moment, i can tell if her hair is healthy and happy. If the only thing you care about regarding your child’s hair is whether it’s cute, I dunno what else I can say. I think i make it pretty clear exactly what I’m saying in this article, which is why a tiny part of it focuses on styling, and really only mentions it insofar as to introduce the idea of protective styling, should you be unfamiliar. By and large I talk about the basis of black hair care.
But no. You must be right. What I’m REALLY saying is that (insert your grandiose examples to try and overshadow my very low key, very reasonable points, here). I think if something strikes a chord with you, normally it’s because you’re finding some kernel of truth within and you don’t like what it has to say, or what it stirs up within you.
In case you think that part isn’t true, lemme just remind you of the opening paragraphs, where I make sure to state that this post isn’t even gonna apply to the majority of white moms, or black moms, with biracial children. And that this applies to those who DO NOT TAKE CARE OF THEIR CHILDS HAIR PROPERLY likely because they are trying to treat all hair types like their own. Which is a fail.
If that wasn’t you, at that point you could have continued reading, knowing that this article wasn’t about you anyway. And yet, despite that, you took it as a personal message against you anyway.
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Cause she is judgemental and thinks it’s ok to rag on the white mom and call her ‘lazy’ cause ‘one time ‘ they see the kids hair free up. Funny how all these black gals have such a strong opinion of our hair and our children’s hair.. They half the time run out and get the fake blond white girl hair.. They run and white sarcastic posts like this blog. She just a hater of the white gals with the gorgeous half blackout child.
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The fact that you had the unmitigated gall to type out “black gals” …and then SERIOUSLY not think better of that wording and change it up means that when you get all in a huff you let your prejudice show.
That’s cool and all. I just worry that maybe YOU don’t see it. Which is actually more worrisome if you have a biracial child. Cause I can guarantee that if I can see it in a few sentences, your child can feel it radiating from your words throughout the day. Just saying.
ANYWAY this is the part where I refer you to the previous like 5 responses I’ve made, where I’ve stated time and again that YOU should be able to tell the difference between messy and unhealthy hair? And if you can’t then you’ve got a way bigger problem then me pointing it out.
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You sound like a “hit dog”…YEET!!
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The “hit dog” reference is at Jedi.
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Thank you for your blog this. I’m not sure when this was posted but I was searching through videos on how to cornrow so I can do my daughter’s hair and I seen the title to your blog so I read it.
As I was reading, I notice in myself, on odd occasions, that I let my daughter’s hair get out of control. I do enjoy styling her hair…I just learned how to do the zig zag design. I know it’s probably easy to some but for me I didn’t know how to do it. I now love styling her hair with the zig zags.
I know it’s important to keep my child’s hair healthy and to be honest I didn’t know what to do or I was doing things that I shouldn’t be doing. I didn’t get much help from her other half in teaching me so I’m learning on my own.
I’m thankful I came across this article and I thank you for writing it because it spoke to me and I now understand more about how to care for my daughters hair. I now know not to wash her hair so many days a weeks, putting oil on her scalp. I’ve noticed she has dry skin on her scalp, I now understand why and what to do to help her.
Lol, her hair is high maintenance but she is definitely worth it.
Thank you again:)
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I’m so glad that this helped in any way Rachel, and I hope since you posted that you’ve grown way past your zig zags and can now do some CRAY CRAY things! lol. You’re right, biracial hair is definitely high maintenance, but the great thing is that that high maintenance pays off, since it’s the most versatile hair ever when it’s in peak condition! Happy styling experimentation!
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Ruby you are another example of what’s wrong with this world. FOCUSED ON CRITIQUING AND JUDGING BLACK CHILDRENS HAIR. When a white child’s hair is a mess it’s fine. Yet black children need to be held to a higher standard. A black child – and toddler at that doesn’t need braids or pony tails or perfect hair. Get a grip! Learn to love yourself and maybe you will stop bashing these kids hair!!!
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Actually, i didn’t mention any other races of children. Actually, i didn’t even mention all black children. I’m guessing you didn’t bother to read the title…or any of the following paragraphs?
Poor thing.
Here, I’ll help you. Clearly reading comprehension wasn’t your strong suit. And clearly you know this since you couldn’t even figure out which area to write your name in…either that, or you’re a proud keyboard warrior, proclaiming your right to hide behind the safety of your computer screen and anonymous monikers, and keeping silent and stagnant in real.
But then I digress.
OK moving on then.
As I was saying, as is VERY clearly written, stated, and then reiterated time and again, this post is a letter TO white mothers (or black mothers really) of biracial children. I then go on to qualify that it’s to the mothers of biracial children who do not know how to properly care for their children’s hair.
I then go on to say that black hair and white hair are different, and that you cannot treat black hair like white hair. You cannot treat biracial hair like white hair. And then I go on to explain how to properly care for non white hair, so that it is happy and healthy. I then explain a bit about protective styling, which would be a foreign concept to white people, since they never ever need to do it.
I then go on to talk about the travesty that is chemicals and fake hair in your childs head. About teaching a child that their own, natural hair is beautiful just the way it is. That if it is well cared for it is soft and manageable. That even if the dad is or isn’t around, your child’s black half is important and you’ve gotta make sure they get to be in touch with it….
Sorry. I’m DESPICABLE for telling uninformed mothers that unruly, frizzy and dry is not actually what their child’s hair texture is, and that properly caring for it will make a world of difference? I’m PATHETIC for saying that you have a moral and obligatory responsibility to your child to keep them in touch and balanced with their black side, and to care for that accordingly so that they can be happy and proud?
hmmmmm….i dunno….Sounds to me like you’d got shit backasswards my friend. I will always, and forever, encourage the best care, love, support and understanding for black women of any age, from everybody, for every aspect of who they are, what they are, and what steps need to be taken so that their natural beauty, inside and out, can shine. If that is a problem for you, then yeah, I’m probably not the right blogger for you.
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I need help…my daughter is half black n half Italian so her hair is one big frizz ball. I need product advice from washing to styling products. Plse can you help me. Thank you. Frustrated in New Britian….
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This is quite a long while ago, but if you’d like to contact me, there’s a section in the Contact us section that will send your message to email. For now, if you see this, and I hope you do…think MOISTURE. The best thing you can do is learn about porosity, the max hydration method, conditioner only regime….I’ve seen dry damaged hair that was literally a kinky crimpy frizzled mess become healthy and hydrated and turn into lovely little curls nobody ever knew were there. Its amazing what moisture can do. But it does often take some experimenting to figure out exactly what will work best. There are hair charts you can check out to maybe figure out your daughters hair pattern and texture….I, for example, am 4c, which is the kinkiest and coarsest of textures, so what will work for me would be different than someone with, say 3B hair.
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THIS ARTICLE IS A TYPICAL EXAMPLE OF BLACK PEOPLE TRYING TO OWN BIRACIALS. BIRACIAL PEOPLE ARE BIRACIAL!!!!! i AM biracial and i do not have the typical black hair. why can’t u admit that curls differ from the more kinky texture. There are so many biracialte people with curly hair! Unkempt curly hair! Whats your problem? Some of you overplay the 1 drop rule! Its racist and it has long expired!
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so many white people* with curly hair!
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Right! & They dont class us as black anyway.. we are biracial.. its about time they realized that we are a race of our own!
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Well Kim technically, by being biracial you aren’t a race of your own. You are now a combination of races. If you are biracial it means that you are primarily a combination of 2 races. Which doesn’t qualify you as your own race. And I mean, technically, the term race in and of itself can’t really be updated. Cause it’s already kinda outdated, with the whole Mongoloid, Africanoid, stuff. Which then technically groups People from india and people from europe together….going by underlying bone structure…
I feel like I am getting off track here. Oh yeah! For the record, I class anybody as black who classes themselves as black. But really, I tend to class biracial people the way they class themselves, because it tends to matter more where they identify more so. Some biracial people identify as black, they don’t identify culturally with their white side. That’s cool. Some identify with both sides, some only identify with the white, or asian or whatever side they are biracial with.
Personal and cultural identity. That’s not a choice that anybody can make for you, but you. But this blog isn’t about what choices a child will make when they get older and start forming their own identity. This is about the responsibilities a mother has to her biracial child to make sure that all parts of her identity and background are celebrated, cared for, payed attention to, etc, so that she realizes that she’s beautiful and special, for the ways that she is similar to her mother AND even in the ways she is different.
Otherwise she can grow up feeling like she kinda doesn’t belong anywhere, instead of realizing she belongs everywhere. And she doesn’t have to change a damn thing about herself for that.
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I feel very, very sad for you. I really do actually. Do you suggest that all biracial people have white textured hair? White textured but maybe curly hair? There are no biracial people who have black textured hair? That have hair that falls somewhere in between? That perhaps have what appears to be white hair thats straight and yet has the black porosity and scalp dryness factors? Likewise, are you suggesting that all “full” black people have the exact same texture, and coarseness and quality to their hair?
You are horribly misinformed, and I suspect you are from, or have been in contact with, some really crappy people who have you feeling a bit jaded. The truth of the matter is, if you happened to be biracial and yet your hair had no black qualities to it at all, then the things your mother did or tried with your hair worked just fine, and so this article wouldn’t apply to you, although it doesn’t apply to you as the child anyway, it applies to a very specific subset of mothers.
Sounds to me like you’ve been confronted a lot with racist attitudes. I’m not really sure in what direction. In any case, I claim all of my cousins, and my sister, and they all claim me. And their half blackness. Despite the fact that two of them, including my sister, don’t look like they have a drop of black in them. Yet, my sister is proudly Maltese and Jamaican.
I don’t know about you, but I’m proud of who I am and where I come from, whether that be the fact that I’m a proud born and raised Canadian, with my recent ancestral roots in Jamaica, or the further back German, Jewish, Carib Indian, and Syrian ancestry…
Someone somewhere lied to you. And then other people perpetuated the lie. It’s ok to be proud of who you are, and nobody needs to validate that, and nothing should bother or threaten that.
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Yes of course, don’t say anything to the father’s (who are usually black in this instance) or the black Grandmother’s. Why? Because they’re worthless and don’t care. You’re a waste of space, sad and pathetic for wanting to point the finger but not highlight the real truth… black men are, generally, terrible father’s. They lead in pretty much every terrible statistic… proportionally the most single mothers have black baby daddies, same with the most in prison and failure to pay child support. Highlight the real crime instead of going off on an ignorant rant . Go play in traffic
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This is her blog and she can post about whatever she wants. You don’t have to read it.
If you have such an issue with black fathers and crime (there’s obviously no white crime), you can start your own blog, or better yet, go rant to them in person. This is not the place to do so. This is about MOMS of biracial children. You should take your own advice and go play in traffic. Stay off women’s websites.
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Wow. What a terrible and racist thing to say. Could you possibly provide any direct links for those statistics? Actually no, you can’t. Because it was a nasty, and entirely false, overgeneralization to try and prove your erroneous point, based on your erroneous belief that I was saying something I wasn’t.
Human psychology is quite fascinating. It really is. As a white woman who has been burned by a black man, I would guess based on how patently obvious you made your motivations here, you are now feeling overwhelmed and less than adequate and are realizing that you have NO help from the side of your daughters family that would make this SO much easier.
Yeah. deadbeats suck. Unfortunately for life they come in all shapes and sizes. The issue of the deadbeat dad, or the no count grandmother, isn’t on this weeks slate. Because, not for anything, but you aren’t the only single mom in the world. And trust me, many MANY a woman has become a single mom by a non-black man. It is what it is.’
The truth of the matter though, in this case, is that even if he was a great daddy, he would still more likely than not be HORRID at doing her hair anyway, and unless he has long hair himself, he wouldn’t even know where to start to moisturize his daughters hair.
And even with long hair….ever ask a guy about skin care or hair care? They pick up whatever the hell, slather it on, call it a day, and somehow that all turns out fantastic for them. VERY annoying. LOL.
Whether the daddy is no count or not, if you are a mother, you are NOT no count. You can only control your own actions. That is all. And if all your baby girl has in this world to rely on is you, then you can definitely find that way, make it work, and do better than his loser mama would have anyway.
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To the black women who are soooo offended at what the author wrote, who cares? Her main audience was white women with mixed kids. Go to another website where white women (people) are praised 24/7 since this blog bothers you so damn much.
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I love you Kendra. LOL. Exactly.
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Could you sound any more ignorant how dare you tell white woman how to do a child’s hair. Hello your white maybe instead of focusing on other people’s children you worry about yours and that nasty sack you call hair your hair is not good and for a white woman who knows all you should know what shampoo and a brush are. Bye Felicia
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Ummmmmm….first of all Bella, let me correct you on a few things. First of all, since apparently you only skim through the words on the page, lemme just clarify something, i, the author of this article, am not white. Second of all, whoever this Felicia person is, you might wanna go and work out your anger issues in relation to her, since clearly it has clouded your judgement.
If it hadn’t, you might have actually written something that sounded even remotely intelligent or made some form of coherent sense. Now, had you said “how dare you tell a a white woman how to do a white kids hair, you’re black” you still would have sounded ignorant at best, but at least your reasoning would have had some face value.
As it was, I used the above woman, who is fully wore and raised in a white culture by white parents, and her biracial child, as an example, specifically because she figured out early on that she’d be doing a disservice to the health and beauty of her daughters hair by treating it the way she did her own. …as previously outlined, many differences exist between Caucasian hair and the spectrum of shades and textures of black hair. Learning how your child’s hair, and therefore proper hair care and maintenance, differs from your own when your child has a partially or fully different ethnic background from you, is the issue that’s being addressed here.
Your personal beef with some chick is not.
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Just because they have biracial children doesn’t mean they HAVE to cornrow their hair, what you worried about? You guys don’t class them as black anyway so why do they want or care about your hairstyles?
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Are you some form of ignorant classist, whereby you think it’s entirely ok for you to refer to very large, talking full populations that can be categorized based on a solitary feature of some sort, groups of people as “you guys” and then to make broad, sweeping generalizations about the way they think, act, feel etc? Cause if so, the following reply is likely wasted on you, but here goes!
If you had at any point read any number of the black history or social commentary related to race that I’ve written, you’d know that I point blank hate exclusion of people from a category they clearly belong to based on some arbitrary rating system that is currently popular. Second, acknowledging that somebody ALSO fits into another racial category (white, Asian, Indian, etc) does not exclude them from also belonging to any other racial category (in this case black). Whether some dingbat has decided that due to their blended heritage they don’t qualify as black or not does not in any way change the genetic facts of life.
One of which being that in general black hair is different in a large variety of ways from Caucasian hair (white, Asian, Indian). Another, which may come up especially as your child ages, is that regardless of the tone of your skin, generally all shades of black skin tend to differ in many ways from other races. Other differences, such as shape of your nose or eyes, generally tend to be less relevant to the point being made in this article. However there can also be medical, social, and thinking/learning differences to take note of and be aware of should you have a biracial child so that should any of those signs and symptoms occur, or should you see difficulty in some areas, you know what to look for and also the best ways to start getting a handle on it. Really not the point, and since you I’m sure have not even a foggy clue of anything I could be referring to, that would need it’s own separate post for me to carefully and in detail present to you. ..so you could I’m essence ignore all but the few key sentences you feel prove your pre decided comclusions.
Wait, I’m totally getting off topic here. Anyway back to the point. Which is that in no way did I say you must cornrow a child’s hair all day every day. Nor is this simply about cute styling. You would know this if you had read the article. This is about proper hair care and maintenance, and about people who don’t seem to know that what qualifies as proper care and maintenance for their hair may not qualify for their biracial child’s hair. If you’re one of those people, I’m sorry this article hit a sore spot, but there’s always time to learn now!
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Okay, you have a right to free speech but why single out white mothers of bi-racial kids. I am a black mother of a bi-racial daughter, with many years experience of doing black hair (braids and weaves) as a sideline during college. Yes, I was good enough to be able to earn good money doing it yet, I have struggled for years to do my daughter’s hair. I have tried umpteen products, watched hundreds of YouTube clips to no avail. This isn’t about mothers or their race. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence will know that this is about the complexities and diversity of different hair types and the search for an appropriate hair management technique.
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Well actually Theo, There is good reason, though if you noticed in the first paragraph I actually DID say OR to black mothers with biracial children….
However, the letter is addressed this way simply because black mothers, who have black hair anywhere along the spectrum, are at a definite advantage in this race. There are just some basics that, as a black woman with non white hair, you have been born and raised to.
You understood off the bat that your daughter was likely not gonna have grease ball hair if it wasn’t washed every day. You understood the value and use for hair oil, what protective styling was, what daily moisturizer FOR HAIR is, and so on and so forth. Now, you may not have known the differences that come along with different textures, coarseness levels or porosities….but, you knew the basics.
Black hair care is this alternate reality. And it is NOT mainstream. If I adopted a white child, I could walk into the nearest drug store and have shelves lined with hair care products to try out that are optimized for white hair. Those drug stores do not have those magical aisles of black hair care. MAYBE if you’re lucky you’ve got a few products shoved into a corner in the feminine care section.
Further confusing the issue is that since there is such a wide array of textures that can result in black hair in general, there’s no magic directions on any bottle, even if you’re lucky enough to accidentally wander into a beauty supply store where all the magical black hair care products live.
This is meant as a little jump off, a little info,a snap into reality for a subsection of the population. Are you trying to say that because some mothers who KNOW what they are doing, understand the trial and error process, are trying and failing that its NOT important to educate the people who really don’t have a clue, didn’t know they were doing wrong or WHAT they were doing wrong, and didn’t know where to start?
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My 2 kids are bi-racial and I get annoyed by the frizz that inevitably appears around my daughter’s face by the end of the day when I put her hair in ponytails, so I found this post when I did a Google search on how to braid bi-racial hair. I’ve watched people braid hair a hundred times but when I’ve tried it they ended up really loose and stupid-looking. Do I needed to see somebody break it down and show me how to hold the hair so it stays tight. So I appreciate that you went out your way to show people how to do these types of braids, since obviously you know how to braid hair already so you certainly didn’t do this for your own benefit! I’ve done similar research before when looking for what kind of hair products to use, and I always brace myself for whatever assumptions or snide remarks I might run into about “white people” with their mixed kid, not knowing how to do their hair right ha ha, etc….But ultimately, I’m just trying to find answers to my questions. So I’m not gonna sit and get all offended by people’s comments our opinions, whether or not they even apply to me. I’m just surprised and disappointed at all the negative comments, so that’s the only reason I’m taking the time at this ridiculous hour to leave a positive note.
People should read what Proverbs has to say about being so quick to air one’s opinions.
Anyway, thanks for the advice!
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This is lonnnngggg overdue as a reply, and I hope you’ve figured out the cornrow already. If not though, honestly it really does help to actually watch someone do it in front of you, slowly, and kinda explaining it as they go. But that is just to understand what exactly is happening. It still takes quite a while to actually get your fingers to move in tandem to the thoughts your brain is telling it. If you know how to do a french braid that’s kinda a good place to start, because its like doing a french braid only the movement is backwards.
I learned on a doll head, and let me tell you it’s far more cooperative and patient than a child lol. Or on my own head. That way, you can kinda feel out the movements, pause every few moves to see if it’s still tight or if it went loose, and figure out where and WHY it went loose, etc. Personally, I found it easier to do narrower, shorter cornrows at first, so I had less hair to grab per move, plus i only had to keep it going for less time. So like that little style where you just cornrow the front inch or two of your hair back and then secure with an elastic or something.
But I would suggest if you can to get her hair professionally done, if you dont’ know any good braiders, and then when you’re booking the appointment explain that you were hoping to kinda watch and maybe pick up a tip or two. The ladies in my salon are very accommodating with these kinds of request, and I’m sure you’ll be able to find a salon in your area who would be happy to do the same!
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MY DA
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My daughter is 10 years old and It is a constant battle with her hair. I am white, she is black. I live in a white neighborhood for miles around. Finding a stylist or even anyplace that carries black hair care is a joke. I have spent thousands on trying different products such as mixed chicks and Carols daughter. I have a go to style of two french braid/pigtails. I only wash once a week. I use a leave in conditioner. Recently I found Shea Moisture to work great for detangling. But I noticed yesterday that her hair is completely broken off in the back! I’m freaking out! She tends to pull her hair from the back. In a weeks’ time her hair is completely broken off. Is this normal? Please help! I need to know what products to specifically purchase. She has very thick, curly, kinky hair.
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Awwww Sharon, I’m sorry to hear of the ongoing struggle! It can be really frustrating to find the right products, ESPECIALLY when you don’t have a large selection to choose from in your area. The issue is complicated once a child hits puberty, because usually her hair goes through a change then, and suddenly things that were working no longer work anymore.
Generally, in my experience when you receive massive breakage in a particular area of her hair, that’s due to either tension, hormones, or dryness. Could her hair be under moisturized? The thing with styles is, when you do the same style over and over again, you can actually create too much tension, and pulling, in a particular area of the hair, like say the hairline or crown, and that creates epic breakage in those areas. Combine that with very dry hair, which snaps off rather easily, and yeah, you can have that kind of breakage in a matter of days unfortunately.
If you contact me through the contact us section it’ll send to me via email and I can correspond more personally from there, but generally; look up why sulphates are bad, why silicones and paraffins are bad, and maybe take a look at the Max Hydration Method, to get an idea of how to moisturize, rather than seal, the hair shaft. You may also wanna check out porosity, and see whether her hair could do with more protein, less protein etc. And check what her hair type is. I think the range goes from 1 to 4 and for each number there’s an A, B and C. Knowing her hair type might help you narrow down on general products that have worked for other people with her hair type.
But by all means, shoot me an email via the contact us section and I’ll help you figure it out! 🙂
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Bitch suck a dick.
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As a white mom with 6 biracial children, let me say that everyone of their hair is different. My two oldest daughters that are now adults, I would always put their hair up in ponytails or braids and this was 20 years ago. My 11 year old does her own hair and she keeps it natural normally up in a bun or ponytail. Now, my 3 year old daughter doesn’t like me to touch her hair, wash her hair, comb her hair – nothing. So, it’s very difficult for me to have her hair pretty all the time. I do brush her hair every day but have to fight with her. I was a bit offended by your post because it doesn’t appear that you had a difficult child as she was growing up. Perhaps your child didn’t fight you when it came to you fixing her hair. So, it’s hard for you to relate to a mom that has a child that doesn’t like her hair touched.
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In my family, there were adults that gave you an option and adults that just didn’t lol. My cousin emily, who has a white textured hair but SUPER curly hair, would not allow anybody to touch it. Nobody. You couldn’t come within 5 feet of her with any form of comb or brush. She didn’t like the pain.
Except when my mom came around. Cause, really, my mom didn’t really ask so much as tell her ok, im gonna braid your hair up nice now. And she went and got the comb for my mom, and she sat there and got her hair done. Every time. And in between times my mom would do it, nobody could come near her with the comb.
Find out, once she was older, my mother actually didn’t give her any choice the first time so she didn’t feel she had the option to rebel. But then my mom actually did something different in her method of detangling so that it didn’t hurt as much, and the final product was actually worth the pain of the detangling.
Anyway. Sorry, just brought up the nostalgia with you telling me that I must not have experienced something to have the opinion I do that allowing your childs hair to be dry and damaged isn’t ok.
The fact of the matter is, as you’ve pointed out, you can have 10 biracial children from the same couple, and each child’s hair could turn out incredibly differently. Since your other children were good with hair care, could the problem possibly be that this one child happens to have a hair type and texture more prone to dryness, tangling and therefore pain?
It’s quite possible that finding more deeply hydrating regimens for her might be the solution you’re both looking for.
In any case no, for whatever reason, even if I had to clamp my legs around her to keep her still as she hollered and fought for her life, her hair would get cared for. And with her long, happy healthy hair when she hit her teens, I’m sure, just like me and many others I know, would thank her mama for it 😉
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My boyfriend and I just had our second baby, a girl, a few months ago. Our first was a boy, and my boyfriend has been the primary hair-carer in the house, which I was fine with, because Rocco was the only baby we planned for. But Our daughter is a seven months old now, and she has textured hair that I have NO IDEA how to deal with. I will say, I love the Afro, like Blue Ivy (please don’t attack me, my sister-in-law called me ignorant and disgusting for enjoying Blue’s natural baby haired afro), and I would like to keep Ella’s hair in an Afro. I’m not trying to attack the culture of black hair, and I’m open to cornrows and braids in the future, but her natural hair is just too darn cute to style that way right now. her hair is pretty soft, but it does grow out and is curly, and I was wondering about how often I should be washing her hair, with what, and how to comb it so her Afro doesn’t get the same criticism as Blue’s (it has lent, it’s dry, it’s turning into dreads). Please don’t attack me! It’s so hard to get so much criticism for a seven month old’s hair without any gentle advice in styling her hair how I want it. (Her hair is short and neat right now, not dirty or dreading, so I’m not sure why the criticism was necessary anyways)
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Jade I’m not gonna criticize you but I will say this. Unless you live in the climate to which her hair texture adapted (I’m talking evolution here) it’s unlikely that you will be able to have her hair remain healthy and happy if all you do is leave it in an afro all her life. Now, you’re talking about a tiny baby, which really at this point a frilly hairband is usually the norm…i mean come on, she’s still got a soft spot right now lol.
But you need to prepare yourself, because there are many things and changes that will take place with your baby girls hair, and if you still want her to be able to rock a healthy, happy afro from time to time as her and her hair grow, then you’ll need to be learning how to care for and maintain her hair.
For example, you did not mention what the climate is like where you live. Harsher weather conditions are NOT the time to be leaving your daughters hair exposed to the elements. Naturally it is already dry and already loses moisture quickly, and so during harsher winter months, protective styling should be your main go to. Sure a nice corn row is neat and lasts longer, and therefore requires less daily styling, however, a few cute little ponytails with the hair twisted and secured with a barrette will still protect her hair. Just try to switch up the location of the pony’s so that you aren’t causing too much pulling in the same areas of her head.
In general, she’s a baby, you wanna go as all natural, and chemical and toxin and fragrance and irritant free as is humanly possible. Using a light baby shampoo, or conditioner, when you feel she needs it should be acceptable. Likely this will not be every day. You can tell, as she gets older and her hair texture gets a bit coarser and drier, your priority will become keeping her hair moist. The best way to achieve this is by using sulphate free shampoos on occasion, but mostly doing a conditioner only wash. You want to follow that by a leave in moisturizer while the hair is still damp to seal in moisture so that her naturally porose hair doesn’t let it all evaporate as it dries.
You may find that as her hair gets longer, your plan to just leave it all afro all the time doesn’t stay as cute and pretty as you were hoping. Generally, the best course of action would be to, at night moisturize the hair especially the ends and then to do a few twists to keep the hair protected as she sleeps. and then a bandana or silk cap or du rag for further protection. In the morning you can release the twists and pick out her hair to restore the afro.
To give actual texture, you can do a twist out. Which is much the same as what I described, only you do much smaller twists all over her head, and then when you take them out instead of combing you just toussle with your fingers, which gives you a definite pattern that’ll last a few days as long as you don’t comb it out.
One other thing you might be interested in, although you couldn’t really start this until she was a bit older, is the max hydration method. Which is actually what we call a wash and go style. Meaning, through this method the natural curl/coil pattern is brought out/defined, and there is no longer a need to do additional styling other than to maintain your hair. So no, it wouldn’t be an ill defined afro, it would be natural hair left down, with the natural coil definition being highlighted.
Hopefully that gave you some help and ideas for the future. Feel free to contact me directly via the Contact Us tab, which will send a text directly to me!
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First let me state that I think this post is ignorance at its finest. I am a white mother to a biracial daughter. I can for her hair extremely well while yes she does wear her natural style down and long I also do ponytails and pom poms or pigtails. I don’t not wash her everyday actually I wash it once a week. I grease her scalp and I don’t use white products on her hair. Her is not dry or damaged by no means. I comb her hair out daily so that it doesn’t get matted or badly tangled. And as far as you saying basically white mothers don’t teach their child/children about their black heritage is completely false. I teach my daughter about both cultures. And to say that being black is not a choice you are correct however neither is being white. My daughter is neither black nor white she’s both and she will grow up to accept both of races and not have to identify as one or the other but both. Like I said this post is ignorance at its finest.
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Ok….so. What I’m getting from your response here is that you DIDN’T bother to actually read what I wrote. You made an assumption based on the title, skimmed for some basic points to attack and then came down to the comments section all outraged. Maybe start again at the beginning and then read the beginning again? ….yeah. Yeah, I think I’ll just leave it at that.
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Hey, what are your thoughts about cutting baby girls hair while she’s still small. My daughter is 4 months old and since her hair are patchy in the back from sleeping on her back from 2 months and soft curly on the top, a hairdresser advised me to “even it out” and cut it off because if not by the time she’s 1, her hair will get all twisted into little dreadlocks and hard to comb. Any thoughts? I love her curls…
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Honestly? I am not a hairdresser. However that strikes me as utter BS. The simple fact of the matter is MANY if not MOST people with hair in the black girl textures have hair of varying textures and patterns all over their heads. It’s quite possible all that you’re seeing is what your daughters hair is gonna look like in general.
Second, she’s 4 months old. Come on now. I think I was around 7 months or so when suddenly I lost ALL my hair except the mohawk. Yes, i naturally grew a mohawk and that was my hair for MONTHS. Babies grow and lose and regrow hair in this wonderful process called development. I think unless you’re having some kinda problem right now at this second with her hair, why not just let her hair do its thing?
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I am a Caucasian mother of biracial kids, 3, 2 being girls, my oldest is all caucasion, I hAve three daughters with three different skin tones as well as hair types, I’ve been braiding and loving braiding ever since I can remember, so when I had biracial children I embraced it , because it’s thier wonderful beautiful culture, my mother in law fought me and I fought on quickly, . I agree with you , I see children’s hair dried out and think selfish, lazy, I hAve to wonder WHY , a parent DOESNT embrace thier child’s ethnicity in thier hair , I wonder is it pride, racial? Because exactly with today’s technology anything is available to learn. It upsets me as well very much, to give advice and it be rejected. My children are all unique and beautiful, embrace your children, learn, learn, learn practice, practice, practice, you would NOT go out in public ladies with a ratsnest as we say, …..think, first impressions are everything, what impression are you sending, and more importantly ask yourself WHY……….they are a perfect and beautifully created gift from God, you embrace your commitment and do what’s right.You can do MORE!!!research, listen, try, and try again and NEVER stop trying.
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AMEN!
Also, just a little opinion of why….I think unfortunately there are two pervasive schools of thought that perpetuate this problem; one is that Black people are different, and that’s scary and has nothing to do with me, and we are all the same, we are all just human, and that’s all I need to know. And so, we miss the very important, and far more valid middle ground, which is that while we all bleed red and we are all human, and so functionally our brains and hearts etc etc are the same, there are many ways in which physically we are different, and those differences are beautiful and should be embraced and celebrated and understood and accepted and applauded…etc etc.
There is nothing mysterious or scary about our physical differences. We evolved differently depending on the elements we were up against. Out in the african sahara, the humans with wider flat noses, darker skin, kinky afros and stronger bottom halfs survived better. Those things had advantages back during the survival of the fittest.
Now, bring that exact same hair to the other side of the world and yeah, it doesn’t do so great. It was not meant to 10 thousand years ago. Likewise, very fair skinned, fair haired, fair eyed people practically boil alive when you take em out of the southern hemisphere and throw em smack dab into the sahara.
In any case, Kudos to you> I wish more people had this perspective, because a Mother who embraces their child for all that THEY are, and nurtures all of her traits and characteristics with equality, is the kind of mother who can raise a very emotionally grounded kid. 🙂 Thanks for sharing
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This was good post. The main points I took away from this was that Kinky coily textures must be handled if not differently but with more care. Even women/men who rock natural hairstyles (i.e afros, braids outs, twist outs) for the most part know how important it is to keep hair moisterized, keep scalp oiled for better management and overall healthy hair. My opinion, its not okay to just say “well my son or daughter doesn’t like it this, or that so I don’t bother” “it’s his or her hair let them do what they please”. Then wonder why they arnt maintaining any length, seeng growth ir just having a hard time overall. Yes they are just children, but this just makes it the best time to teach them how to care for there hair. Research products that will work well for them so that even if you are fine with them wearing it in its natural state at leaSt you know it’s being cared for properly. Also with proper product use, and styling can fiND better solutions for issues such as detangling. You also don’t have to spend much on products! An ACV rinse does wonders for detangling 🙂
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I agree 100%. I’ve actually dropped basically all products from my hair, and skin care regimen, and am entirely all natural. Before I reweaved, after 7 days of sorta kinda doing the Max Hydration Method, for the first time in my life my hair was doing something other than afro frizz. Like, there MAY be a coil in my hair pattern yet! haha!
Seriously though, I don’t know why it is that parents can understand that children can’t just eat whatever they want whenever they want or do whatever they want and yet, its ok for me to let their hair dry out and break off and die and be rough as all hell because they don’t wanna let me? Really? When was the last time your kid got cake and ice cream for breakfast lunch and dinner cause he didn’t want real food though?
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You know, I think you might be making a lot of assumptions. Some of the children in the first photos look cute to me that you were saying had “messy” hair. I have always worn my curls loosely. I’m kind of a natural crunchy person and my daughter always wanted to do the same. I would try and do her hair in “black” styles and she always hated it. I tried to expose her to black culture so that she would see that those styles are beautiful. She always just wanted to pull her hair back in a “messy” style or some might call it a soft look. She’s 13 now and won’t even let me comb her hair. I have told her she can either go get her hair professionally dreaded, cut it off, or take care of it. So she does the minimum. You know, I’ve never been into being stylish and fashionable and she pribably takes after me. Maybe you should just be okay with the fact that some people are more relaxed about their hair. Basic coming and not shampooing everyday is understandable, but some people just prefer a natural look.
One thing I hate is feeling like black women are judging me about my daughters hair. If a mother asks you for help that’s one thing but criticizing someone else for being happy with a natural style is just being judgmental.
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Off the bat I’ll tell you, if your daughters hair is healthy, do your thang. If her hair is dry and unhealthy and unhappy, frizzy, split ends, breakage etc, then sorry, you’re doing your child a disservice by letting her have it like mommy’s, even though mommy having it like that means mommy’s hair is nice and healthy and happy, whereas hers isn’t and can’t be.
Sometimes kids just don’t get what they want because parents make an executive decision regardless of what the child’s wishes may be. Again, if her hair is healthy and happy, great. Then clearly this post doesn’t apply to you. If it ISN’T, then really…I would absolutely judge you. Because it’s just not fair.
Here’s another example. Let’s say, you’re all crunchy granola and for the purposes of my example lets say that you’re vegan. And your daughter wants to be JUST like you and eat JUST like you eat. But then, lets say you find out she has a blood disorder which makes her incredibly protein and iron deficient, and she MUST eat both animal and plant sources of both in order to not be exhausted and sickly ALL the time at best, hospitalized at worst.
But, she wants to be like mommy. She HATES animal! She’s a VEGAN LIKE MOMMY!
Ok. Do you let her continue on her merry, vegan sickly way? Do you force feed her animal and stick to your vegan diet righteously? Do you start eating meat WITH her, make it a lifestyle change for you both?
Ok, if you said option one, I guess this conversation is over because you’re perfectly content letting your daughter kill herself slowly because she wants to. Likely though you said one of the other two options. Now, option 2 tells me that at least you understand the concept that whether she says she wants to or not, some things don’t get to be optional. If you picked option 3, it tells me that you empathize with her need to live up to and be like mommy and you’re willing to make changes to your lifestyle to help her out.
Ok, I’m sure you’re thinking come on man, that’s completely different. But to me, it’s really not. If you’re letting her kill her hair slowly, which is causing breakage, lack of growth retention, split ends, thinning and perhaps even life long loss of hair health just cause she wants to be like you…you don’t think at some point she’s gonna grow out of mommy idol worship and kinda wish someone had steered her in the healthy hair healthy crown direction? I mean, its not that hard to maintain her hair. It doesn’t have to be all braided or cornrowed up. It could be lots of things.
I dunno, I mean again, At a glance alone unhealthy unhappy hair and scalp is noticeable to me. Whether that hair is styled or not at the time is irrelevant. If you don’t care and you don’t think your kid would care, ok cool. But lots of people have and will continue to judge. It’s what people do.
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And I think you’re also assuming that it’s careless when in reality maybe the mom thinks it looks good. Maybe the white mom has more appreciation for natural black hair, as is,than does the black mother which is sad. Maybe what you think looks a mess another mother thinks looks adorable.
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What’s sad is that somehow you think frizzy, dry, damaged hair is what natural black hair is. Natural black hair is no more a frizzy, dry, hard untamed mess than natural white hair is an oily, greasy, stringy, staticky, flakey scalped mess.
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As a white mother of two beautiful mixed raced daughters I feel the need to correct you regarding your ignorance. When my oldest daughter was born, I was just as panicked as you seem to be about my daughters hair. I spent months learning about pink lotion (regular and light), blue grease, brown gel and hair food. Washed my daughters hair only once a week and then slathered it in cholesterol. Spent an enormous amount of time every single day coming and parting her hair (had to train those perfectly straight parts!) and added to her “bobo” box every holiday to ensure she had the best beads and pretty plastic ponytail holders. Also spent hundreds of dollars on professional braiding because dammit!, I just could not get it right! I was NOT going to be THAT white mama! But then I had my second mixed race child….and you know what. I know longer had the energy to smack her with the comb after her weekly shampoo to mak sure I got every inch of her hair with grease or food….I would rather spend the day flying a kite at the park then having her run up the steps to get the hot comb….I preferred a happy, nappy headed child with a clean scalp helping me make cookies than the smell of a goddamn perm and a crying baby in my kitchen. If that makes me a “racist” or “insensitive”…so be it! I would rather spend the day teaching my daughter math, so she can pay someone to do her hair, then worrying about what YOU think her hair should look like. Hope your daughters braiding skills are on point….cause my CEO daughter will need them!!!!
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Actually, I think it’s repulsive that you call your own child nappy-headed. Just off the bat. I also think it’s freaking just….disgusting, you were putting perm on your childs head. YOUR CHILD. You slathered your child with chemicals, and then now are telling me it’s ok they are nappy headed as long as they get to fly a kite and bake cookies?
Ugh.
You are actually incredibly racist, or at least your commentary is. Weird. I’ve actually NEVER had such a reaction to a comment before. Maybe because you’re speaking about your own half black children and then making comments about other children in the same race as being only good for hair braiding?
Ugh.
Seriously.
I kinda feel a bit dirty after reading your comment and responding to it instead of just deleting it. You kinda make my skin crawl. Seriously. I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here that maybe you burnt yourself out and so you just don’t have the energy to give a fuck anymore?
I don’t know what country you live in. But here in North America whether we like it or not, inner beauty is important, however ESPECIALLY in the formative to teen years, your personal pride and personal appearance deeply impact how beautiful we feel on the inside.
As a black woman, half black, quarter black, whatever….if you identify, or if the world identifies you, as black, living in a place like North America where the standard of beauty NEVER looks like you, NEVER has your features NEVER has your hair, you already begin at a disadvantage in the self confidence arena.
I cannot BELIEVE you called your kid nappy headed. Ugh. Seriously. But for you to be OK with your daughter not knowing or understanding her own natural hair texture, how to make it soft and manageable, how to coax out the curl pattern by the magic or moisturizing, either because you bathe it in chemicals or just leave it to be frizzy and rough and untamed until one or both of them hates their hair SO much that they just wanna be you and go get a weave….and then spend the valuable years of their lives wasting their money on perm, weaves, extensions etc,
ALL BECAUSE MOMMY COULDNT BE BOTHERED TO TEACH THEM ABOUT THE NATURAL HAIR MOVEMENT because she would rather them be nappy headed or on the creamy crack…
Ugh.
I must have misunderstood you. Because that seriously made me sick. Usually I am maybe sarcastic, a bit quippy. I’m dead serious here. Like, sickened. I really hope I misunderstood you cause….ugh.
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This whole thing drives me crazy!!! It is so ridiculous to say that if I don’t fix my biracial child’s hair the way a black woman would, that she is not being well taken care of. Really? My daughter, who is about to turn 21 was raised very well. I taught her about being kind and generous, loving all living things, and never accepting that she was beneath anyone, but that she was not above anyone either. She was raised with my family primarily(I’m “white”) in Tennessee. Her father’s family(he’s “black”) lives in Texas. Because her father lost his life in a car accident when she was six, and the distance, she was around mostly my family. I think the biggest problem with this post is the emphasis you place on having the “right” looking hair. I am not black, so I wouldn’t style my child’s hair like a black woman would. I don’t have to have my child’s hair look “correct” according to anyone else’s rules. Nor have I done her any huge disservice because I put her hair in pigtails and not cornrows. I think you need to realize that your opinion is ONLY that!! My beautiful daughter is happy, healthy, smart and most importantly a kind human being. According to you, she should have been so traumatized from the lack of importance I placed on her hair are routine….🙄🙄🙄
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sooooo…you didn’t actually read the post then did you? Never once did I say or intimate you must style your hair like a black person. I would love to know exactly what like a black person means though. For the record. I would also like to know why the quotes around black and white. Do you find it impossible to acknowledge that you’re white without putting quotes around it? Strange.
Being kind and generous and loving of all things really had nothing to do with this post one way or another. Have you ever watched Grey’s Anatomy? A few seasons ago, Merideth and Derrick adopt Zola, a toddler from Africa. Beautiful little girl. And they are super awesome parents, love her to death. And then they have this episode where Derrick keeps getting dirty looks from his close friends, coworkers etc every time he brings his daughter to daycare.
He finally goes off on someone and is all like, yeah Im a white man with a white daughter and I can’t believe people are so racist and blah blah blah….and Bailey says to him, ummmm no, they are looking at you that way cause your daughters hair is a mess. And so he is taught by Bailey how to do a little something something with his daughters hair.
At the end of the episode, he is sitting with Merideth, and he’s like did you know about Zola’s kitchen? And she’s smiles and laughs and nods and is like, yes, I know about Zola’s kitchen.
The fact that you somehow missed EVERYTHING i said in this post, the points I made, the help I offered, and the fact that at 21 your daughter is now too old to make this post relevant to help you, makes me realize EXACTLY why it is that your daughter has no concept of what type of hair she has, how that is similar or different from the nearest textures and types, what age specific issues people with her hair type face, or wtf she would ever do with a child’s hair that was similar to or coarser than her own.
Children learn about their own self concepts beginning at home. I was taught that every aspect of me was beautiful and perfect, and I learned how to care for, and cherish every aspect of me. So that when I inevitably faced the harsh cruel world that thought otherwise, I wouldn’t crumble, I wouldn’t feel insecure, because I had a full understanding and knowledge of who, what, and why I am exactly as I am. Sure, she can talk all about her character and her thoughts and feelings. Can she address aspects to her physical appearance and stand tall when confronting attacks on her appearance? Or does she think that everybody is all the same and that race, colour, hair, etc etc is all just a non issue these days everywhere she’ll go?
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I think some of the confusion here isn’t that people didn’t read the article but more about the pictures you posted. From the pictures it appears that you are trying to communicate that slicked or braided hairstyles are the only appropriate ones and soft, curly pigtails are sloppy. I had that misunderstanding. I always combed and moisturizer my daughters hair when she was younger but then never braided or slicked it back. I put it up in soft ponytails or let it free. It often looked like the pictures you posted as bad hair care examples. Now she doesn’t like to take are of her hair and will let it dred if I don’t nag her.
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I have several pictures of my friends daughters hair where her hair is in anything from the little afro puffs to the GIANT huge afro, to being left completely out and moist to bring out the curl pattern, to the little pig tails and ponytails. Yes there are also a few pictures of her wither her hair entirely cornrowed, or where her mom cornrowed or single braided a few braids. I dunno. There are a LOT of pictures of properly cared for hair in this post, and 3 of not so cared for looking.
I’ve made this comment a few other times, but I shared a story in one of my other comments about my little cousin emily. Who didn’t let anybody touch her hair except my mom. Who never really let it be optional anyway but who later was ok with letter her do, despite still not letting anybody else near her head.
Her hair is white textured, though incredibly thick and curly, and so it would tangle horribly, and easily and was painful to comb and she has a tender head. The problem was always that it was clear she didn’t have black hair texture, however she DID have the black hair porosity and dryness factors. But nobody noticed and treated her hair accordingly. Except my mom.
I’ve noticed a common trend, in my own circle and experience, where the children who abhor to the point of kicking and screaming avoidance, having their hair done are the ones who it hurts more. I’ve also, through both experience and a LOT of recent research, realized that the more hydrated your hair shaft is in and out, the less painful it is to manage, and the more overall manageable and agreeable it becomes.
My issue with the constant loose style is that it isn’t protective, and north america can be incredibly harsh and drying to already dry hair textures. Which is why they are nice for a treat, but unless you are maintaining a regimen that maximizes the hairs moisture content every single day, if you have that dry hair type it’s probably not your best bet.
I would suggest perhaps you look into the Max Hydration Method, or the Conditioner Only washing method. The first one is actually my number one suggestion at getting very high or very low porosity hair, naturally curly, kinky or dry textures and scalps, to a literally “max level of hydration”. Once you’re there, your hair looks happy, healthy, and shiny, your curl pattern whatever that may be is defined, and best of all it SUPPORTS being able to get up and go, hair down, no muss no fuss no extra styling…while keep your hair healthy!
And it really works. Best of all except for the very first day, you don’t even need to, in fact they suggest not, using anything but your fingers to detangle. But eventually, you basically have no or little tangle anyway, even after a full day.
And best of all it’s eliminating the crappy chemicals and harmful crap they load into products. In fact, I make my own chia seed gel, conditioners, shampoos etc now, and my hair loves me for it.
Might be worth checking into for your daughter!
Sorry, totally long novel!
tl;dr
Max Hydration Method
Cowash regimen
And ditch silicones, paraffins, and sulphites 🙂
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Do you have a suggestion for my daughters hair taste? I’ve gotten her to take reasonable care of it and I’ve shown her tons of poctures of great hairstyles but she always tries to put it up in the same way with the puff pressed down to look more like a white girl ponytail. I’ve tried to encourage her to let her puff show and be what it is but she is too embarrassed. She has beautiful hair but she hates it. Any ideas for that?
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Ok, I’m gonna do a lot of guessing throughout my answer, and that’s only because there’s such a myriad of reasons why people do the things they do, such a wide range of experiences people could be living, and such a large large range of black and biracial textures and patterns of hair, and the combinations of all of these things can have profound effects on why your daughter aspires to the white girl ponytail, and what you can do about it.
Honestly, I totally get it, especially if she goes to a school that is not predominantly white (that was my school experience as well, so I can relate).
Sure, you want her to love and embrace her natural hair in its natural state. ..and one day she will get there. Growing pains can be difficult, but I found in my experience, and in discussions with some friends, that the reason by and large we aspired to erase our own hairs natural tendencies is because we could NOT get it to NOT frizz, NOT matte up, NOT tangle, NOT get rough or dry, and we had NO idea that our hair actually had a curl pattern to it, at all. We were programmed to believe that frizzy, kinky, rough, and difficult WAS our hair, and short of heat or chemicals or fake hair, that was what you’d be dealing with forever. We were so wrongly misinformed that that biracial girl who had the perfect silky long straight or wavy curly hair was lucky and had nice hair. Nobody ever told us that EVERY texture, even up to the kinkest texture and the coarsest feel could grow down past your butt,could be soft and manageable, didn’t need to be drowned in products to not be a frizzy embarrassing mess in its natural state. Nobody told us we didn’t have to look like either small children or little boys. ..that our natural hair could be feminine and beautiful, and that you didn’t have to have super short processed hair to do it!
Added to this, many of us were looking solely at the hair itself, and not at how our faces looked IN the super flat, super thin looking style we were so desperate to have (for most of us, it was not the greatest look). Kids are impressionable, but they can be influenced by the right kind of images, and luckily nowadays there are actually stars and models who have all kinds of hair styles and textures, and skin tones to match. ..so the definition of beauty has opened up significantly.
You’ve gotten her to take reasonable care, and that’s a great first step. Generally, if you can get her hair to Max Hydration,not only will her hair be super cooperative, soft and manageable, with a beautiful natural hair curl pattern (can range anywhere from a wave to a tiny kinky coil – and yes, even if it only looks frizzy, there is actually a curl in there. Look up Max Hydration Method. ..the before and after photos may surprise you! I lived 30 years thinking I simply had frizzy kinky hair, no curl. I found out that my hair didn’t “clump” individual strands into curls because it was SO dehydrated and everything I thought I was doing to help was making it worse, like my heavy silicone shampoos and conditioners, and my paraffin and petroleum based hair oils, which do not actually offer moisture at all)
Sorry, I got a bit off track. The point is that Maximum Hydration gives you that ultimate hair health and curl and shine in its natural state, but it also actually allows you to more easily and readily achieve and maintain a straight style from time to time, and because it’s healthy and hydrated it won’t frizz out or kink out. Knowing that she can actually get that ultimate straight style she dreams of for an important upcoming date, like a semi formal or grad etc, might be the motivation she needs to put some full out dedication into loving the process of achieving and maintaining healthy natural hair.
I’m sure you know already how important it is to eliminate split ends as well, so Ill just mention it quick, because often times regardless of hair texture, a girl will desire long, thick, and healthy hair, and without trimming off those dead split ends, along with keeping the hair strong and healthy, she will not be able to retain the length and achieve the long look. And whatever length she gets will look far thinner and raggedy.
So as I said earlier though, kids are impressionable. And they want to fit in, or be or feel ‘cool’…perhaps the key is to find out WHO she and her groups of friends idolize, looks and style wise, and then find someone from that group of stars who have a hair style or texture that is totally doable for her. When I was in middle school, that was Scary Spice Mel B.
Also important is to find out the why. What she desires is far less important than why she desires it. I’ve made some suggestions as to why she might be aspiring to the flat hair, like maybe because she wants the long thick luscious hair of Star A, or because she thinks flat hair means beautiful, like Star B. In the first case, the goal would be to show her how she can keep healthy and cuddle and baby her natural hair to achieve the long thick and healthy hair of Star A. In the second case, it might be about finding someone who has the hair of star B but maybe looks quite the more unattractive for it, to illustrate how the hair needs to suit you, and that beautiful comes from the person and the package, not from one particular kind of hair.
And, if you ever have the opportunity, sometimes seeing is believing. If she is like me and went to school and lives in a neighborhood with primarily white people, and is friends with primarily white people, it can be hard to see yourself as anything other than less than your peers. …all the little girls aspire to some other kind of hair regardless of race; if you’ve got straight you want curly, curly wants straight, redheads want blonde etc….if that’s the talk and reality she has in front of her, then OMG not only does everybody want some other kind of hair NOBODY wants hers! Hers is like polar opposite of the ideals!
But to understand that her school, her neighborhood, is just one tiny population in the world, and that yes there are people who would kill for her texture because it can do stuff theirs can’t (maybe her natural coil or curl is looser/tighter, maybe her hair will hold a twist out pattern better than theirs etc etc). Exposing her to real world examples where her hair is the norm and the desires to change from peers are things that are actually achievable might be just the confidence boost she needs. Again, I’m guessing a lot of stuff because I don’t know you or your daughter or where you live, but maybe even a black hair salon trip once a month, black hair shows etc if any are accessible to you could be just the exposure she needs!
There’s a deeper reason to figure out the why though. If she is desiring the flat white ponytail, it could also be due to teasing or put downs from some mean kids about her natural hair. …or even about her cultural background. If that’s the case, then it’s gonna take more than a nice hair style or even new peers admiring her hair or making her realize that in many places her hair is the norm- because in that case she may dislike her hair because she wishes to remove this evidence of her mixed heritage, to distance herself from mean, horribly wrong taunting that has made her feel like she will always be seen or treated as lesser than, as long as she has this visual evidence of being culturally different, at least in background ancestry. Sure, you could point out the other non white races that have and embrace thick and curly hair, brazillian, armenian, Egyptian are a few that come to mind, but really the damage needs to be done from the inside in these kinds of cases. I’m hoping this isn’t your daughters case, but it’s always good to check to rule that kind of thing out. Children are evasive, so rather than asking directly, it’s usually a better play to ask any probing questions indirectly. Like rather than asking “so, what star are you trying to look like and why? ” or “do kids say horrible things about you because you’re biracial? “, maybe light questions here and there as things come up, and then you over time put the answers together (or over time as you Open up these communication lines she may one day just open up and want to discuss her issues in depth, because she’s feeling your interest and not being judgy or pushy and secretly every girl wants mom’s opinion AS A FRIEND, NOT AS A KNOW IT ALL BOSSY PANTS! LOL)
So, knowing her top ten favorite music, TV, and movie stars helps. Look them up, see what fashions they are trending. When you notice a new story about them, mention it casually to her “all the girls at work were talking about Kim Kardashians Afro and Egyptian eye makeup look at the grammy’s….what did you think about the look (follow up questions and commentary based on her answer, including your own real opinion about the look in positive vibes even if you’re saying you didn’t like it, offering your own reason why you didn’t like it)”. Or, she tries out a suggestion you make about styling. ..so what did your friends think about the new look? You know, I was thinking it looked kinda like the so and so look. ..did your friend Chloe notice that? (Or whatever friend you know is crazy about style, fashion, etc). By listening, responding, opening up yourself and treading lightly, you can usually piece the puzzle together. …if she says, snapping ” yeah they all hated it mom, I felt like a complete idiot!” Your “omg you’re KIDDING ME! Chloe didn’t notice you look just like star X with that style? ” can be followed by something like “…Ok really? Did they SAY they hate it, or could you “just tell”? ….Ok, tell me what they hated, let’s see what we can find for our next experiment that DOESN’T do that part they hate”…off the bat you can tell the negative reaction mears something was said or done in a negative way about her hair do. But if you focus on the lemme see what we did style wise wrong, let’s look through some pics so you can show me what they meant and what would be better, she’s not focused on protecting or hiding her business and is more likely to open up in the process. You may wanna go mom mode on what she tells you, but seriously refrain. The omg that’s terrible you give her, even as you seethe and wanna call the principal,may not seem like enough, but especially at first yout really need to get her to trust and open up and build up that line of trust and communication, ESPECIALLY if this ends up being deeper rooted issues. Communication and trust will shut down and never open if she feels like the secondo she does there are basically consequences that turn her into a crybaby rat.
Anyway, sorry for the super long comment here, I’m hoping SOMETHING helped! Like I said, I may be totally off base, but I took a few educated guesses based on common issues. If I’m TOTALLY off base on my underlying assumptions though, you can always tell me a bit more about your daughter and neighborhood/school, as well as her hair length and texture and I can give a more tailored to her answer based on my experience and schooling. Hopefully though there’s something in there that for more might help!
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Thank you for the help. If you are willing I would like to talk it through a little more. She has definitely been raised mostly around white or Latin American girls (we lived in Honduras 3 yrs) and I think she mostly wants to hide her hair. She has received strange commentary before (one ignorant village girl in Honduras asked if she had a disease because of her hair). For the most part though I think her friends would love it if she let her hair free. I think she wants to hide it. She definitely wants it to grow longer, but she fights me on doing a regular deep conditioning. I make her do it at least once a month and she keeps it brushed and moist the rest of the time. I believe it’s damaged because one time we tried a kids relaxer and it left it really wierd after a few weeks. She’s homeschooled and most of her friends are from gymnastics and are white. Next year she will be going to an artsy middle school. She isn’t really into stars. She’s a bookworm mostly. She loves Gabby Douglas, the black gymnast who won the Gold all around in the Olympics last year. But she has short hair that she wears always straightened in a ponytail. She seems to be hiding it too and received criticism for her “messy” hair after the Olympics. My daughter is much more on the black side with skin color and hair texture. I wish I could post a picture. It’s very kinky and there’s a lot of it. It has to be combed in many layers and she has a spot right in the middle that’s super dry and mostly just frizzy when it dries no matter how much moisture you put in. I feel she would do best with puff ball looks. She should let it be big. She tries to shrink it down into pins and buns. I’ve shown her pictures and she likes some of them but then she always says her hair won’t do that because it’s not long. I think I’ll try taking her to a black salon but I’m having trouble finding what’s good in our city. We live in Portland OR. Also we use mostly argon oil and coconut oil products?
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Ok yes, that all helps SO much actually, definitely gives much needed perspective to kind of focus on on some key issues here.
First, just because it was the first thing to pop out at me and have me have flash backs to my childhood. …the friends. Oh the friends. They LOVED my hair. They’d ask to touch it. Sometimes I let them. They thought their comments were SO complementary, but really it mostly made me feel like a puppy being petted lol. So in that case unfortunately the attention and admiration from my peers probably did more harm than good. I’m not sure if the website still exists. I actually did a post way back when on it, but the website was called blackpeopleloveus.com If the site doesn’t exist anymore you can always check out the summary I gave on the blog post. But basically, it’s alluding to the comments many of us with black characteristics have gotten about our hair and other things from our well meaning and curious peers….looking back we can poke fun at it, but when you are the only one in a sea of what seems uniform to you, it can be hard.
I love Gabby. In my time, it was Dominique Dawes, but in any case the same holds true for both “the straightened, hidden hair” truth. And the ridiculous ridicule and negativity when God forbid her hair shows a little ethnicity.
Your daughters hair sounds a lot like mine actually. And in middle school, AFTER my bout as scary spice lol, I went full on afro puffs, due to a popular song at the time “I rock rough and tough with my afro puffs yoooooooo!” . This unfortunately did horrible damage to my hair, not only from the gallons of gel I used to slick my hair into neat pig tails, but because my hair being puffed and unprotected 24/7 caused the ends to dry out and break off,split, and the consistent pull along my hair line caused it to thin out as well! I still totally love the look, but as a sometimes thing, and with updated hair care.
Ok, now into the products we go. If you are using pre formulated products, check the labels. I’ve noticed this trend regarding not just hair care but also skin care, and it’s quite disturbing; products are being labeled as ‘all natural’ or ‘olive and Botanical oils’ when the truth is that the product itself has very little, if any, of the “featured” ingredients. When you look at the ingredient list, it’s listed in order of proportion, from highest to lowest percentage wise. If olive oil or coconut oil or argan oil is not one of the top 3 products, or five to PUSH it, it has little to none of it in there. If the first 3 ingredients includes petroleum, paraffin or silicone, no matter what other ingredients it has in it it will not be as moisturizing as it claims to be.
Now I wanna provide this info for any other readers following along so I will do some here, but if you want to email me through the contact us section I can send you some valuable links and help you figure some of this stuff out on your daughters hair specifically. But briefly, when hair is dehydrated, it’s kinda like the rest if your body being dehydrated. Yout can drink as many cokes as you want and still be parched…nothing rehydrate you the way water will right? Well, the same thing goes for the hair cuticle. Water is hydrating to it. This goes for any hair type, by the way. You suck water out of the hair shaft, it gets tangled and split and breaks and is dull and lifeless.
Now, you can think about two factors regarding water and the hair shaft. One is how easily moisture penetrates into it. The other is how effectively the shaft retains, or keeps in, the moisture once it gets it. This factor is called porosity.
Ok, so obviously then oils aren’t water, and therefore they aren’t the agent to use to add moisture. But they still can play a very important role. Oils dont so much penetrate the shaft, as to sit on thesurface of the shaft to seal it, either by effectively sealing in moisture and or by sealing rough edges caused by raised hair cuticles or splits in the shaft. I’ll try not to get to wordy and technical here, but pretty much everybody has a scalp that produces sebum, which is a natural oil like substance. The sebum travels down the shaft of the hair to coat and protect it, helping to seal moisture in and help keep moisture from escaping. The straighter your hair is, the quicker and easier this process is. But now, get to kinky, coily hair, and think about the millions of loops each hair shaft has, and how far the sebum has to go and how many turns it has to make to make it down the hair shaft. Adding to this complication is that each of those turns in the shaft can be thought of as a point of weakness on all other counts.
So, from that perspective then it explains why something like heavier, thicker oil like coconut oil sits like a grease slick on baby fine straight hair (because it already has enough, or maybe even more than enough natural oil production on its own) and why an incredibly light, breathable oil like argan can be ok. So on your daughters hair, you can think of each of those kinks or coils as an increase in her hairs defect in porosity (either it’s not letting in enough moisture, or not KEEPING in enough moisture) AS well each loop being one level decreased in the lack of natural oil, sebum, coverage it’s getting.
Different oils have different properties, some are heavier and more sealing or protective, some do have a tad more moist qualities, some are lighter and great at adding shine without weighing you down etc.
So argan oil, while looking nice even on kinkier textures, is adding a shine, but ultimately isn’t adding enough protection and won’t seal in any moisture. This will allow the hair to dry out, even as it looks pretty. Coconut oil will definitely seal in moisture but it will also seal moisture out, meaning in order for it to be at its most effective it needs to be layered on top of something aqua heavy.
Now, and I want to make sure I cover this in this post because there’s a reason I keep bringing up and bashing paraffin and silicone and petroleum. All 3 give zero moisture, but they add a super thick coat that is never going away completely without harsh sulphites and clarifying shampoos, which strip your hair bare of any and all moisture both added AND natural. But if you don’t strip away your paraffin ….it’s like sealing a beautiful coma patient in an air tight box. At first, they’ll look beautiful still. They’ll look alive and healthy, maybe even with a nice flush. They are perfect in their little box. But, it’s sealed air tight. Meaning no new air can get in. Eventually the oxygen runs out. Then the coma patient flushes a little more. …then goes downhill quick….you can see how this leads to the sad story of watching the mummification of the once beautiful coma patient. Silicone is the air tight box. Your hair strand is the coma patient. Until you strip all that buildup off, no moisture is really getting to your hair, and nothing you do can stop the damage from the suffocating dessicating hair trapped within.
Now, there ARE styles she likes but her hair isn’t long enough. This is good news because it means you can use the angle that the good hair care part is gonna lead to the long hair that is gonna lead to the style she likes, PLUS can lead to special occasions with long, pressed out hair. The key is to show her some of these videos of what girls can achieve in a year or under, just regular everyday girls like her, just by treating their hair kindly the way it loves.
First thing I would do is check out the labels on your products, toss out anything that is paraffin or petroleum or silicone based. Number 2 would be to find natural, like 100% extra virgin coconut oil or any other oils you decide on, which can be found in your basic health food store, like a Whole Foods for example. Number 3 would be to get some shampoo, conditioner and leave in conditioner that is moisture and hair friendly (look up Max Hydration Method for a list of no no ingredients or approved products OR email me and I’ll make sure that’s part of the info I send you! ). Number 4 is to engage in one good day of clarification for her hair (I used a basic clarifying shampoo, and then I did a baking soda rinse followed by an apple cider vinegar rinse (Braggs brand is totally awesome). …once the hair dries the vinegar smell disappears. ) Now, started this on a long weekend, so I had 4 days in total to just commit to doing my hair, and getting it on a good path. Because the next step is the best step, to me. …a clay mask….on your hair. ..I know sounds crazy, but it’s incredible! And the best part is it brings out the texture/curl right away, and you can start to see exactly what you can hope to achieve.
After rinsing the mask out well, I followed with the hair still damp with my current oil mix of choice on the hair only, twisted it into sections to keep the moist in, then went to sleep. The difference already after that one day. ..my hair wasn’t hard, or tangled even. I noticed though that it lost moisture quickly, so this is when I did my research, came across the Max Hydration Method, realized I had intuit ed this on my own but that it’s actually a “thing”, and I conditioner only washed my hair on day 2, followed by my leave in conditioner and then oil to seal. By the time I got to day 4, I actually had honest to god coils. My hair is actually curly! 31 years I have NEVER seen any kind of coil, just kink!
Looking up where these girls have gotten to, I mean in months, thick healthy LONG hair. Hair that isn’t short or crunchy any place, hair that after they blew dry it it was basically straight. ..when they started with hair like mine? CRAZY TOWN!
Id have to look up Portland and I will, but I’m SURE you’ve got something somewhere in the area. …a hidden gem black salon. I’ll do some research.
I know how hard it is to be different. But I think that different is only difficult when in your own mind your differentness is synonymous with lesser than, inferiority. No she can never have bone straight natural hair. BUT she can have long thick gorgeous hair that is healthy and manageable and that those girls with the bone straight but thin hair can be envious of. That can be the length and even Ness and health level required for any and all styles, not only the ponytails and buns, but the styles her friends can do AND the ones they’ll never be able to.
I really think that it would be a great angle to try with her. And honestly, it’s quite fun to DIY your own products, and can be a great bonding experience for the two of you. And if she UNDERSTANDS not only that her hair is different, but why and how it’s different on a deeper level, then she’s got the armor of knowledge, which we all know is power. And being able to roll her eyes aND pity the poor fool who thinks differences in hair are a disease (like omg what an idiot, didn’t his mom teach him ANYTHING? !?!!) May also help her feel less insecure. Or, if she’s the interested in science kinda kid, she might appreciate learning about why different groups evolved to have different hair textures and what advantage in the whole survival of the fittest game her hair conferred on her ancestors?
I hope I made some kind of sense! I know it’s a lot to take in at once, I kinda just threw about 8 different crash courses at you at once! Please if you need clarification or I didn’t explain something properly please ask! And like I said if you email me, I can send you some info to get started, and in the meantime I’ll do some sleuthing regarding salons on my downtime!
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I dont think the intent was to dis natural hair. However, natural hair should be healthy hair, and just like you should be concerned with the nutritional health of your child, hair health is very important. So no one accused you of being lazy IF you are educating yourself and taking the time to make sure your child’s hair is healthy. Dry hair is damaged and does not grow. It’s not about keeping it in perfect styles…its about just making sure you keep mixed hair hydrated and recognize that their hair takes extra steps and should not just be treated like typical “white” hair…regardless to how the child responds. Even just shampooing less or using deep conditioners regularly with detangle and oil….will make a ton of difference. And perhaps then your child may dislike her hair being touched a tad less especially as she grows. Just a thought.
After reading so many negative comments I actually had to go back and reread because I was sure I must’ve read a different article. In fact I went back 3 or 4 times based of some of these very offended readers’ comments. What is so offensive? The tone, I admit, portrayed a strong assertive voice; however, the message was VERY clear:
To white moms or even black moms of biracial kids: THEIR HAIR IS NOT THE SAME AS YOURS EXACTLY SO YOU MAY NEED TO DO SOME RESEARCH AND DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY.
That’s it really. There was a bit about making sure that your biracial child develops a strong proud identity based on both races and cultures that YOU as a parent will have to expose them to.
But seriously, someone needs to point out exactly, I mean verbatim, what was so offensive. All these negative comments are interpretations of what these readers THOUGHT was being said about braids or cornrows or unkempt hair…but I feel like people must be reading with their insecurity glasses again. Actually READ the post. Dont put your assumptions about what you think Ruby is “trying to say” or your thoughts about how you feel you are being judged because you identify with parts of this post or you think that she’s judging you. She doesn’t even freaking know you. But what she knows is….it is not right for any parent to not take care of their child’s needs…and more specifically in this post their hair care needs to have healthy beautiful hair that they dont grow up hating.
I am a white mother. And I will admit I was scared…er..terrified to have a biracial baby girl because I knew that I had no idea about how to care for their hair. But clearly I acknowledged a difference because I knew her hair would be different.
So….I did the same thing I did when I was scared….er…terrified to drive a car….I read, practiced, practiced more, got advice, tips, feedback…and more importantly….I GOT EXCITED ABOUT IT!
Because even when things are scary or new…they can be challenging and adventurous. There will be routines my daughter will have to do that I dont do with my hair. Just like her daddy who shaves his head does something different with his…
We should all want our babies to have healthy hair…styled unstyled in braids in a box with a fox so to speak.
Get out of your own way long enough to read the post for what it is: a letter to empower mothers and challenge them to make sure they are caring for their child’s needs…hair health…because for young girls of color especially…the way they feel about their hair assimilated into the way they feel about their identity. And I for one, will nurture and nourish both my daughter’s hair and her self esteem.
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Wow. As a black mom of two biracial boys, I’m almost certain that I would placed in the same category as these white moms if I had a daughter. Black hair is different from white hair, and requires different care. However, it’s just not that serious. I find that black people are often too judgmental about black women’s hair. I Was criticized all my teen years because I didn’t adhere to black standards, which are often based on white standards (even if you don’t know that they are). Black hair must be layed flat, tamed SMH; sounds like a bunch of foolishness to me. I’m so glad that my mother and grandmother did not focus on their hair as much as many others seem to do. Instead of focusing on my hair, I’ve spent my time on obtaining my doctorate in Chemistry, publishing papers in journals, and getting my kid into one of the top elementary schools in my state. My hair may have been “a hot mess” when I was working in lab, but at least I discovered a new calalyst. My hair philosophy has left me whole lot richer than many women my age who have spent countless dollars on products, stylists, and weaves. I instead have a healthy 401k, rental properties, and have traveled to Africa, Asia, S. America, and Europe. I look forward to the time when black women can focus on ourselves, not just our hair. The black hair industry is not a billion dollar industry for nothing. At the very least, spend time on acquiring black hair businesses , instead of just being a consumer of these products. Just remember, your hairstyle will not give your family (and future generations) educational attainment and financial stability.
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I look forward to a time where children don’t go through hell. Simple. Lucky you, you came out the other side intact. For many, it creates relatively serious psychosocial or psychiatric disorders that are incredibly difficult if not impossible to overcome. There are few people in this world that get through their teenage years unscathed. Lucky for you, you apparently had a big ol brain to focus on. Many are just not that lucky, and many don’t have the stability or influence of other black parental figures that knew what type of encouragement you needed.
However, there is absolutely nothing foolish about properly caring for your hair. If you STILL live under the false impression that proper black hair care involves killing your hair til it looks like white people’s then that tells me how much you don’t understand about the leaps and bounds that black women self love has been making over the years you were in the lab.
If you’re good with your great salary and don’t care if your hair is short, breaking, damaged and unhealthy looking then good for you. Personally, I’d prefer to have my entire body inside and out in top peak health, with the bank account and career to match. Maybe that’s just me?
Also, and perhaps this relates directly to the type of position, however COUNTLESS studies have been done on women and forward advancement in careers. Wanna know a secret? And I’m serious, you can definitely look this up, but the women sitting in the top positions, with the top paid salaries, are the ones who wear skirt suits (not pants….interesting right?) who look polished and like they care about their looks, without trying to look overtly attractive or fancy.
Humans judge more attractive people as more competent, more intelligent, more trustworthy, and the list goes on and on. Your hair looking dry and brittle and unhealthy and a mess gives off the impression that you just don’t care enough about you. Even if thats not you. Remember, first impressions are made in an instant. And you don’t get a second chance. I spend VERY little time on hair styling and maintenance daily. I don’t need to. Healthy happy natural hair takes VERY little effort and energy, and is NOT about looking white.
It’s about looking organized, and together, and like you care about yourself. There’s been a hair revolution going on that you missed. This revolution is about learning and understanding your own hair type and bringing out it’s natural beauty, it’s natural coil. NOT using gels and heat and damaging silicones, chemicals and sulphates.
LOVING your natural hair and sporting it with pride.
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I’m not sure how I take this post. I go to search for different hair styles because my daughter is older now and wants different things and I come across this. Don’t know if I should be offended or not. I have done everything imaginable to my child’s head. I’m a stylist. So I know how to do her hair. ( and no I did not go to one of them rich white people schools either Just an FYI lol) She has days where nothing works. If her hair decides to be frizzy and unmanageable then it’s frizzy. Even with cornrolls. Her hair decides to have a bad day then her cornrolls get frizzy. Not a good look with frizzy cornrolls. Does it make me look like I don’t know what to do with my child’s head? No it’s her hair. She hates for me to do it. She hates to get it washed once a week. But I have to do it. Some days it just gets put up in a bun because she refuses to let me do it and I have to fight with her to even brush it. Does that make me a bad mom. No it doesn’t. You do have mother’s who just don’t take the time out to learn. But the majority of us do. I even go to the length to teach my own mother because she insist that all my child’s hair needs is to be brushed every day to pull the oil from her scalp down to her hair. I’m like what oil? My child’s scalp is so dry it has to be greased 3 times a week. She get’s that now and is learning. Mixed hair is nothing like straight black or white hair. It’s mixed. It’s curly and straight, dry, frizzy, but not too textured. It’s in between hair. Some mixed kid’s hair is courser than others. So to say that our child’s hair should be braided and things like that is wrong. I don’t focus on how my child’s head looks every day. She get’s compliments everyday I take her to school because of her hair. As long as it’s neat and up out of her face that’s all that matters. When it rains we can forget the neat tame hair no matter what you do to it. Not gonna happen. My focus is on raising my daughter with the right attitude and mind to become a successful caring adult. Yes she will know her history but she will also know every other culture as well. I want her to love everyone for who they are. That’s how you make a well rounded successful individual. Not focusing on hair or what styles the next person has. That’s the problem with today’s society. So many people are focused on how they look instead of their mind and being a successful part of society without using their looks to obtain that success.
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Well actually no, you actually agree with me because you actually did everything i said you should do as a white mom with biracial children….and then turned around and said I was wrong? LOL. I dunno man. Maybe you should read the post again? Start at the beginning.
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Your post was offensive, mainly aimed at white women with half black children not managing thier hair properly. Those children you showed that you claim where unkept, to me they where beautiful and natural. What about all these black women wearing weave on thier heads, now that looks unkept and unnatural. Also if you knew anything about history, you would know that European whites came up with hair braiding in the victorian Era. Im mixed and my children are too and we rock our natural hair. No braids, no weaves, only natural, beautifully mixed hair. Get over your issues with white mothers honey. My white mother was the best and she taught me to love my natural self, while all my full black friends where getting relaxers and weaves to feel better.
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I think you’re mostly confused with who or what you’re mad at? My post wasn’t MAINLY aimed at women with half black children not managing their hair properly, it was ENTIRELY aimed at that particular subset of women.
And your argument against an article that rants against using things like relaxers and fake hair on your kids head is “what about these women with their weaves?” lol. Really?
Sometimes when I read comments I think people really only barely skimmed the article because they decided after the title that they wanted to be outraged and just looked for a few points I covered, didn’t even read through the points to see what I said, and then quickly scurry down to the comments section.
Soooooo….my post was offensive, to you personally, because it was aimed at women who, through either sheer laziness or ignorance, allowed their childs hair to become dry, frizzy, broken off, and unhealthy, or who god forbid throw fake hair or creamy crack at the hair so they don’t have to deal with it, INSTEAD OF learning to nourish, style, and protect their child’s particular hair texture and pattern and to learn how that hair care differs from their own, to ultimately encourage the child to LOVE THEIR NATURAL HAIR….and this was all offensive to you because you were raised by a woman who taught you to care for and love your natural hair?
Yeah. I’m gonna say you were either confused or didn’t read it beginning to end.
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yes they were beautiful and natural!!!!!
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Ugh, not a fan of classic ruby.. Columns are not your calling dear, you’re very one sided and judgmental not to mention rude. I’ll be sure to keep my bi-racial daughter away from people like YOU
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Awwwww really? You don’t think. You’re right. I should TOTALLY hang up my hat. How DARE i promote you learning that you shouldn’t automatically treat your biracial daughters hair like it’s white hair? Gawwwwdddd I’m so terrible. I mean really, why the HEECCKKK should you know how to properly care for your own kids hair? That’s just crazy talk. Sigh. Guess it’s back to selling peanuts on the beach in Spain for me!
Thanks! You saved me from a pointless life of writing in my spare time about things that annoy me!
P.S. Love it or hate it, you still read it. People either love or hate editorial writers. This isn’t a newspaper love. It’s an opinion blog. As my tag line states, this is an UNADULTERATED opinion of whatever the heck I choose to have an opinion on.
You may not like my opinion. Usually that means it struck a cord. So thanks for confirming that on this post, at least, I did my job!
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Wow…there seems to be a lot of people missing the point. I am the white mother of a beautiful little girl, she has a black father, who isn’t in the picture. My daughter is two years old, and has very soft, tiny, curls. If I took care of her hair, the way that I take care of mine, she would look like a dandelion gone to seed. Honestly, it would be cute, but that isn’t the point. Her hair wouldn’t be healthy. Why would I want to damage my daughter’s hair, and possibly her self image? I spend a fair chunk of time online, searching for tips, and advice, to better care for this little girl..so I can then teach her how to take care of herself. Isn’t that a parent’s job?
Also, I am floored by all the people saying they can’t do their children’s hair, because the child hates it. My daughter is possibly the MOST strong willed child on the planet (that might be a slight exaggeration, but not much), and I do her hair. We may struggle now and then, but like wearing a coat, or getting in a car seat, some things in life aren’t optional. I probably don’t style her hair the way the pictures show, (they wouldn’t load for me), but her hair is clean, moisturized, and always looks like someone cares enough to put forth some effort.
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Please don’t put words in people’s mouths that were never said. No one said they didn’t do their child’s hair because the child dislikes it. Only you know your child and only all of us other mother’s know how our child reacts to when they have their hair done. What I wanted to get across to the author of this story is that by reading her story it seems to me that she didn’t have a strong willed child and her child sat perfectly still while she styled her daughters hair. More power to her that she didn’t have to struggle with her child on a daily basis to have her hair done. Every child is different and for her to judge Mothers is wrong.
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Well anonymous, actually people have directly said they don’t do their kids hair cause the kid didn’t like it. Even if that wasn’t you. Secondly, i come from a family where you finish what’s on your plate, and you eat what the adults do. You can sit at the table for 3 hours, til bedtime, doesn’t matter, you’re gonna eat that broccoli even if you hate it. Some things just are not optional. I personally was aware of that as a child. So after washing my hair I obediently brought the hair stuff, put the cushion on the floor and found my tv show. About 10 seconds in I’m ready and trying to run now, but my very smart mother has her legs clamped around my arms and waist in such a way that I can’t even slink down outta reach lol. And so it went, EVERY WEEK. My whole childhood.
This is actually where protective styling can be your best friend though. Because after the initial detangling hell, my mom would put like 6 giant chunky single braids in my hair to let it stay kinda stretched out as it dried. Then the next day she would do cornrows. Or, at least I hoped she did. They hurt more, took longer, but then nobody had to touch my head again for a week. The little pony tails gotta be touched up daily.
Of course, that was before the black hair revolution, or the internet began. So information or products on the variety of black and biracial hair textures and products to moisturize, were scarce and followed practices for white hair textures….which clearly weren’t ideal, despite the product being made for black hair. Knowledge has come a long way. Now we know that super hydrated black and biracial hair of ANY coarseness or texture can actually grow, be tangle free even after a wash, actually have a coil or curl pattern to it, no matter how dry and kinky it looks.
But even before all of this knowledge. Our mothers painstakingly did everything they could to help our hair look healthy, and happy, and grow, and be presentable, and let us walk out of the house with our best foot forward.
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Suzi
Seriously, my automatic reaction to reading your comment was “I love you”. Seriously, I do. The dandelion…it would be cute, but thats not the point, made me really actually laugh out loud.
I think I’m mostly floored by HOW people miss the point. Enough that today before responding the the messages I actually reread the post again. Because I’m thinking now, ok, maybe I said some things I forgot, or I said it in X way that could be misconstrued….but no. I really didn’t. I kinda expected some negative reactions, but the ones that surprise me are the ones like “you racist so and so blah blah blah”…and I’m like ummmm….did you miss the part where I mentioned ALL of my cousins, and my baby sister, are biracial? ALL on one side of my family. Or the part where I’ve intentionally featured a personal friend and her daughter because the friend is white, with a white mother and family, and her daughter is biracial…and her daughter has everything from corn rows to the afro puffs to her hair down and curled, to a giant fro, and in every picture its clear to see that despite the style her hair is soft and manageable and healthy and happy.
Kudos to you, not just for how you’ve approached your daughters hair but to your perspective on parenting in general. Children don’t always get an opinion or a choice, because ultimately if it’s for the greater good you’ve gotta pull rank. That’s what parents do.
Thanks for your comment, after responding to a string of the…other…kind, it was a breath of fresh air! I’m so happy you got what I was saying, and that you understood that if you already do this stuff I’m basically saying you’re already doing an awesome job and keep up the good work! lol
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That is fair enough…except that we all judge people every day of our lives. You are judging her, for judging others. Everyone has pet peeves, things they see in the world that make them frustrated, and yes, judgemental. Unkempt hair seems to be one of Ruby’s, judging unfairly appears to be one of yours. I didn’t love the harsh, and somewhat belittling, tone of her message, but I was trying to look beyond what I didn’t like, to the core of the message…which to me, was, parents of children, who are partially different ethnicity, will need to expand their knowledge base, in order to effectively give their children everything they need.
My comment about parents not doing hair, because the child dislikes it, was based on one of my pet peeves. I’m sorry if it offended you, but it was how I read several statements, and I responded in kind.
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As a mother of a biracial child this writing was very racist and implying white women of biracial children are stupid. Last few times I was out in public I saw many white and black people in pajama bottoms with their hair looking a hot mess. And I hate to tell both of you there are some biracial children that their hair is 10X harder to maintain and do than a white or black persons hair.
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At no point did I actually call ANYBODY stupid. If you’re talking about my use of the word ignorant, look it up. Ignorance refers to lack of knowledge. And I stand by my statement that in this great day of the world wide interweb, ignorance is no longer and excuse. You can google or youtube any damn thing.
You seeing many a white and black person out in public in pajama bottoms looking a hot mess is irrelevant to this post soooo I dunno? Fluff sentence? Free word association? I don’t understand what the point of this reference is so I guess I’ll leave it alone. Except to say I’ve already covered the issue of pajama pants in public and how ratchet it looks, and how ghetto trailer trash it looks. Find five seconds and put on a pair of outdoor pants. Seriously. So referring to people who don’t have enough respect for themselves to at least pretend they didn’t just roll outta bed and walk out the door doesn’t really score much points in any debate with me. https://classicruby.com/2014/01/24/god-please-let-the-pjs-in-public-trend-end/
Clearly I digress. Back to your last sentence, which also makes literally ZERO sense, like somehow you think that all black or biracial children have the same kind of hair, or have entirely different hair, and that somehow they couldn’t even technically have the same kind of hair, or somewhat the same but different in X way…
See. This is the point. The point is that once you get into any variation of black hair textures and porosity and coarsenesses, you’re in a completely different ballpark than the variations of white hair textures and coarsenesses. And it’s NOT a one size fits all for ALL hair types, within or across textures, and it absolutely does mean that it takes a lot of trial and error to find the right products and combination of products. But some factors hold true, across textures themselves in general.
Instead of being insulted, research. If you were paying attention AT ALL you’d notice that the feature in this article was a biracial girl with a white mom, a white mom who is from an all white family who had no knowledge or experience with black hair, and had to teach herself everything from scratch. The more she learned, the more she realized there would always be MORE to learn….once you start your own researching, that’lll make sense
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Maybe they like the natural curly hair. It’s absolutely beautiful and because they’re half white too, maybe you need to learn how we do hair. Normally, we get up, wash it, condition it, dry it and leave. Sometimes we get crazy aND run a straightener through it or curling iron, either or works. Special occasions we’ll French braid it or fish tail it, something fancy you know? Anyway, why you worried about their kids? All the kids pictured look happy, Isn’t that enough? Or, do we teach our children vanity at a young age? Now that we’re talking about it, I know some black women that can’t do their own damn hair. It’s all falling out from perms, or from the glue to hold the other in place. Lord, some look a hot mess. So, why not focus on them? Just thought.
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Ok so, Missy, and I’m really trying to figure out your message her…If my biracial child comes out with biracial to black hair….i should learn how to take care of white hair. For what purpose? That was logic fail number one.
However, if a black woman or biracial woman was raising a white little girl, I would ABSOLUTELY without question tell her she had better learn how to care for white hair properly. If i was a black woman who had never been exposed to white hair care, and a white little girl was suddenly in my care, i would likely at first try out what I do to my own hair. I mean, you tend to start with what you know. However, if I continued to do her hair like I do mine, her hair would be so dark and stringy and greasy, her scalp would be drowning in flakes and oil, probably looking almost like cradle cap, her head would be itchy all the time, and she’d probably have massive breakouts on her face. Her hair would likely be thinning, pretty short, pretty thin, and she’d probably HATE her hair.
Now at this point I’m sure you think that it would only be rational for me to switch up what the heck Im doing that is destroying this kids hair right? Her hair would be perfect amazing if I stopped treating it like MY hair and started treating it like HER hair type. Right? But naaahhhhh who cares about all that vanity crap. That’s insane. That’s just stupid. Gosh, we’re all just the same, like she’s a beautiful little girl anyway, all I see is her beautiful face, beautiful personality. The fact that you’re focusing on her stringy, greasy, damaged looking hair, scalp and hairline just means you’re a shallow, self hating freak. Why can’t you just love white hair no matter how it looks? Gaawwwwd. And So she continues to live her life EVERY day with that hair, and I tell her we’re all no different so who really cares.
The teasing she’d receive from others, and the self loathing, would only be worse if black hair was the industry standard of beauty and my hair, and the hair of the majority of her classmates, lived up to those standards and reacted well to all the newest hottest products, could do all the newest coolest styles, could look just like all the hottest stars.
Do you get it yet? I dunno. I don’t know how to make this point hit home for people who really just don’t relate. Because it is a big deal and it IS unfair to the little girls, and there are SOOOOOO many little girls who actually have curly hair, or coily hair, but everybody thinks they have like mostly straight and frizzy or kinky crimpy hair. The second that hair is taken care of….the beauty that comes out is just incredible.
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This post is blind. You expect “white mothers” to ehave the way your family brought YOU up.
Maybe many African American families are brought up making their kids hair look perfect. But guess what, not all families or cultures are raised that way. I had wild, blonde, silky soft hair that was a hot mess. Guess what, that’s fine because I WAS a kid. Not an adult heading to work . By the end of a school day only 1/4 of my ponytail would be in. And guess what, my mom didn’t braid my hair every day, GASP. I was a kid . And guess what, no other kids cared, GASP. This is a superficial post.
Don’t put your racist views on other families.
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Well actually Sarah and thank you for entirely illustrating my point here. What I expect is that a mother properly cares for her child, and if the needs of that child are different from what the mother grew up with, for her to figure it out. As a kid with silky straight white hair, basically all you need to do is wash your hair regularly and condition occasionally, brush it out, you’re good to go. The ponytail was likely to keep it out of your face. And with that super low maintenance your hair stayed healthy, probably needed a few trims a year and grew. Right?
But what if you doing that routine you described had your hair breaking off, thinning at the hairline so you look like you’re balding, and made your hair SO rough, and SO tangled that it was a nightmare? What if the 1/4 of your ponytail that stayed in was the only part of your hair that wasn’t all but matted and tangled to death in a ball, so badly that your mom has to cut out some of the knots. Every time. What if you started to look like you had a mushroom cut even though scissors never touched your hair, and what was left looked dull and ugly, and you got made fun of even?
The basic principle here is that different hair textures and thicknesses and patterns require different things. Both you and your parents were happy with the maintenance you gave your hair because that was the basics your hair needed to be happy and healthy. Had I done the exact same thing, my hair would be a lump of short, broken shedding, dry, rough, nightmare.
And that’s why its so important for you to understand the difference between your childs hair texture and your own should you have a biracial child. I’m using black and white biracial in this post because there is such a huge quantitative and qualitative difference, however the same can be true in any biracial child. if not in hair texture then in other aspects.
And like i also mentioned, there are also health issues to look into that affect primarily people of certain descents
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Hello, thank you for the information. I am not a biracial mother but a white Homehealth nurse that cares for a beautiful African American girl with cerebral palsy. I knew absolutely nothing about caring for her hair besides not to wash it often. Today mom ask if I could take her braids out so she can redo her hair over the weekend. I googled about it because I knew nothing. Your page was one I came across, so see not all us white hurls are stupid. Glad you addressed it because the truth is our hair is different
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Girls not hurls lol
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Actually, I hope I didn’t give the impression I think all white girls are stupid, cause nothing can be further from the truth. In fact, I do think that while there are a few that are just lazy, much comes from ignorance (I mean the true definition of ignorance, which is lack of knowing). I’m glad you’re taking the time to look it up. I don’t know what info you found, but for me personally, if i’m taking out cornrows, I like to take the end out with the comb, all the way til either where the braid meets the scalp or until where the braid is wide enough that it can easily be unraveled by hand, and then just pull it out stitch by stitch by hand. I know some people advocate the comb the whole way, but I’ve always found it kinda creates extra knots or tangles…maybe I use the comb wrong lol, but for me its always been way faster and easier and far smoother and pain free just to go with the hand method!
Anyway, good luck! I hope it all goes smoothly!
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I read this whole long racist rant on mothers of biracial children. I have seen many African American women in children out with their hair up in a big fluff ball or not even brushed at all. I am a mother of a biracial child and my childs hair is white people texture with some nappiness but very thick. I have come across many white and black people that don’t know what hair products to use on her hair because it is such a mix between the two. The braids do a great deal of damage to her hair. Also maybe you should write a rant about the black father’s that don’t have the time of day to teach the child their culture. My advice to you is next time you write a few things down you might try not to sound so racist and placing blame on non black women of children by black men. Because it sounds like this is what you really have a problem with.
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Sigh. You didn’t really read it though. Stop playing yourself. I KNOW you didn’t read it. I KNOW you scanned around, read some bold type face, and decided it was GONNA be racist and attack ALL of anybody, and biased against and blah blah blah blah. So you decided to get on your high horse to rant out your ignorant inability to accurately apply your reading comprehension skills. But thanks for sharing! It’s always great to know off the bat where I’m starting off with my commenters!
Stop. Calm down. Go back. And actually read what was being said, and then do your best NOT to insert your own subtitles and commentary, usually of the personal attacks and judgements and hates that you’ve received in the past and have been fighting. Recognize that those things aren’t present in this article.
Maybe, you’d sound slightly more credible if your argument didn’t include the incredibly weak and lame “if the father isn’t there to impart the culture that isn’t my problem tactic”.
In short, fuck yes, It is. I’m bloody sick and tired of you people who love passing the blame and the buck. It’s not your kids fault that you let some irresponsible twat stick his prick in you and then that irresponsible prick took off and left you and your daughter to fend for yourselves. Is that your fault? Nope. But you can’t control other people. You can only control yourself. And you can educate yourself.
Pay attention to what is happening to the kids of the world who are terribly lost and desperately searching for knowledge of or connection to their roots, their heritage. My sister is half white. Different moms. Guess which one of us is without the parent right now? NOT me. Yeah. Shit happens. Guess what though? Her being half Maltese is VERY important to us, and we make sure we big that up as much, if not MORE than her Jamaican half. Why? Cause her mom isn’t here to represent and teach and educate her on the Maltese customs, practices, stories etc, and she gets that from me on a daily basis just by standing at my side and observing me.
You wanna stand ignorantly by? Cool. Your kid, nobody can do a damn thing about it. Besides you. I’ll choose to despise people like you who DIDN’T have to let your kid become a statistic or victimized by self hate and looking for identity in all the wrong places, but had your head too far up your ass to have the wisdom to realize what’s really right in front of you.
Toodles!
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This article is divisive and condescending. There are plenty of assumptions made here about white moms that, frankly, make the author sound just plain racist. Guess what? My child gets to have my heritage and values, too. I’ll do whatever the hell I please with her hair; ain’t shit you can do about it. You have a “beef” with white moms? Your problem is in the first sentence. There are a great number of haters, Betty-better-than-yous, and Nanna-know-it-alls in this world. They should stay in their own lane and mind their own damn business. I’ll be over here teaching my kid how to ignore the likes of you, and to accept herself–hair and all–unconditionally. What a waste of cyberspace this article is!!!
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Please explain where in the first sentence, or even within the first paragraph, this problem you allude to is. I’m pretty sure that the very first SENTENCE says SOME of y’all. The second sentence says that this ALSO applies to some black moms, and that it doesn’t even apply to ALL or even the majority of white moms with biracial children. Sooooooo….I dunno…maybe I read it wrong? lol Just in case though, here that first paragraph is, copy and pasted;
I have a beef with some of y’all, and I think it’s high time that I actually address this on my blog. Now, I would like to preface this post by saying I am well aware of the fact that this applies to some black mothers as well, and that it does not apply to ALL white mother’s with half-black children. In fact, although I may have been able to say it a couple decades ago, now I wouldn’t even say that this could apply to the MAJORITY. With the advent of the internet and youtube, and I’m guessing people becoming more educated either before or after giving birth to their biracial children, I actually don’t see some of these things half as often as I used to. Which makes the white mom’s who are still lost and confused stand out like a sore thumb. No more is ignorance an excuse. It’s time to wise up and recognize this basic fact:
Second of all, are you attempting to say that if a child has no father or a shitty father that the mother or whoever the hell is raising the child has no moral obligation to fill said roles for the child to the best of their ability? Or….I guess it’s OK for a kid to go with only half a life, half the food, half the experiences, half the knowledge, and half the confidence because one of the kids parents by choice or by tragedy isn’t part of their lives.
Woooowww…..what a silly, horribly ignorant thing to say. It’s very sad that you really and truly don’t recognize the error of your thought process. A child needs to know where they come from, their roots, their heritage. There’s an element to being identified as black or partially black that someone who isn’t can never understand, and as such you’d never understand the emotional, mental damage that such an identity crisis can cause in a growing, teen girl ESPECIALLY if the dad fucked off and now she’s stuck with daddy and abandonment issues to boot.
Maybe your realm of experience, knowledge, and research hasn’t delved that far. Mine has. Rather than sit there with your panties in a bunch assuming I’m racist or whatever other nonsense like that I’m attacking anybody, maybe calm your ass down, come back later and read again and really THINK about what I’m saying.
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You are clearly IGNORANT. So, so ignorant. Seriously, you need to take a long walk off a short bridge. You’re doing your culture a disservice by sharing your incredibly ignorant opinion. My daughter is gorgeous and I would NEVER allow her to look like a nappy ass black bitch…. BAM! Oh YES I did!
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I’m confused? So….you’re a white woman with a half black child and yet you come off entirely racist, and are GREAT with spitting out racist hick town language and thoughts….wow. I hope you don’t actually speak like that in front of your daughter, and I certainly hope you don’t ACTUALLY speak about your daughter like this in general. And I hope for everybody’s sake you learn how to read and then think critically. Logical, critical thinking is a life skill far too many people lack in this day and age. And then figure out why it is that what you said just now simply reflects horribly on yourself, on what you think about half of your daughters heritage, and the complex you’re gonna give her against half of her heritage if you don’t change your racist, prejudiced, hick town thought process.
And if you STILL don’t get it lemme break it down a little further. You cretin. Using racist, prejudiced language and stereotypes as an insult against the other half of your child’s race only perpetuates the fact that there’s something shameful inherently about being black, or of having black traits or features in your phenotype. Meaning if she doesn’t want you looking down on her or ever saying such nasty stuff about HER, if she never wants your prejudice to apply to her, she’ll need to hide, erase, or aspire to having the traits of cultures you don’t hurl hate language about….something she can never naturally attain.
Check yourself.
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Ruby, it only proves how some people are. They might f**k Black men and have mixed children but their racism still remains.
Don’t waste your time arguing with filthy trash. You’re better than that.
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As a white women with a beautiful biracial child this is highly offensive. What is it with black people identifying biracial children as black. Cool its part of their culture to have braids and such but did you ever stop to think that some biracial childrens hair doesnt hold cornrows and such as well as black hair?? And if my childs head isnt braided i dont love her? Please get over yourself woman. If you think im going to damage my childs head by putting tight braids everywhere youre insane. Do some research this helps none. And i much rather see beautiful curls than hairloss even on days its frizzy.
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Wow so. You proved several things to me. First: your reading comprehension levels are relatively low. Either that or you just didn’t bother to read it, thinking you could just assume what was being said. Since the part that speaks about cornrows is about 1/6th of the post… tell me even one other thing I covered.
….oh…. you cant?
Secondly please explain where in the post I made a single solitary comment that biracial children were black or even hinted this? Considering that the very first sentences of this post address that this also applies to black women with biracial children… there’s a good chance you can assume right from the jump that I’m differentiating biracial children’s hair from black hair.
Secondly since I actually specifically cover cultural heritage and knowledge in an entirely separate section (which you’d know if you had read it) and which had nothing to do, with hair styles, you’d know that the very detailed and multifaceted coverage of hair care tips and facts to take note of, including protective hair styling, has nothing to so with cultural styling trends.
Third, it’s time for YOU to do YOUR research. You moron. Because ANY style that puts excess pressure on your hair can cause traction alopecia. Including a ponytail. Extra tight is NOT right. It’s also not protective.
The fact that you don’t even know this basic fact and think at this point you’re knowledgeable and educated enough biracial hair and hair care to debate my article without actually reading it means… well.
Actually it kinda means im silly for ever responding to you.
No worries though with the natural hair movement on YouTube, when your daughter is old enough she can just learn everything on her own and teach herself the way you could have been learning and then teaching her 😉
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Also it bothers me that people act as if the white mother/father doesn’t count for nothing. I hate for my child to be identified as black because she’s not. She biracial not black not white biracial.
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She meant to offend all if the white parents of the biracial child. She is ignorant as all hell and thinks it’s cool to write stupid ass blogs like this on the internet..and pretend it to be informative. All it really is is a black woman who hates white women who have a black man as their child’s father. If you read the article, it’s also clear she HAS MI CLUE as to how to properly care for biracial hair, she wants to pretend biracial means black hair when it can come in many different textures. Black women like her are all over the place.. Hating on white women in relation with black men. She’s an ass who likes to be offensive right from the title. Ruby you are clueless and transparent… Please don’t touch biracial hair, you’ll just f#*k it up.. Get lost
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LMAO! Hmmmm…. if only I didn’t have a biracial baby sister and 6 cousins, all of varying textures, porosities, coarsenesses and densities in my family that I DIRECTLY dealt with. And have watched them and countless others THINK they have NO issues because THEY lucked out… until puberty hit and then suddenly their baby fine, curly but manageable hair was tangling and or just splitting and breaking off like crazy… with or without visible texture or coarsenesses changes.
See, thing is… which is actually pretty clear… I’m addressing all parents of biracial children. I actually literally say that I’m also addressing black women with biracial children… And I even throw in there black moms with black children. Because ultimately on a spectrum of black hair… from 4c to damn near 2a… if your kids hair ain’t like yours, ESPECIALLY if it is fundamentally different, you need to know that treating it like yours ain’t gonna work.
But yeah. Ummm… the racist thing you said will help you sleep better at night with your kids hair a damaged mess and you pretending that’s just how it was meant to be AND that by embracing it in all its dehydrated damaged glory that you’re showing her how to love and accept herself 😒
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When somebody calls your child the N word, how will you respond to that? Will you be able to help her deal with racism or will you just ignore it? I’m curious.
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Too funny. If you don’t agree with me, then I must have struck a chord. Yeah keep repeating that honey and maybe you will convince yourself. You responding with a novel to every comment that even remotely criticizes your article means that maybe THEY struck a nerve huh? P.S………why are most of these white women with birracial kids single moms? WTF. think with your heads ladies and not your p…!
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Actually I respond to every point that someone makes. Bad habit of mine and incredibly rare in this day and age, I know right? But I figure if you bothered to write it the least I could do is actually bother to read it and then respond? EVEN IF your message proves you really didn’t even give me the courtesy of reading my post in full. *shrugs*
Anyway… I’m FASCINATED to know exactly what chord you possibly think could have been struck? Like…i dunno… I’m secretly racist against my sister, and half of my family and my friends for being biracial or being white women with biracial children?
Anyway as i addressed in the culture section, women who this applies to anyway are single moms for one reason or another, and even if the daddy and his family are deadbeats, there’s a part of their ancestry that they will need you to help them connect to and understand in some way.
I’m sure they’ve figured out not to get knocked up by the next deadbeat with pretty lies already. Hopefully. 😉
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You sound so terrible! Are you serious?!?! Who made you qualified to tell others that they are bad mothers for not having their child’s hair done to your liking? You sound like a very jealous ignorant!
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A very jealous ignorant…… what? Because you do know that that was not a complete insult right?
Anyway. If I adopted a white child. And then I treated her hair like mine. So in essence her hair looked wet oily and stringy and thin, scalp looked clearly irritated, and the split ends were visible from 10 feet away…
Would you say that what I’m doing is what is best for both the child and for the hair of that little girl? Or would you say that regardless of whether my heart was in the right place what I’m doing is incorrect and I need to do better?
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Makes me thank heavens that I have a biracial boy with easier to manage hair (well sorta). I use Loreal kids 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner. Then when I’m finished washing his hair, I work in coconut oil into his hair and scalp. Since his hair is on the dryer side, I tend to wash it every other day and not everyday, probably should cut it down to three times a week. He’s got curls from both sides, my Sicilian side and his father’s kinky hair. It’s interesting though, that my Sicilian grandfather had the exact same texture as my son does. He’s approaching two, so I look forward to when he gets a little trim and style his hair with a nice fade. It’s gonna look great. ❤ But God willing, if I have a daughter next, I'd probably put her hair in little Afro puffs or braid it. ^^
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Awwwwwww that’s sweet 😄 I hope your next one is a little girl too!
Just a heads up. I’ve been corresponding with one reader. It’s about her adult boyfriend, who is biracial. His mother never really did/ had to do much, and it wasn’t until mid puberty where he started to have some issues.
His were in the way of a very dry/ flaky scalp (not dandruff) and just…puffy undefined hair (even though he has maybe 2c/3a texture hair).
It sounds to me like you’re already starting to see a typical problem in biracial hair which is the lack of moisture. Curly hair, in general, often has trouble producing enough natural oils/ getting that natural oil (called sebum) down the hair shaft.
Another thing that we often have is porosity issues, with low porosity being a big thing.
Obviously you have a baby boy at this point but if you want to start to cater to these tendencies from now…
only shampoo once a week or if absolutely necessary. Every day though you can cowash… which basically means washing wth conditioner. And all natural, no silicone or parabens (low porosity means moisture has a hard time getting in… silicones etc make a water tight seal around the shaft and don’t wash off easily without harsh sulfates… blocking new moisture)…
So basically in the nightly bath use a nice conditioner instead and then once a week… or if he covers himself in mud lol… use a shampoo then a conditioner.
They’ve got some really great kids/ biracial lines out these days that are all natural… I’m pretty sure shea moisture, mixed chicks, carols daughter, tgin, and Cantu just to name a few… next time you’re out shopping maybe pick up a shampoo and conditioner from one of these lines instead?
Just a thought though. In either case thanks for sharing your story wth me 😊
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This post may help someone and that’s nice. My daughter is mixed but has my thin light curly hair. Her father, who is black, takes her to have her hair braided and it is causing her hair to break and fall out, as evidenced by the broken hair as the braids are removed. Does he care? No, the idea of black culture is far more important to him. Bored by this post…it such a turnoff to hear any group of people talk about pride in their race as if its reality. The only reason people have different color skin is ancestors location to the sun..look below the surface and theres no difference. I see daily, its people of black skin who perpetuate the idea of “being black”, and thus making the racial divide a reality. When I gave birth to my daughter, there was an ugly disappointment among his whole family that she didn’t look black. How f$*king disgusting of them not to simply acknowledge a child of God when they enter the world!!!!! Instead, he and his family see her for her racial currency, and still, years later. To keep more relevance to the topic of the post, I have never preferred to see cornrows on almost anyone I have known that has worn them, I think they make the person look restricted and bound up, I find it a very ugly look. I find those children without them are gorgeous just the way they are.
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To the poster: why don’t you work on your own insecurities and mind your own business? Never read such a patronising piece is a while.
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I also found this blog very patronising. I agree chemicals and hair extensions on extremely young child can border on child endangerment however I feel that most of us white mother’s are judged by the worst of the white mother’s of mixed race children. As I always tell my mixed race daughter ‘don’t become a bigot towards the bigots’. Being a bigot is not healthy regardless.
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I feel quite annoyed at your post too, although I did enjoy reading it. It obviously took you some time to write it. As a white mother of 2 mixed raced girls. I’ve had some experience of managing their hair. I started corn rowing it when they were very little and was obsessed with keeping it kept and tidy. Like you I felt that hair sometimes was untidy. However there is a big difference in matted un conditioned bed head hair to the down styles you see in magazines and that child on the picture on the left. It clearly has been brushed and oiled. When my eldest was almost 5 she started suffering from skin reactions to the chemicals in the so called child friendly products available. I tried many natural products that were either too heavy or too sticky. I live in a predominantly Afro Caribbean area and took frequent advice on products care. Eventually she ended up with a severe infection in the scalp not visible, the hospital detected this as she was swelling. It was a black doctor who informed me that I need to lay off the corn rowing and the products. I took this advice but in my effort for the tidy look I know use straightening irons twice a month. Although this is not ideal I have no flaky scalps, no infections and no painful pulling on hair in the morning. I also like to allow the skin to breath, too much oil traps in bacteria. I only apply it on the ends and a small run through . My closest friend a white hairdresser also warned me about the corn rowing explaining how she sees many mixed race and black girls with big foreheads due to the constant pull. I now only do this occasionally and also wear natural hair down using white hair products mostly the Aussie brand. I think you need to realise that the mixed race hair is not black hair, it’s far more stretchy and very different. I have learnt that I would rather preserve my child’s smaller forehead, hair and health that keep trying to make my children have the African look. This is their words. I currently childmind some black girls from 2 family’s one has a growing forehead with immaculate hair whilst the other is corn rowed and often a bit smelly and fluffy. Either way I see there hair is very different from my girls. Cornrows look lovely but are not ideal for mixed hair, neither is straightening my child’s hair but it’s the better of the two. I never would chemical straighten. I have also not got that unsightly lion main that many mixed girls are suffering.
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Let me says this to you not all mothers black or white,white or black let their child or children hair go any kind of way or just plain messy.i have a mixed child and my son is the most beautifulest child that God could ever give me. My son is five months and he is my first mixed child and i hurts me because i really don’t know what put on my son’s hair.i have put baby oil that broke my son’s hair out.the cocount oil but i honestly do not know can you give me some tips. I have other children but they are not mixed.so any of your information or tips for hair will help me.
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I try to imagine what this article would have been like if it was written out of love with hopes of educating those that may be looking to be educated in tending to a mixed child’s hair. I am a white mother with two mixed daughters. I was actually looking for answers as to how I can better care for my daughters hair bc it seems really dry and it is breaking in the back where she lays on it. I put oil in it but it doesn’t seem to be enough. I have been told by my mother and father in law to put grease in my babies hair which I had been doing for a while but it just seemed to get worse. I was just recently told by a mother with mixed children that grease could literally destroy their hair bc they aren’t completely black and that mixed hair is exactly that- a mix. I was kind of blown away by the hatred in this article and literally had to pray about it before responding. I really think you should try to help rather than divide…there is enough hatred and racism in the world for you to be telling me as a white mother that I am lazy or that I don’t love my daughters bc their hair isn’t perfect. I am learning and I would appreciate grace rather than ridicule….if you can help then awesome but if not you should keep your judgmental thoughts to yourself.
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This article is laughable. What an idiot!
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I try very hard to make sure my daughters hair is healthy and instill a love for her natural hair. If I have it my way she will never perm it! She’s two! I’ve been educating myself since I was pregnant. I do have a question. I’ve tried gel, two types of edge cream, coconut oil based holding spray and I still get a halo of fuzz when I do any updo at all. Any suggestions??
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My first comment is going to be thank you for saying SOME white mothers with mixed children… Now two lets get into how this made me feel!!!! First of all a black mother did that straightening not a white mother… Black moms also neglect the hair of their children… So lets for some odd reason in the universe not blame this on race but personality!!!!! Two.) y’all is not a word but (some of you) would have made an astonishing difference in the way this article may or not be perceived by the individual reader. Three) Unless your child is mixed or you are a hairdresser who does mixed hair or you are a black woman with a mixed daughter please dont pretend to know every mixed child texture as they do not always fall into the 3B – 4C textures but take on their own identity.. I myself have tried many brands and types and have found products that work and do not and the FRIZZZZ OMG the FRIZZZ… FOUR.) Maybe the mom is trying and that is her best.. BUT FOR YOU TO TAKE IT UPON YOURSELF TO MOM SHAME BASED OFF OF RACE>>> THAT MAKES YOU NO BETTER THAN THOSE STUCK UP WHITE WOMEN SHAMING BLACK MOTHERS JUST BECAUSE THEIR BLACK>>> GET A GRIP RISE ABOVE SHOW SOME LOVE AND AFFECTION AND STOP HAVING ?(BEEF)? yes I am from the BRONX I know what BEEF is but I also like to use proper Roderick when attempting to appeal to a group of people maybe you could too.. This article just starts out with all kids of racial hate .. NOT FOR NOTHING JUST SAYING
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She isn’t “shaming” anyone. It’s not about your feelings, it’s about helping people who need help with their children’s hair.
If you aren’t one of the people who needs help, great. But some folks DO need the help.
Sometimes the truth hurts and it isn’t always pretty. But sometimes it needs to be said.
Also the term is “rhetoric”…not Roderick, since you attempted to correct the author’s grammar, I thought maybe you’d like to know that.
You made some good points that I agree with too, but I wish the white ladies in here would stop being defensive.
No one is attacking you. Maybe your feelings were a bit hurt, but try to understand the point of her post.
She wasn’t trying to hurt anyone…she was trying (albeit in a blunt way) to reach out to the moms who need to pay more attention to their children’s hair, especially their daughters.
Hair matters a lot for girls, especially black and mixed girls. It is important for them to feel good about themselves in a society where they are often told that only “white girl” hair is beautiful.
Now if that offends some people, I’m sorry, but it is what it is. The author was only speaking the truth.
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I’m biracial and I thought the girls above had cute curls. Abd their hair didn’t look messy just natural. It doesn’t have to be corn rowed or braided to be cared for. It’s cool to wear natural curls out and down now. There’s lots of YouTube videos on that too. Also not every mixed kid has the same texture of hair.
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I think this is ON POINT! As the white mother of a biracial daughter with LONG, GORGEOUS, BOUNCY, HEALTHY super curly hair at almost 14 I know she knows what she’s talking about. You other white moms who have toddlers and younger kids who say oh my daughter rocks an Afro and a couple poofs and is sooo cute who needs braids?! Sound like naive, ignorant women just as she depicted. My kid looked cute like that too!! Duuuhh!! Ever seen other little black girls rock that look? YUP me too! Once in awhile that is ADORABLE and an appreciated and necessary break for their hair AS LONG AS their scalp is oiled and their locks moisturized well and then you enjoy it for a day…maybe two and then you DO THEIR HAIR! Y’all might think it’s cute now but wait until they have three pounds of curly, thick hair running down their back and you can’t get it to cooperate lol. You’ll learn, but by then the damage is DONE. And how long do you plan to sit there and spend hours doing their hair? A hell of a lot longer if you don’t start doing it now. How in the world are our queens going to learn to care for and embrace their hair and their beauty if YOU don’t? Oh and for all of you saying “it’s just hair” UGH! It’s not “just hair” to black women, it’s a crown, it’s power, it’s PRIDE and let’s not forget that you might call her “bi-racial” but to the rest of the world they’re BLACK…raise em right!! My only critique? EDGES! Please put a lil cream oil on those baby hairs framing her face so she looks more polished and those fragile strands get much needed moisture. Edges can quickly become a fuzzy halo for a receding hairline if it properly cared for. The beads and the barrettes at the end are a personal choice but does help stretch the curl pattern slightly and give them that sought after length when their older. PREACH MS RUBY!! It needed to be said!! Please take heed!
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That was the must rudest thing I ever read. They way u talk to people is so uneducated. How r u gonna call a mom lazy when u don’t even know 1 thing about them or what goes on behind closed doors. Ur a joke to me.
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Your typing is the joke, honey…”must rudest?” “How r u gonna call a mom lazy when you don’t know 1 thing about them”…and you have the nerve to call somebody else uneducated.
You sound like a twelve-year-old on the Internet.
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I’ve given up the fight with my step daughters hair.. they are now 10 and 11 and there biological mother is ruining there hair by constantly straightening it every weekend they are there. I still have them put oil and certain mixed products to condition it and try to keep the softness that’s left there. They don’t want braids anymore, they said there too tight and too babyish….sigh.. and when they are at our house they want to do it there selves… I’ve tried explaining the harshness of heat , and the biological mother loves there hair straight so now they think it looks better… when in reality their curls were gorgeous you just needed a little product and to keep it Maintained…biological mother has also relaxed the older ones hair multiple times.. now the front of her hair is fried and hasn’t grown more than .5 cm in 2 years…
My son on the other hand hates his hair combed and parted… haven’t been able to have his hair long since 3… but at least he’s a boy I still put product in it and left some length so you can see the curls a bit..but it has to be short cause there was times when it was long it would start to dread up in the back and it wasn’t worth the hassle of temperature tantrums.
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I understand keeping African American’s hair and scalp oiled, but why is having their hair puffy and curly not pretty or clean looking? I think the children in the first three photos look very nice, cute, and clean. Having curly hair or an afro is a part of African American culture and most of my black friends relax or straighten their hair, wear wigs, or otherwise change or hide their naturally beautiful curly hair because of white American culture. I just don’t agree with your opinion that those curls are ugly or unclean.
My boyfriend has very large puffy, curly, hair that hangs like a long afro and frames his head in a puff when put up in a ponytail. I find it very attractive not unkept, but his grandmother who wears wigs says he looks “wild.” I think this racist view is perpetuated by white America and is evident in this blog. I don’t think afros, or curls, or dreadlocks, or mullets, or Mohawks, or manbuns or any hairstyle is a mark of someone being unclean or uncivilized. My boyfriend’s hair is so much better taken care of than my strawberry blonde waves. I haven’t had a haircut in 3 years, my hair is not healthy, most of the time it is not clean and is always in the exact same hairstyle, but I get compliments on my staple braid daily. My boyfriend does get just as many if not more compliments on his hair, which is odd, if so many people like the look of the afro why dont more people rock it? The reason is clear: my boyfriend also receives adversity because of his hair style choice, including having difficulty getting jobs, a problem I do not face. Does my boyfriend really have to cut off his beautiful hair to be treated well? I don’t think he should have to, but this seems to be the point this blog is making.
My boyfriend is half black, half Philippino and has minimal knowledge of how to take care of his own hair since he has let it grow out and has problems with severe dryness. I put oils in his hair numerous times a week but we are still fighting a battle with his hair. A grown 28 year old black man has trouble with his hair, more consideratation could be shown towards white mother’s of biracial children.
I don’t currently have a child but still felt attacked as I may have a biracial child in the future and am currently struggling with my boyfriend’s hair.
I will not be a failure as a mother for allowing my child to show off her natural curls as long as they’re healthy.
The voice and tone of this blog could have been tailored to be helpful and informative but instead read as an attack meant to offend and I do not agree.
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I can’t thank you enough for this realistic and comprehensive blog. My oldest daughter is 24 and is biracial. I am native… I didn’t know anything at the beginning and can relate to some of the reviews indicating frustration… my daughter is a hairstylist now specializing in ethnic hair. She works hard but like the shoemaker.. has little time left to deal with her own 2 daughter’s hair. It is funny, but I go over and do their hair on Sundays to give her a break! You are right, with some patience and determination anyone can learn the right techniques and ways to care properly for anything. Thanks again.. not too many people are as forthright without being judgemental!
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Hi Ruby. I appreciate your blog and the information. But what do you do when your daughter hates her hair and hates you because doing her hair hurts. I neglect it every f
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Hi Ruby. I appreciate your blog and all the information. But what do you do when your daughter hates her hair and hates you because of how much it hurts. I neglect it every few days to give her a break. The battle and the tears over hair rule our life. I took her to two different professionals who claimed to specialize in her hair they both said the curls were too difficult for them to deal with and unlike anything they had seen before. She has SO much hair. I spent money on every product I could find that advertised for black or biracial hair and honestly, the Pantene is the only one that lets me get the comb through after. I would love for her to look like she has cared for hair, but she hates herself because of it.
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I love what u say I did not know to keep my daughter look nice . I went to salon . I couldn’t bare look lazy mum . It not right that we mother that don’t know don’t take time to find some help for daughters 👍😊
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This ” letter ” is aimed at white women with biracial children or ” half black ” as you say . But then you go on to talk about hair care for black children? These children are biracial and therefore have biracial hair , not black hair ! – educate yourself!
Regards
A mixed race adult with mixed race children
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OK, I am also mixed. Not all biracial children have “biracial” hair. Some have hair that is no different from an average black person. Maybe you should educate yourself.
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I relize this post is from 2014 but I do want to thank you for making it.
I am a white mom of biracial children who is raising them to love all that they are… And I am also capable of doing their beautiful hair.
I looked up this post to pass onto my husbands ex. Because yesterday I had to work for 2 hours to get the dreadlocs out of her hair …. I plan to share this with her. She should know.
So thank you for sharing this.
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My dime is u are an ignorant moron who has been raised to think that u need all this special care and attention to your hair and truth is any kid can go natural and it’s beautiful as is….it’s just u have been taught that it’s not so don’t let your opinions and yes dear it’s merely an opinion come across as fact. FACT is if more black women went completely natural, using only some leave in or other moisturizing product your hair wouldn’t need all the so called scalp oils and crap load of other products you use not to mention hours of wasted time. Your body produces all the sebum your hair needs you just need to learn how to distribute it thru out the length of your hair. No kid should have to sit for hours for their hair to be done. I think it’s funny when a black lady gives a white lady advice on how to care for her biracial kids hair… because 9 times out of 10 if you touch that biracial kids hair it is super soft, it only looks dry because it’s not full of greasy oily hair products that in the end only do damage and require you to continue using them for a lifetime and in the end create wirey and course hair. Um no thanx, if that’s what you consider good hair then by all means keep on keeping on. I guess all your good hair tips is why black people can grow their hair long so easily right? It’s not the 1950s … natural hair, healthy hair, letting your hair be the hair that it is and not trying to make it something it’s not is so freeing and exilerating and frankly you flat out come across as dumb and pathetic….and it must suck to try and make it hair be something it is not. Hair is hair. Black or white. My daughter is half Nigerian and i am as white as they co.e and her hair is more African than your “black” hair …. and guess what her hair is perfect! Kinky tightly coiled healthy bouncy lovely and everybody wants to touch it. She is 14 and when she was lititle I can’t count the rude black women who came up to me and began to tell me what greasy products I should use in her hair…..in the beginning I was polite after a few times I would just laugh considering I was looking at their ugly hair as they were standing there giving me hair tips for my child. I guess me having long bone straught healthy thick blonde hair and my daughters kinky curls rubbed them the wrong way. All my kid gets is compliments on her hair….it’s a whole Lotta work let me tell u. It’s magic, shampoo, condition, she throws in some “It’s A 10” afterwards then some “carols daughter curl therapt” if she wants it tame and not so wild (but some days she wants it’s wild and fun) then she’s out the door as it air dries. To everyone out there Ive tried it all and listened to people I shouldn’t have when she was younger…did braids and twists, used all kinds of CRAP to weigh it down so the curls were more TAME whick I just think is another word for greasy and in my opinion keep it natural and healthy, condition good and find a great leave in and comb out while wet and let it be. My daughters hair is so thick it has to be sectioned off 6 times just to comb thru so I know the struggle but if u want her to have healthy hair that grows, no breakage, strong and beautiful…let it be how God intended it.
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THANK YOU!!!!!!
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Meaning thank you Jen for your awesome comment, let the hair be as God intended it.
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@Jen…and I bet you think your long straight blonde hair is better than Black women’s hair, don’t you?
You just said that Black women have ugly hair. Nice job showing what kind of person you are…even if you have a biracial daughter.
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“Traction alopecia is a form of gradual hair loss that is caused by tension, stress, and pulling on the scalp and hair fibers. Though traction alopecia can occur in any race, it is most common among women of color who wear their hair pulled back in braids, or in other tight styles, away from the face.”
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Can I add how important it is to white mothers to have our biracial children affirmed by black women? Nothing makes me happier than when my daughter gets a compliment on her hair by a woman who is African-American out in public. To me, it let’s her know that not just her white mama thinks she’s beautiful, but women who she can also identify with acknowledge that she is a beautiful young woman. I think it is so healthy to her identity as she grows up. So I hear what you are saying! At the same time, recognize that it is nice to hear when it is being done right, not just hearing when it isn’t.
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This is stupid. The girls in the picture with the “messy hair” had way cuter hairstyles teen the ones in the “kempt hair” picture. Not everyone likes those little braids sticking out of the top of their hair. Does it strike you that maybe people like their kids hair poofy and messy because they’re little kids and it doesn’t really matter? Everyone doesn’t have to do their hair like black people. Mixed people don’t have hair like blacks, because they aren’t black. They’re half black and they’re half white. So no everyone’s hair doesn’t work like yours and everyone doesn’t want their kids walking around with those funny looking braids sticking up everywhere.
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Than*
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LOL wow. I can actually tell that not only are you incredibly prejudiced, you’re actually one of those people who don’t even know you’re incredibly prejudiced.
You’re also incredibly ignorant. And since you don’t seem all that brilliant, I’ll explain that ignorant means lacking in knowledge.
First of all, you have no idea what my hair “is like”. Nor do you have any true concept of what my ancestral makeup is like. Nor do you have any idea what the variance of biracial hair is within my family, to try and “educate” me on the difference between my hair versus anybody else’s.
Secondly, since you don’t seem to know this, I’ll explain. You can have someone who has the darkest skin, with 2 black parents, 4 black grandparents who has bone straight, white textured hair, and someone who has all white family except their great grand daddy was black and somehow they come up with the most coarse, most porose hair ever seen in life.
That’s just first off.
Secondly, if you have never heard of protective styling, then you have never had someone with even biracial hair anywhere near your life that has had their hair properly cared for. Look it up. Protective styling for the win!
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Offensive and loaded with grammatical errors. 🙄
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Definitely offensive, as is evidenced by the neverending comments several years after the post first debuted. Loaded with grammatical errors? Come on now. You didn’t even try to try with that one. Did you so much as bother to read the post, or are you just one of the many rabble rauser faceless nobody in the crowd types who likes to jump after everybody else is done taking a stand so you can feel super cool you threw a punch and “got yours”?
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You are the one who pushes bullying on those mothers who are trying to learn. Oh and guess what you ain’t shit.
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While you certainly make some valid points, I am so discouraged and shocked by your condescending attitude. I think the children pictured who are supposedly not letting “out” their beauty through perfectly manicured hair are GORGEOUS. For heavens sake, they’re children. Do you do your hair perfectly poised every day ? I doubt it. Who does?! Maybe some do, but no one should feel pressured to. Of course, learn to care well for your child’s hair, but that doesn’t mean they need to look like a catalogue model every moment. My hair mainly lives in a bun. I’m not somehow uglier or less worthy. And just because you want to do cornrows doesn’t mean everyone has to. You’ve got some decent points and advice, but You’d do well to show a bit more grace and tact. And be a bit more open minded/flexible.
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I find it mildly amusing that, to date, despite my very many detailed responses over the years, that there are still comments like this. Every once in a while I’ll respond, if only because I understand that reading through hundreds of comments can be daunting. Likely also because I understand human nature, and human nature is such that when people drop all the niceties and sugar coating that those listening often end up being so shocked by the bluntness that they often entirely miss the point.
So, I’ll reiterate my point. Again. For the umpteenth time. Again.
First of all, lemme just start right off by saying that not only in the comments section, but also often in my personal email, I receive many a thank you letter from white mother’s with biracial children. Now, since I realistically wrote this post ENTIRELY for the subset of women who actually needed to know, and wanted the help, I will continue to be entirely 100 percent proud of my words, and of my approach.
Since I just brought it up, let’s next address my approach. Have you ever seen those Scared Straight type shows? You know the ones. A bunch of children, tweens and teens with bad attitudes, behavioural issues, and a history of mild to moderate criminal behaviour and associations are ushered into a jail. They are made to change into prison jumpsuits, take out all piercings, off with all the jewelry and non-essential head coverings etc. And then for the next several hours, prison officials and prisoners use new and inventive ways to terrify the pants off these kids. They quite literally lose the shirts and shoes they walked in with. They are threatened, insulted….shooooot, some of the things these inmates say to terrify and intimidate these kids would literally be chargeable as a criminal sexual act.
It’s only after they have broken the spirits of these poor, terrified children that the prisoners talk to them one on one, or give group speeches, appealing in a caring and compassionate way.
Why do I bring this up? Well, to be quite frank, 98% of the reasons I’ve got everybody all up in a tizzy has to do with about 3 sentences at the beginning of a very long, detailed post. You have an issue with me slapping some reality into a mom who has thrown up her hands in frustration or is continually blaming her child’s short, brittle hair on her “ancestry” that’s on you. Personally, I think it was hella effective.
Now let’s go back. Back to that beginning part of this post. The part where I also say the horrible, just awful, basically unforgivable (or so many commentators have said) words that then made everybody basically skim read til the end, if they so much as did that, all to come spout some outrage at my post? Yeah well, in that part I also make it incredibly clear that I am not talking to all mother’s of biracial children, nor am I speaking about all biracial children’s hair. Certainly I am not speaking to all white mother’s of biracial children, since this problem has been seen with mother’s of all races who have children with black hair of any variety.
Phew!
Now let’s address this ridiculous assertion that people have put upon my post, which stated that unless your children’s hair is immaculately “manicured” that I am calling them names. lol. Cause I mean really, logical leap much?
The child seen in this post, because there is only one little girl here, from being a tiny baby to a pre teen, is exactly that. THE child. As is one. One child. I expressly featured in this post because she was an example, from a mom who set an example, for what NOT to do. Her mother is white, from a family of all white people. When she gave birth to a biracial child, one who developed thick, black textured, tendency to be dry hair, it certainly would have been a mind fuck, right? I mean…she was a young, teen mom, which is already hard enough, who has the experience of having straight, silky hair. Hair that gets greasy looking if not washed daily or every other day, max.
The father and the father’s family were not terribly involved. It was on her to try and figure out. And she did. She figured out that the harsh cold of winter would cause her daughter’s hair to get brittle and break off quite easily, and that the dry air that comes with central heating and space heaters only exacerbated the dry, brittle, and irritated condition of her child’s hair and scalp. Luckily she lived in an area that had things like black hair care products, stylists, and the like. She had and made some friends along the way who had experience with black hair. Her daughter’s hair grows so long she can sit on it, when she leaves it down and out it doesn’t frizz and get pouffy or tangled or break off.
Despite what you think you know, black hair absolutely comes in a whole rainbow of textures and porosity’s. If the biracial child your life can get away with using Pantene Pro V or Herbal Essences, shampoo her hair every day, and a little Alberto or Vidal leave in conditioner and is still healthy and happy and strong, good for you. I’m happy for you. You’ve never been in the predicament that MANY MANY millions of women are in.
I’m sorry though, if you see kids on the street with their hair frizzy and dry and damaged and damn near matting together but because the kid is biracial you think it’s “beautiful” and “cute” I don’t know what else to say at this point. If I saw a white kid and they had bone straight, baby fine hair, and their hair was oily and greasy and dirty with dandruff and it looked like nobody had washed, combed or cared for that kids hair in three months, I would ALSO DEFINITELY think that was bordering on abusive.
Have you met any children lately? Do you not remember your childhood? Childhood is difficult, and kids can be thoughtless and cruel. And….have you ever been a teenage girl? Ever? Many of the Mom’s who contact me are those with preteen or teen children, and now that their kid has become self-aware and has cared about boy attention, or about looking or feeling beautiful, NOW they are experiencing the issue….their kid thinks that they don’t have the “good” curly type of black hair, they just have the frizzy, tangly, dry puff ball kind (true fact, even the most kinky of black hair curls, albeit more like a springy coil, and with adequate care, protection from the elements, and moisture can be tangle free, healthy, moist and curly (or coily) all day long).
Those moms now recognize that they did in fact treat their kids hair as lovingly as they did their own, not recognizing that shampooing every day, using the wrong products, just conditioning without moisturization, not giving the hair shaft a break from time to time by putting it into a protective style, perming hair or putting fake hair in at too young an age or always pulling hair back into a bun, which has caused thinning or breakage and bald spots…the list goes on…point is they now recognize that their ignorance, and their forgetting to celebrate and cherish the beauty of our individual differences, have now put their children in a tough place, where they mostly hate their black or biracial hair, or face and body features, they are lost because they don’t understand common cultural or racial references or customs, and kinda wish they could wash the blackness away.
That sounds terribly, but I’m serious. That’s the situation. My heart breaks for these kids. Whether that child is beautiful or not is irrelevant to whether their hair is being properly cared for. And whether you want to admit it or not, a female’s hair is their crown, is their glory, is their way of expressing themselves, is their beauty. Just because your child is 7 years old now and doesn’t care doesn’t mean that at 14 when she does care that she’ll forget all that she does or doesn’t know and just wipe the slate clean and start again.
Children don’t know better. Parents should.
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@Classic Ruby…I agree with ALL of this. It bothers me that so many people in here (of a certain persuasion, if you catch my drift) seem to be defensive and they refuse to understand the reality of what you’re saying.
Your intent was not to shame or judge anyone, it was to be helpful. How people take that is on THEM.
I can relate to so much of what you said. Some people might say that “it’s just hair” but life isn’t fair and racism goes deeper than the color of a person’s skin…we are also judged by the texture of our hair.
Being a black/mixed child is very difficult and for girls, it’s even harder because of Eurocentric beauty standards.
And what a lot of people don’t seem to realize is that not all mixed girls have loose curls aka “good” hair (as ignorant people like to say).
Some mixed girls, like me, have hair that is thick and dry and more difficult to work with.
Your advice seems more pertinent to those mothers with kids who have hair like mine.
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I have an 11 year old biracial son. I love to keep it natural and a little wild. I think its beautiful. He is well loved and well taken care of.
Its extremely judgemental to think that because a child doesnt have braids or ponytails, they are unloved and not taken care of.
My black husband loves his hair and he loves his hair.
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I think it’s insulting that in your mind you equate natural black hair with wildness, and that in your mind whether you see natural black hair freshly combed out after being washed and moisturized, or wild, uncombed, unwashed, dry brittle “wild” hair that they look the same to you.
If you saw two white kids with bone straight hair, both being worn down, parted down the middle, both approximately shoulder length, could you tell the difference between the one who was freshly showered and shampooed and mom brushes her hair before she goes to school every morning and the one whose hair hasn’t been washed or combed in a week?
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racist
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I am a white mother with a biracial daughter. I got on the internet today to optimistically search for better ways to take care of my daughters hair. Your post left me feeling deflated, defeated and disrespected. Frankly, I find it disturbing that anyone can get on the internet and pose as an expert while spewing their ignorance and hatred towards a certain group. Instead of lifting women up – you are tearing them down and disguising it as a tutorial. Maybe you should take your own advice and search the net on how to get your point across and help people without alienating your audience. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go wash my hair with a big vat of white girl Pantene while my daughter sits in a pile of her own filth. Or maybe I’ll just brush myself off and continue to search for ways to improve without being shamed and disrespected.
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Okay so it took me FOREVER to get through this and reading some comments, not all because well damn…that’s a lot.
First off let me start off with this, I am an African American woman with a biracial child. I know how to take care of African American hair so well, that I constantly cut my hair just to regrow it. I know all about LOC.
I came over this blog looking up styles for my daughter. I as well felt insulted but I guess not really since I understand you to an extent, and have had hands on experience. I looked more as if you were just misinformed about biracial children. Yeah you may have family that are biracial but that does not mean you have experienced every single texture a biracial child can throw at you.
When I was pregnant I was more on your mind, biracial children have to be treated like black children. When she came out I couldn’t believe my daughter was sooooo pale with bone straight hair. As time went on she only became slightly darker and hair curlier but her texture more of her Spanish and Asian side. My daughter can pass for another race, people assume she’s not my daughter. I tried treating her hair black. No good, tried treating it Spanish/Asian. No good! My daughters hair is SUPER DIFFERENT! If I do braids they DO NOT last more than 2 days. If I put them in ponytails, after 15 minutes her hair looks like that 2nd picture in the middle at the beginning of your post. Nothing holds in my daughters hair…nothing, no style. It’s so stressful especially when we go out to a gathering or event and I do her up nicely, I literally have to redo whatever it is styled as every 10 to 15 minutes. It’s growing but only because sometimes I HAVE to let it look a mess so it doesn’t go through so much manipulation. And we black people should know better than anyone that too much manipulation causes breakage. She gets her hair washed once a week with honey garnier all naturals shampoo, edens deep coconut conditioner, Aunt Jackies knot on my watch or carols daughter hair milk and coconut oil as a sealant. Her hair always LOOKS dry but when you touch it, it’s very soft because I maintain it. It took me FOREVER to find this regimen.
What I’m really pressing on is your approach on the whole post. You mean well but the post itself sounds like you are attacking people with biracial children making it seem like we are uneducated. Sure you have the lines that say “not everyone” but it still feels like it. To say styling is a necessity and that our child’s hair isn’t white textured you can’t just brush and go…. I did a brush and go on my daughters hair and it didn’t frizz or tangle like braids make her hair do. Her hair can not go into an Afro. It is basically silky tight curls that hang. And the silkiness is the reason no hairstyle holds. I’ve done many girls hair but hers is beyond me. I think if you took a softer approach it wouldn’t have gotten so many negative comments. You were better off saying “many women with biracial children who’s hair favors their African American side the most” would have been easier on the post. And saying please let me inform you of a way to grow out your precious child’s hair with beautiful styles. I understand why so many moms are insulted by it because unlike black hair, biracial hair doesn’t stay. So that frizzy halo is just another part of being biracial. It just comes right out. Biracial hair just like black and white hair, has its own regimen and way of being taken care of. You can’t just treat it black or white.
This comes from a mom, a cousin, a friend and dance teacher of many biracial children.
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Awwww I am SO happy you took the time to post your experience, and to share with others. Especially because unlike many people who have posted or emailed, you are a black woman with a biracial child. LOTS of people go through the comments, and I commend you for trying to get through them. I’m just hoping that someone who has your experience comes across your post and finds solace that they aren’t alone.
Now in all fairness, I made sure to acknowledge that this doesn’t just apply to white mothers of biracial children, or to all of them, and can definitely apply to black moms with black or biracial children. You’re right. I suppose though due to the fact that I was speaking to white moms more so, and that I was speaking more specifically to the black-white blend of genetics and hair differences, I geared my speech and the specifics I addressed to that general audience.
I appreciate that you brought up the fact that you tried to treat it like black hair but it was a no-go. That’s kinda exactly my point. If your child is biracial, there’s a high probability that your child’s hair is NOT going to respond favorably to what works for your hair, regardless of your race. And that means a whole world of struggle and experimentation to find what will.
As a person with 4C hair, I can tell you that I had the exact same struggle as your child regarding the fact that 4 seconds after my mom neatly braided it that my hair was frizzed out and looked a mess. I can tell you that my cousin with coarser silky strands with 3a curls could have her hair cornrowed and it stayed neat for like a week, despite never using a scarf at night. I can tell you that my baby sister, who has 3c hair that is super fine and baby fine silky that her hair slides right out of a braid the second she sneezes.
I bring all of this up to actually say that that frizzy halo is NOT actually a part of being biracial that MUST stay. To be honest, I thought it was a part of having natural hair, period, my whole life growing up. We didn’t have the internet. We didn’t have the products, or the knowledge, that we have now. We had like 3 product lines, hair grease, and perm. All of the above did nothing for me, except for when I hit puberty and then suddenly my hair was breaking off inches at a time.
My hair wouldn’t hold anything without frizzing out. Whether it be heat, braids, cornrows…like damn, my hair wouldn’t even hold a perm right.
NOW I know not only the gamut of black hair textures (SO many women had no idea) I also know about porosity. For me that was the game changer. Naturally I have INCREDIBLY high porosity hair. It’s that high porosity that allows my hair to pick up any trace of moisture in the air and frizz out, but also immediately loses said trace moisture therefore having 0 weight.
My sister and her baby fine-haired self also has excessively dry skin and eczema…however that baby fine hair, despite it’s continual dryness, can’t take heavy products or oils. My other cousin had wicked coarse hair, though it was silky in texture, and long as hell…until it all broke off. Even though her hair and scalp looked shiny and moist, it was brittle and dry. Etc etc. Not one of my cousins has the same hair as another, and none of them have the same hair as me.
So please don’t think I’m generalizing. Because I’m not. The curly girl method, for example, appeals to and works for anybody who doesn’t have bone straight hair (and some who do, especially thick hair from what I hear).
The most frustrating thing has been figuring out what moisture means and how to get it in and how to keep it in based on several factors. I’m actually writing a post on this. I’m so happy you’ve written because I would have yet again forgotten to mention other kinds of textures in more depth. I will, because just as you and many others who were looking for help or advice or info have stated, you didn’t need a wake up call. You needed what comes next.
If I may make a suggestion, I’m not entirely sure how old your daughter is. However, I have found that Shea Moisture has SO many product lines that cater to everything from bone straight silky hair to coarse 4c hair. I wonder whether they might have something with ingredients that would work well for you? Especially in the leave in conditioner and styling gels (i’m thinking the coconut hibiscus line, or if that is too heavy the …ugh…pink? line lol. I can’t remember the exact name but it has less oils and more extracts, so it moisturizes without drowning your hair in oil.
But another couple things to suggest…ACV and rhassoul clay. IF your daughter has high porosity hair, an ACV rinse once a week may be a god send. And no matter the porosity, no matter the texture, no matter the anything, clay masks on your hair are amazing. And are great for your skin too. You can buy the clay powder and mix up little batches on your own (there are many great clays- bentonite some swear by but I find it very stripping/drying and prefer rhassoul for my hair, personally).
Also, have you considered ever (Since you have tried lco) co-washing 2 or 3 times a week instead of shampooing? The best kind of moisture for hair is water and if your hair is missing moisture that may be why.
Sorry, I went off on this tangent because I was coming up with all these suggestions and things I’m now going to talk about in the next post because of your comment.
I entirely realize you didn’t actually ask for my help or suggestions. I just also kinda felt like you found this regimen but while it’s not a complete fail and is good enough for now, you’re not super happy with it.
Oh also protein treatments (stole the MHM idea of liquid aminos and yogurt, but instead use ACV since my overly porous hair does not need any baking soda).
Sorry. Just had to throw that in.
Anyway, I really wish you’d make a YouTube channel with your experiences and journey with your daughters hair. The world needs more examples and experiences of women like yourself who have a child who is half black and half something else but who don’t quite fit into the typical “biracial” box that so many of us jump to in this day and age (the mix between black and white…like biracial can’t mean black and any other ethnicity).
I would also like to note that I will be writing a post to adult black women, in general, about hair care. I’m a little blunt and direct at times to get my point across, and I don’t pull punches but it does come from a place of love and a tactic I think can be heard.
But if you take a look at my other posts in general, I am NOT a hair care blog. I am a social commentary blog. So, being super helpful and kind in my wording was never really my strong suit lol.
However, I give you my word if you keep an eye out, the next post is coming out within the week. And it most definitely will not be a letter to shake people into listening (cause there really are people who needed to hear this…some have thanked me, or said OMG I didn’t even think like this, or yeah now that my kid is a teen i realize I done f’ed up so omg now what?) This post has been up for several years now, and I still get comments and emails from it. And I still correspond with the ladies who said “now what? Please help” and have seen some incredible changes in their childrens hair over the years.
The post will be an ABC’s of hair, like a breakdown of the new basics, sources for info, guides, etc etc for anybody trying to learn or teach themselves or improve upon caring for a hair type that is entirely foreign to them (which means it may apply to some people who never knew much about their hair pre-perm either).
I would also like to just point out that a lot of my phrasing is addressing common misconceptions about “black hair” of any texture, such as the fact that it doesn’t grow, or terminal length, or straight is the only great. Precious, beautiful, gorgeous, are positive words we often give to hair that is behaving the way we want it to and easily. We tend to phrase hair that isn’t as “pouffy” “frizzy” “tangled” etc etc. And yet those are the words that are being used to define hair that is in the ‘black spectrum’ . This starts off a vicious cycle in the child’s life, and a perpetual cycle of hair hair continues for so many women, who glorify hair that they can never naturally have.
And I threw in more specific references to teaching a child pride in and knowledge of both sides of their lineage, even if the other parent isn’t in the picture.
It was one post that really was very specifically aimed at a subpopulation of people, but does also mildly relate in one way or another to many other subpopulations in that population. If you get me.
Anyway, I’m sorry for rambling. Really. Your comment made me super excited and I’m feeling all inspired. I’ll save the rest for my post.
Thanks again!
cheers
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I just wrote an entire paragraph that got deleted because my iPad lost connection to the internet ugh…..So going to try to remember and simplify everything I said before. You can always email me directly at d.c.s.swan@gmail.com if you ever need pictures to use as an example for well kept biracial hair on your website or anything in general. I take many updates of my daughters hair to see the difference after so long. Especially after a week of being baby sat by someone else who ATTEMPTS to do her hair and fails awfully.
I did not see your reply to my message awhile back. I do apologize about that! So my daughter will be 2 Nov.19 (this Sunday)! We finally got our regimen going and her hair has gotten very long. Her hair type is 3B mixed with 3A and 3C in certain areas. I think her hair is mostly 3C though. Still confused on her hair type but I do think it is low porosity. Argan works amazing in her hair. Sad to say I do use eco styling olive oil gel in her hair if I want it to last but good note her hair gets washed every week to two depending on her style and what product was used. Her hair gets very oily, very quick and looks sticky. So washing often is necessary and cowashes don’t help herWe don’t use boar bristles unless brushing into a ponytail with grease. Detangling brush and a super wide toothed comb to comb her hair. She loves her hair and her hair is now Shoulder length from just year ago of only being able to brush her hair. Our regimen is working because I followed her hair and spent a shit load of money to find what products work best lol come to find out she’s a garnier fructis and aunt jackies girl. She has one Shea moisture product (I think it’s the pink hibiscus one) but its oily on her hair. So I use it sparingly. Going to rebuy her hair milk from carols daughter.
I have been thinking about doing my own channel on her hair because every time I see a video of biracial hair, it’s either mixed hair that damn near looks like my hair or a mixed child who’s hair doesn’t even need braiding. I just brush it off assuming no one would watch. My daughter loves her hair now and sits still or fiddles with it. I know bad parenting! I just hated that I was never allowed to touch my hair even though it was apart of my body. I understood that my mom just wanted to make sure my hair was healthy. Since my daughter hair is nothing like mine, her fiddling with it doesn’t bother anything so she’s free to twirl her locks.
I’ve also been reading some of these comments and I feel like some of them are ignorant. One woman posted that her toddler was crying because of the tangled hair. That’s the whole point of your post, if you keep up and tame the hair, it won’t get tangled as such. My daughter was away for 5 days. I sent her with her moisturizer spray. No one spritzed her hair AND they took her hair out of the three braids I put. Her hair was so dry and tangled when I had to brush through it, she was crying. All I could say was I know, I know baby until it was all done. The point of styling is to prevent that, I don’t think people understand that. A person like me can not have my hair out in the winter. It gets so dry and breaks off. Worst part is globs of hair fell out yesterday because I’m pregnant and haven’t been caring for my hair with what a lot of these women are considering too much oil and not natural oil. Well they need to tell my hair that because that’s what mainly moisturizers my hair not mention I’m a very oily person, my hair produces its sebum and my face filled with acne. I don’t need lotion on my face EVER. Curly hair needs an extra boost sometimes.
Also the lady who said what about the black dad? Ugh get it together. Hair is cosmetics and as mom you should definitely try to take full responsibility of that. Even in black cultures many dads don’t do the hair, mostly moms do our hair. My dad walked away and my mom took care of me. Same goes for if you are white, if dad walks away, then you have to do everything. REGARDLESS THE RACE! Don’t complain it’s one sided, you are mom, love your baby the way they need and do what is needed even if the other parent fails.
Sorry for the long message just kind of irritated with some othe posts.
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Hey girl!!!! SO glad you wrote back with an update. With the exception of those who email me directly, it’s rare that I get a response or any kind of follow up information… and ESPECIALLY in your case, where the racial blend wasn’t black and white… there is VERY little online examples/ stories that I could refer to.
On that note…OMG PLEASE start a channel! The natural hair movement online is huge so there would for sure be interest there, ESPECIALLY because your trial and error experiences and information will often be unique!
Yes, it was funny that you mentioned that particular product. My sister with the baby fine silky, but 3c curly, hair has also tried the coconut and hibiscus moisturizer (since its the same one I use) and it really was too heavy for her. Pre puberty the things that worked best for her were NOT oily type things… at all….post puberty, her hair actually got VERY thirsty and therefore likes oil but in VERY small quantities… or oils that are lighter and better able to absorb into the hair shaft.
For shea moisture, they actually make products for even white, bone straight or curly hair types (there was recently a controversy over their commercial advertising basically just that)… my sister has had far better luck with the purple label shea moisture, since it is more fruit essence/ liquid based than oil based.
A couple other oils to try that may be helpful are jojoba oil and avocado oil. Jojoba oil is most like our natural sebum, and avocado oil is a penetrating oil… so it does go on a bit thick but it gets absorbed… for myself, I use my creamy leave in, then my moisturizer, then a vinegar/ water combo, then avocado oil THEN a sealing oil… since avocado more moisturizes than seals in.
What I LOVE best is that you’ve already gone through the often very annoying very expensive struggle to figure out your daughters baseline… which means it’ll be super easy to tweak or change anything. The two things/annoyances you addressed were two of the main reasons I decided to write this post. As you can see from the comments there is a lot of excuses or justifications or obstinate attitudes…i am not a hair blogger. But despite that I attempted not only to address an issue but also to provide some jump off info and also a human being that’s willing to answer questions and help you do research to get started.
If even 10 of these commenters decide to figure out their kids hair JUST to prove me wrong I’m great with that. If 10 people were about to “embrace dry, breaking, frizzy” as “normal” because they were frustrated and tired but now won’t to prove me wrong even better. I know for sure via the comments and also personal emails that this post really did actually educate and help people…ive spent months at a time helping people start from square one… in both hair care AND cultural heritage issues.
But I digress…
I will say that, to me at least, co washing is something you should be doing frequently, like say every other day, with a good shampoo every 10 days or so. I know some people swear by cowash only, but my hair doesn’t like if I don’t shampoo. I use the co washing as a means to hydrate my hair frequently, and then make sure I wash off any build up.
It does make a difference though what products you’re using. So if your products or even shampoos or conditioners have silicone,parabens or the like, those don’t wash off so well without stripping (sulfate) shampoos… and without properly removing buildup, the hair shaft and scalp can never really receive moisture properly… and as you pointed out, dehydrated hair is exactly what causes the tangling, knotting, matting and tears.
Oh and rest assured…eco styler is a very hair and heath safe product.
So it’s totally ok to smooth it (many people use a Denman brush) from root to tip for holding power on specific styles. Another product eco styler makes is a curl cream… it’s in a white bottle with a baby blue lid… and I love it because it’s basically like a very light moisturizer with some hold.
And that’s the exciting thing though about you starting a channel…. cause you could try out any and all baby girl approved products or suggestions for styling and care!
I very recently started a YouTube channel myself (not hair related, since I’m not a hair blogger lol) but if you ever start that channel let me know and ill be your first subscriber!
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What the hell – so the white mom’s responsibility for the black culture is 100% while the black dad’s responsibility for it is 0. Wow. I don’t have daughters yet, but I really feel it is unfair You should yell at me like this in case my husband doesn’t take care of our daughters hair properly that he should know a lot better than me.
Your article is truly one-sided. Especially, if a daughter is left by her black father, the missing black education is the least of her problems. She will always be afraid of being not enough for men and being left by men because her dad turned away from her.
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I agree regarding chemicals and fake hair – would never use that no matter the age!
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Wow! You don’t sound bitter AT ALL.
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YES. She is YELLING. She sounds so angry. I don’t get why you can’t be informative and respectful at the same time. This just made me LOL. I couldn’t even follow the instructions, because she was yelling at me the whole time.
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To be honest, I hardly found anything wrong with this post. Was the tone a bit harsh? Yes. Should others have actual read everything and analyzed what she said? Absolutely. Do I have kids? No. However, I am biracial and come from a family full of diversity. The pictures she used might’ve not been the best but, hair that is uncared for can look like the above pictures. There are many cases where people wet the hair, throw on a headband and think that’s the end of it. I think that saying that she is talking about black hair and not biracial hair is ignorant to what black hair is. Black people have that biracial textured hair without actually having ‘mixed’ heritage. She’s not wrong there. I grew up with my hair protective styles because even though I’m biracial, I have naturally dry 4c hair. No way around it. One of my brothers has straight hair and the other has about 3a hair. Personally, I think I’m lucky because one of my parents were black and knew how to do my hair. I had bobos and beads down my back.
I can truly say that if my mom didn’t know how to do my hair, I would’ve been fucked. My mom wasn’t colorblind when she had me. She knew each one of her kids were different and had to be taken care of accordingly.My mom is black. So, she knows how to deal with kids who don’t sit down and have their hair done. I’m extremely tender-headed but, my mother knew that if I didn’t have a protective style in the weather we had, it was going to break off for sure. Was it my choice to get the braids? No. Did it actually help my hair in ways that some people who commented on this page can’t imagine? Oh, definitely. Yeah, I screamed because my hair was dry. You don’t do black hair dry. That why it hurts. If you don’t put moisturizer or leave-in conditioner on it, even the most mature adults can have a hissy fit.
So yeah. Just because you think it looks fine or cute like it is, it’s the health that matters. Also, don’t diss beads and barrets. That’s really offensive to the black community on a whole. If your child is saying they can’t sleep on them, you find a way. Don’t eliminate the solution to the main problem. I have white aunts,uncles, and cousins who used to ask, “Does it hurt? Do you take it out at night?” I was generally confused and just thought, ” Why the heck would I take it out? Who gets hurt from this?”
Sorry, if I offended you but, it needs to be said. It is mostly white mothers that have little to no connection or experience with black hair that can be a little lost. Trust me, we all have a learning experience to go through.
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@4real…Amen! I am also biracial with 4c textured hair that is EXTREMELY dry. My hair is literally thirsty.
So I feel what you’re saying. A lot of the white moms in here need to slow their roll and stop being so defensive.
We can all learn from one another, but it’s like they don’t even want to.
I have no issue with anyone who is willing to listen and understand another point of view but some people would rather be hostile and drown out anything they disagree with.
My mom didn’t always have the most positive attitude about my hair growing up, but she tried in her own way.
I still remember having Pink Oil and Blue Magic (that old-school pomade) being put in my long, thick, waist-length hair while she combed and plaited it. My hair was dry and unmanageable most of the time because it wasn’t being hydrated properly.
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I am a white woman from a very white family. I have a 10 year old daughter who is the light of my life. She is biracial, however, she appears Caucasian. She is blond hair, blue eyed, and fair complected. (I am trying to teach her to embrace everything that makes her unique; all of her cultural backgrounds, while remaining realistic that even though she is multiracial, she will likely be the recipient of privilege. I’ve been doing research and joining “support” groups to gain knowledge and steal expertise. … still learning.) I have been LOST when it comes to her hair. She has fine hair. It is curly; ringlets. The ringlets are loose; ones that are easily brushed out (but will almost always curl back up, especially in humid or rainy weather). It is hair that you would expect to see on a white girl. HOWEVER, this child’s hair tangles like none other than I’ve ever seen or experienced. I have very wavy/curly hair and I have never had the tangling issues that she has. Her hair will start “dreading” and matting within minutes of brushing/combing it. It even tangles in braids. I am not sure if her hair woes are just her unique hair or if it is in part because of her ethnic background. Any advise for a struggling mom?
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I would recommend joining the Facebook group called Biracial children Hair Care. There are many moms with children that have all kinds of different mixed hair. Perhaps your daughter has a similar curl pattern as you do but it might be more dry or low porous. Does it wet easily or does it take a lot of water to moisten it? She may need some good leave in conditioners or oils for her hair.
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Ahhh Thank you. I’m looking up the group now! Its definitely different than mine. Mine wets fairly easily… hers takes a ton of water. I may have not found the right one yet, but leave in conditioners haven’t seemed to help yet.
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I recommend Cantu products. For my daughter who has very low porous hair I section out pieces and soak them with a spray bottle. Then I add the leave in to that section, combing it with my hands or a wide tooth comb, followed by argon oil to seal in the moisture. I do that about once or twice a week, and then have her sleep in satin or polyester so she doesn’t lose moisture.
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THANK YOU! We do use shampoo and products especially for curly hair… A lot of the leave-in make her hair look extra greasy (we probably use too much?)…. When I think back though, the times that her hair has been the most manageable is when we have done deep conditioning at the salon… everyone so far has talked about conditioning…. so I’m beginning to think it is a lack of moisture issue. I have curls too… but they have always been extremely manageable. If I wanted curly hair, a little product and I was good to go. If I wanted it straight, it flat irons amazingly – super straight, lots of volume and shine. As she’s gotten older and her hair has become thicker and the texture has changed (within the last couple years)- its been a nightmare! Her hair looks great if I flat iron it….but I HATE using that heat on her…so Its like a once or twice a year special occasion (plus it takes well over an hour…ew). I guess its never too late to learn curl care, though, right?
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Yeah you have to find the right balance for you. The hair care group might be a big help since you can post pics of her hair and find others with similar hair. If her hair tends to be dry I wouldn’t shampoo. Wash with water or conditioner. If necessary only shampoo a couple times a month. That might actually be what’s drying it out. Even for my own curls I shampoo only once a week to keep it from drying out.
No need to thank me. I know the struggle and others helped me so much. I’m just passing it on. I hope you can figure out what works for her.
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Hi Katie,
I hope that the group that you were referred to helped a great deal and that your daughters hair woes are a thing of the past.
I apologize I didn’t see this sooner. as I read your message it reminded me of a combination of both my baby sister and baby cousins hair…. my baby sister had baby fine, dirty blond hair that was very curly but didn’t have any of the texture or structure necessary to stay in a curl, let alone a braid.
My baby cousin had far thicker strands… but still a very smooth feeling strand. And that child’s hair matted like nobody’s business.
What I’ve found in all cases, including my own 4c hair, is that we naturally have very high porosity hair. Knowing the porosity level allowed us to correct for it, and once the hair shaft is fully hydrated your matting and extreme tangling issues should disappear.
For each of us the products required varied a bit but ultimately the process was still a combination of the maximum hydration method on occassion and the curly girl method (both corrected for high porosity).
In any case I hope your problems were resolved but if not feel free to email me.
Cheers
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Oh and I do the whole headbin sections like that of course.
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There’s way more to biracial kids and to being the parent of a biracial child than worrying about their hair!
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I have 3 biracial children. I think in general people use too many chemicals in their hair and this includes most hair products. I am of European decent. My husband is of mostly African decent. For my kids, their hair gets washed whenever they are in the tub but shampoo no more than once every 1-2 weeks. For my daughter I often just use an organic conditioner in her hair, wash it out and that’s it. Sometimes I use coconut oil in her hair if I feel it is getting too dry.Her hair is hard to untangle when it’s long. It was such an ordeal and she hated it so much and would scream and cry. I finally cut it off shoulder length, which she wanted, at age 3. She loves it now. It’s much easier to comb out and is perfect for her facial angles. I leave it down in curls, put it in a pony tail or stick a bow in it. She no longer screams and cry’s and she is proud of how she looks. I rarely braid her hair because, while it is curly it is very fine textured and braids aren’t needed. I used to work with a little girl who’s mom always had her in perfect braids and she was beautiful but the braids were always too tight and hurt her skin. I always thought little girls with a poof in the back or two poof pig tails were seriously adorable! The little girls in the first pics were just as beautiful as the others. Let people raise their kids the way they want, but always teach them to be proud of who God made them to be. Do what works best for you and your children.While they are kids, let them play and be happy. I do agree with keeping the chemicals away from the children.
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I’m glad you found something that works for you. However should your daughter ever be interested in longer hair, it might be worth noting that your current routine was not allowing the longer hair shaft to stay healthy AND moisturized, which will encourage, tangling, matting, fairy knots etc.
Another thing to take note of is that protective styling should never be tight or painful. I know Many a child to adult who had a thinning or bald hair line all because they were putting far too much pressure/ tightness when they pulled their hair back into a ponytail.
However, lucky for you your daughters hair texture and porosity, and factors like the weather where you live, make it so that protective styling is unnecessary as long as her her isnt past shoulder length. What if that was only true for her hair as long as it was only about 2 inches long? Would your response be the same?
The simple fact is that protective styling is there to protect the hair from matting, tangling, knitting, split ends and breakage from regular everyday friction against fabrics, styling manipulation, etc. This allows the hair to retain moisture, avoid breakage and damage, and retain growth, all while looking neat.
People have the right to raise their children however they want. You included. Just as I have the right to help/observe/ comment on subjects as I see them. I understand and perceive this from a viewpoint you can’t possibly, so I see the pitfalls in your strategy sand I just hope at the end of the day that your daughter doesn’t get the typical “puberty hair change” that throws a wrench into things, and if she ever wants her hair longer that she’ll be in a place to learn protective styling on her own.
God bless the internet and it’s wealth of knowledge on that last point, huh?
Cheers
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I didn’t read all of this but I read most of it.. and to be honest I stopped reading because It sounds to me like this page was created to simply criticize people that don’t do things the way you think they should, and to basically tell people how to raise their kids.. I don’t know about you but if somebody tried to imply that I was a bad mother because my daughters hair doesn’t look like their daughters hair, I would tell them to mind their own damn business.. I actually found your page because I was looking for hair style ideas for my mixed daughter but it really wasn’t helpful, as for mothers just brushing their mixed kids hair goes, you can’t really say they don’t care about their children for several reasons, they may not have had the time.. not to mention my daughter’s dad, his family and friends only like a tenth of them do styling and they are all the way african american so you saying they don’t care about themselves? I noticed that you also complained about relaxers arguing that back in the day our mothers would never perm our hair before the age of 12 or 13, my mom gave me my first perm when I was five then I ended up having many more before I was 10, I’ve never actually put a relaxer in my daughter’s hair but having it straightened is her favorite thing and if that’s what she wants then that’s what I’m doing guess what I’m trying to say is, everyone learns what works for their children, and some people actually let their kids to decide how they want to wear their hair. I do agree with some of your points, but if someone approached you at the mall with your daughter and said, ” look at all that unnecessary product and time you put on your kid’s hair, your poor child must not have much of a life and you must not care about her very much if your going to force her to sit and suffer that long just so you can make her look ‘perfect’ in your eyes” I’m sure you would be highly offended that somebody else is trying to tell you how to raise your kid, or at least tell you how to raise her hair for that matter.
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Actually I’d find it hilarious. Mostly because a properly cared for child’s hair that is fully moisturized from within the core is actually incredibly easy and quick to manage and just looks soft and healthy.
So I’d mostly wonder what kinda dysfunction and maaayybbee even veiled disgust they have for black hair that they think basic maintenance and long strong healthy natural hair means far too much product and time doesn’t spent 🤷🏾♀️
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So I’m a mixed woman…and I have to say that many people missed the point. I don’t think Ruby meant that braids/cornrows are the ONLY way to style hair.
What she seems to be talking about is the importance of making sure a child’s hair is taken care of…neat, clean, hydrated.
If her advice doesn’t apply to you and your children, don’t be offended. But there ARE people who can benefit from some helpful advice on this subject.
Some of the white moms are saying “it’s just hair” and “stop focusing on appearance” etc. While it might seem shallow to talk about hair care for children, y’all need to realize that for biracial AND Black kids, hair care is very important.
How will you handle it when your daughter comes home in tears because somebody made racist comments about her hair…especially if you didn’t take time to take care of it? Because that certainly can happen, even if some of you want to downplay your daughter’s “black” heritage.
It’s not just hair…it is a major part of her heritage, her identity, her self-esteem in a world that often tells us that being white is the definition of beauty.
Some of you need to look deeper before you attack. It might be “just hair” to you but it can be something else to your child, depending on her hair texture and especially as she grows older.
Trust me, I wish appearances didn’t matter, but they do. As a biracial woman with thick coarse hair (even relaxed) I’ve encountered a lot of ignorance since childhood about my hair…so I know what I’m talking about.
If some of the white moms here have mixed daughters with straight hair or loose curls, it doesn’t apply to you.
But for the mixed girls with hair like mine, what Ruby is saying is the truth. It is very hard for a black or biracial girl to grow up feeling ugly because her hair is dry, damaged, not receiving the proper care, and having people call her hair ugly because of that.
It kills a child’s self-confidence. It might be cute to run around with fuzzy curls as a toddler but once a girl is old enough to realize that she is somehow “different” from her peers (both black and white) you might want to be more attentive to certain things.
This doesn’t mean you have to braid/cornrow her hair…just make sure you’re using the right products and treating her hair properly.
And don’t be defensive if a Black or mixed woman offers to help you, either. I know that some people can be rude in their approach but there are people who care and they just want to help. They’re not always judging you as a mother, they are just trying to be kind.
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MB very late but I just wanted to thank you for sharing your story. You are exactly the reason I made this post… which is why you get it.
I hope you noticed that there were a lot of people who got it to, mothers to young children who started helping each other, getting help from me AND I got personal emails where I helped that way.
Luckily some people are able to put their own selfish feelings aside and read to understand or try to understand and relate to a concept they dont understand… what it means to grow up with this “different” “ugly” “dry” “impossible” e.t.c hair that you feel you have to put fake hair over or bathe in chemicals in order to feel pretty.
I love that the natural hair care movement started and many companies are doing product lines for a variety of hair textures and porosities etc… you’ve even got product lines like Carol’s Daughter and Mixed Chicks, not to mention a couple lines from Shea Moisture that sl specifically were made to work with the variety of mixed hair challenges without being TOO heavy or oily etc (considering all variables)
I hope for yourself you’ve found that movement and found some joy in your natural hair exactly as it is… no more relaxer, you dont need it your hair is gorgeous naturally it just needs the right TLC to help it shine ❤
Email me if you’ve got any questions ruby@classicruby.com
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I am a mixed woman, Black and white. I am also a mother to four beautiful mixed children. Three half Mexican, a Quarter black, and a Quarter white (with Native American on all sides). The fourth child is 3/4 White and 1/4 Black. I think this entire article was aiming towards the point of up-keeping and managing our mixed children’s hair in a manner that will allow it to flourish, be healthy, and stand out as beautiful. I am only speaking from the truth of my own experience with my mixed hair as well as dealing with my mixed children’s very different textures and patterns.
I grew up in a place called Aloha, Oregon. This area when I was growing up is predominantly white and Hispanic people. So of course growing up almost being the “only” black girl, already made me different to everyone. Different skin, different hair, and eyes. My mother is white and I was never exposed to my Black culture. Mostly because of where we resided. My mother took great care of my hair. Thanks to my Uncle who went to cosmetology school, taught my mother how to “care” for my hair. She always made sure it wasn’t frizzy, dry, or brittle. My uncle also would braid my hair occasionally, which I loved! At the end of the day, in this Country…it is hard to feel confident about our hair. So i understand what she means by “up-keeping”. Wearing natural curls is beautiful, she’s not saying it ugly or trashy. She is saying those Natural styles have to be kept up to a healthy standard, otherwise our hair, and children’s hair is viewed exactly what it is at that point….Unhealthy damaged hair. My own mother and I have mad a comment on a few white mother’s who have Bi-racial children. The mother’s needed to learn some information about caring for ethnic hair. I have personally seen little girls with such dry broken off hair at very young ages, it saddens me because I know how hard as an adult it is to manage my hair. So I could not imagine getting to the age of managing your own hair and it hasn’t been up-kept for so long that it makes it that much more difficult to handle.
As for my own children’s hair….both my girl’s have curly hair. My oldest daughter (7) who is the Mexican/Black/White mix has almost wavy hair, but long, very thick, and very very dry hair. Her hair is the hardest to care for, only because it is so very dry. With her hair it must be up-kept everyday…morning and night; otherwise the damage conquers very fast. I braid her hair in french braids, twist, a braided head band, I moisturize and allow it to be in it’s natural state, and sometimes I put her hair in a messy bun. My youngest daughter (3) has very curly hair. She has about a quarter inch ringlets. In my family we all have dry hair, even the white woman. So her hair can be dry, not to the point of my other daughters, but it does have a dry factor. I agree, not all products work on all black/mixed hair types. She is my child that is only a 1/4 black. So yes oils can weigh her hair down, but she still needs moisturizing treatments, products, and conditioners. Again I have to tend to her hair constantly otherwise damage occurs. I more than often leave her hair in her natural ringlets. Sometimes I put it up in ponytails, but again her hair is moisturized and in a healthy state when I pull it up. I have two boys. One with bone straight, thin, shiny hair. He is my oldest son (5). I literally just have his hair styled and cut. I was his hair and dry it. Literally that is all I have to do with it, even when his hair is long. His hair doesn’t require to much because he inherited a blend of White/Hispanic hair. My youngest son (2) he has beautiful big bouncy curls. I let it grow out on top and give him a fade. I keep it styled. His hair still requires the correct moisturizers, none harmful shampoos and conditioners. I also have to tend to his hair everyday, otherwise it gets tangled, matted, and frizzy. The point is…Yes all my mixed children have different textures and curls, but the children with the more ethnic hair does require more tending and care. I also love each and everyone of my children’s hair, whether it is straight like my oldest of very curly like my youngest daughter. Biggest tip! Start doing their hair as soon as they have more than 2 inches…then they will be use to it. I promise. My children all embrace their hair….good hair care and support from their parents in regards to caring and loving their hair will create a very confident child when it comes to being in a situation where your hair is the “abnormal” in our country.
This article was no harm. Just a care for healthy hair!
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Hi Ruby! I just want to say that I love this post! I’m a white mom to a biracial baby, her father is mostly black with just a touch of white from his great great grandfather, because of this, my daughters genetics make her hair positively gorgeous, if not a bit confusing. She has a patch of hair, like her dads, on the back of her head and the rest of the hair all around it is just like mine, curly as can be! I’m lucky enough to have beautiful curly hair. Knowing how to care for my own hair has helped me so much when it comes to caring for my daughters hair and scalp. Her scalp is not dry or flaky, But I cannot seem to convince her fathers family (his mom and sister) that she does not need the oil in her hair or on her scalp, as it isn’t dry. Her hair does have a ton of body, just like her dad. I do have hair products that I do use on her hair and her hair looks beautiful. The oil that they use on her hair, it’s not good for it, it leaves it knotty (like a rats nest) and coarse and washing the oil out to return it to its natural soft state takes days of washing, which is equally just as bad for her hair. I know it seems like I’m giving you a ton of back story, but it’s not without reason. I don’t know how to help his family understand that they have to treat her head as it is, they cannot make it something else. On wash day for my daughter, we have a crazy long routine, she gets conditioned, washed, then conditioned again. Then we use hair milk (to help keep her curls hydrated). We use two different curl creams in her hair. She gets the Marc Anthony curl cream infused with biotin to her patch of dads hair, and regular curl cream to the rest of her hair. And when I comb, and yes I mean comb, her hair, I take a spray bottle with water, I wet her hair and I comb it out. And I do all of this to protect her hair! But I feel like the only one! Since her father and I split up, I don’t seem to be able to convince them that her hair needs to be taken care of properly and not just how they think. My daughter has gorgeous hair and if styled properly, she can wear it down or “undone” whenever she wants. Which is basically all the time. I don’t know how to talk to them about doing her hair without them getting super upset and it causing a fight. I understand that, yes, she has some hair like theirs, but that’s not her whole head. And that it’s okay for it to be free, without it looking crazy. I have curly hair, and yes, it takes work to style it to wear it down. And so does my daughters, but how to I teach her fathers family without causing world war 3? I’ve been to hairstylists and beauty consultants. I’ve done everything expected of me, but I can’t seem to not lose my temper when she comes home with her hair in a brown rubber band.
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Hello Felicia!!
Please email if you could ruby@classicruby.com …i will do my best to answer here as well, but it’ll be a necessarily shorter and far less specific answer than what I could give you via email.
I have a couple follow up questions before I’d suggest some suggestions from friends who had a similar experience and managed to fix this issue with their inlaws WITHOUT an ugly aftermath and with love and respect and appreciation intact!
If I don’t hear from you in a few days ill answer here first anyway BUT like I said I think a short discussion and question answer period just to flesh out the details may be even more helpful!!!
Cheers
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You just seem extra bitter girl! Did an ex leave you for a white woman??? I just accidentally ran up on this article or whatever you want to call it! I’m sure you don’t want people stereotyping you so maybe you shouldn’t stereotype others! Have a blessed day and I hope you find happiness !
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I couldn’t care less if people stereotype me. You can’t be a whiny coddled sensitive tissue thin skinned suck when you run a blog or YouTube channel.
Weeellllll… that and the fact that I care more about honesty and logic, even if I disagree or dont like the conclusions. You should try comprehensive reading and logic… you might surprise yourself and actually enjoy it 😉
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This article is racist. I find the way that you picture those children at the top and say they have messy hair to be deeply offensive. Where did you even get those pictures from? Did you check with their parents that it would be OK to post them? While I’m all for styling my children’s hair I also don’t think it says anything about mothers who choose to let their children wear their hair out and proud to show off their beautiful curls . Clearly you have some serious issues and you need to check yourself before you put out this ridiculous nonsense again.
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The fact that you have no concept that there is a difference between styling and hair care speaks volumes as to your own personal hair experience, as well as your own ethnocentric view on hair.
You might want to check your ethnocentrism at the door of topics such as this. As much as all people are equal, we all have differences… for those of us with varying degrees of ancestry from the African Diaspora, we know that there are great differences between those of you between type 1 and 2 hair and those of us with type 3 and 4 hair.
If you are honestly still back in the dark ages (I’m giving you credit here by saying that) and you believe that poofy and frizzy and brillo pad are all appropriate terms for black hair well then this article isn’t for you.
Thanks for your two cents though… I’ve been collecting pennies as of late…. totally worthless now but perhaps as a giant collection they may prove valuable… if only for comedic value 😉
Cheers
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So distasteful. If you ever said that to me in front of my child you would wish you didn’t. Ramble on and on about white moms with biracial kids but it’s kids in general. I see kids of all races with they hair not done. Most moms are luck if they can get their kids in matching shoes. From the article I can tell you aren’t a mom and if you are I feel terrible for your kids. Teaching them to judge on appearance is far worse then me not braiding my kids hair. Grow up
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You want white mothers (should we include Latina, Asian, and indigenous moms, too, or just target the white moms?) to learn how to better care for their mixed kids’ hair, but what they get when they come to read this is a heaping helping of judgment. When black women come alongside white parents of mixed kids and graciously, patiently teach them how to help their kids, THAT is the kind of approach that really helps, not making the moral attributions that if they’re having difficulty figuring out what to do with kids’ hair, they clearly don’t care about their kids’ black heritage. Who would stick their neck out to get help, if they knew a reception like this awaited them? Who would try to build relationships women of color so that their kids could have that great influence in their lives, if this is how all women of color behaved about it? Thank goodness that’s not the case! The implicit presumption that you, or basically any total stranger, as long as they are black or mixed, would parent a mixed child better than the mother herself is hurtful and not conducive to people of different races helping each other to raise healthy kids. And yes, I read the caveat at the beginning, yet you proceed to essentially say that anybody who hasn’t got it together in the hair department is culpable. And of course, that will include many of your readers who found you through Google searches about mixed or African-American hair.
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Notice, which of course you didn’t because you didn’t bother to read or look at anythin, that this article features a white woman and her biracial child.
Second read the hundreds of comments from the not triggered not coddled moms who bothered to read the whole post and did find it helpful.
Third, many MANY women decided I was exactly what they needed and actually directly emailed me for further help and support.
Thank GOD that whiny overly emotional coddled everybody deserves a trophy just for showing up people have decided to “shun” me cuz I can’t with y’all 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
But people like you will be the FIRST to demand honesty and integrity from your relationships with other humans… and yet can’t even take a tiny dose of it without making it a mountain of twisted vile life ruining venom…
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Laaawwwwdddd. I fear for the future of the mixed race kids who have tissue thin skin like their parents raised them up to have 🤦🏽♀️
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What gets me is that mixed hair is neither “black” hair or “ white” hair so why would anyone think they are more knowledgeable about styling the kids hair. Yes I agree that some people don’t know how to style kids hair but that’s in general. You see white parents that their kids hair isn’t fixed properly and you said black parents that their kids hair isn’t styled properly. As well as mixed kids. This has nothing to do with someone being a different race them not knowing how to style their kids hair bc they are biracial. This post should have been geared more towards all people who don’t know how to style their kids hair properly since you seem to be an expert. It just seems like you’re bashing women who have biracial kids with a black man. Once again not all mixed kids hair is black texture so just because you are black doesn’t mean you are an expert on their hair!
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Laaawwwwdddd ENOUGH with this PC culture bullshit. I mean seriously. Are you so coddled in your every day life that you cannot hear a targeted message about a targeted sub group of humans and not automatically think “how dare they not address EVERY sub group and only address one that I belong to!”
Get over yourself lady. I very specifically am addressing a very specific set of issues a very specific set of people encounter. Im sorry if it hurts your feels that you’re part of this group and this message hit a sore spot. Well, no im not. With that being said, out of the 300 or so comments you can see that actually many MANY people did relate to and appreciate this post.
Just like many people emailed me and I gave them direct advice and helped them trouble shoot. So spare me your self righteous half informed nonsense…. why not try actually READING TO UNDERSTAND the content and hey.. maaayybbee try reading more than the title (I know you didn’t cuz in the first paragraph alone I actually do directly address something you whine “why didn’t you address anybody else though? Why it gotta only be white moms??””
Siggghhhh. I can’t wait till this everybody wins a trophy pc culture nonsense dies off
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I can’t actually believe what I’ve just read, the title was enough to rile me. Just shows how racist some black women are especially towards women that are with black men. Absolutely disgusting!!
My SONS hair is beautiful he has naturally curly quarter indian quarter white and half West Indian hair, he models for worldwide fashion chains- yes I care for it by combing and conditioning regularly. Never in my life have I experienced such judgemental racist comments toward a child’s hair!!!! Why would you not title the article mentioning mums in general why specifically WHITE mums???? WOW….
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I have a 17 year old who is mixed. I am white and her Dad is black and Hawaiian. We have always lived together. She has 3 sisters whom favor the Hawaiian hair. Her dad always kept his short until he decided to dread it 5 years ago. My 17 year old has very fine, different textures from s curl to wavy. “Professionals” as well as experienced black women have gained my trust in trimming her hair and all have messed her hair up. She has never had her hair grow past her shoulders her whole life. Her Dad won’t allow chemicals, I’ve tried numerous activators, she shampoos 1x week and faithfully wears a “bunny tail” ponytail even though I tell her it’s breaking her hair more. Their are no salons near me for ethnic hair. Just a bunch of goofy white women claiming they know how to trim my Daughter’s hair. She’s not confident and I want her to be before she’s a woman. This has been too long and I need help! What can I do to make it possible for my daughter to get her hair evenly cut and to embrace her curls with her hair down daily?
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Have you ever tried a “porosity ” check?
There are many aspects to hair that can make a massive difference as to how we should care for it and what would respond to it best, and to be honest? For myself the BIGGEST HELP EVER was not knowing my hair texture but knowing my hair porosity!
Porosity has to do with how easily your hair allows moisture in and also how well it retains the moisture it allows in. For normal porosity hair people generally tend to have zero issues with keeping their hair moisturized and growing long and strong… they may even be the types who get overly oily hair that needs to be frequently washed.
The average woman with my hair type, type 4c or black afro textured hair, has low porosity… meaning moisture has a HARD TIME getting into the hair cuticle. The key here is that once you can get moisture in it tends to stay in place.
Now high porosity hair allows alllllllll the moisture in the world IN… but that water escapes just as easily as it wandered in. I for one had that rare naturally high porosity 4c hair. Which in retrospect explained SOOO much.
This message is terribly late but feel free to email me; ruby@classicruby.com and I’d be happy to point you in some directions to help test porosity and also if that fails to help you to analyze what you’ve tried so far and what that might mean for avenues for further investigation.
Guaranteed one thing: EVERYBODY’S hair grows at approximately the same rate regardless of ethnicity or other factors. Retaining length is another factor. There absolutely is hope despite all the clueless professionals you’ve come across (preaching to the choir here… I’m about the only person I trust with my hair anymore 😖)
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Lol.. racist…
You mentioned you were already riled at the title. If you had actually read it with a calm and rational mind (or at all) then you would KNOW why the title is to white moms and not to all moms.
Sorry Not Sorry, but this PC culture has people far too bubble wrapped if you’ve gotta hide your true meaning and message in a more “inclusive” title that you don’t really mean.
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Hiya, white mum of two beautiful mixed race girls.. I have always styled, braided, oiled my girls hair. Sometimes the pull back and puff ball is all time and tantrums has to offer but I know through basic research that their hair needs to be cared for differently to mine. Love that the internet has so much information, and experimenting has taught me that their hair requires different oils/lotions.. my youngest has incredibly long thick super curly hair while the oldests is thinner, grows slower and a tendency to frizz more.. any tips on that would be great!
I also would like to know what would be your advice on trimming biracial hair? How often etc?
Thanks
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Wow! I came here for some hair advice as a white mom of biracial kids. I already braid their hair and wanted to know why they get lint near the ponytails after about 4 days… but alas you started the whole article with a judgement on what kids hair should/should not look like. I put plenty work into my kids hair each week- its the job I hate the least. My kids hate it too. But I can’t afford a salon and am learning as I go. My husband swore he would do their hair when I was pregnant with girls, it has never happened. I didn’t read the article because I don’t know if I can value the information that starts off so judgy. Many of us are trying to do right by our biracial kids and suffering while we learn. so by all means, call us out on doing a shit job in YOUR opinion.
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….I love that you took the time to do this entire response after admittedly never having read the article…
It always tickles me. I mean… what are you really responding to? For all YOU know, immediately after the gist paragraph it might have literally been a tirade AGAINST people who say what’s stated in that paragraph. It might be a statement like “this is how I used to feel but now…”…
What’s really hilarious though is that your entire comment is feeling offended about being a book being judged by its cover and yet you admittedly judged the book by its cover. Right here. Right now. Pot, meet kettle.
If you HAD actually read, and paid attention, then even in the first paragraph you would have recognized that IF YOU ACTUALLY DO AND TAKE CARE OF YOUR CHILD’S HAIR AND IT IS HEALTHY AND HAPPY CUZ YOU TOOK THE TIME TO LEARN HOW TO CARE FOR IT then you’ve done your job and this letter speaks to those who have NOT… imploring them to be more like YOU.
And in fact the entire article is highlighting a biracial girl and her white mother who took that time and patience to learn.. sooooo…🤷🏾♀️🤔🤦🏽♀️
If some little white girl had oily, dirty, stringy hair with tension alopecia everywhere because her adoptive parents were improperly caring for her hair, would you be offended at someone calling that out and suggesting the parents LEARN about what’s best for that child’s hair and skin so she can be as healthy and well cared for as possible? 🤔
Probably not. #justsaying
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I can’t believe after YEARS of posting people are still arguing with the original poster. After having my daughter, I had to literally wait years to understand fully what she meant. When my daughter is just walking around the house her hair looks unkept. When we go out, I do her hair. She is my first biracial child. Now when I go out and see other biracial children and can spot the parents who can’t take their child screaming bloody murder. I can spot who does deal with the screaming. I wish I could post my daughter on me not doing her hair days vs me doing her hair. You can tell and me not doing her hair will only ruin her self esteem in the future. She cries, I let her cry. I even cried as a little girl. No there is no punishment for crying, if it hurts, it hurts but it needs to be done. Her hair is almost down to her tush. And she is soooo proud of her hair! I’m proud I took 2 years to figure her hair out. I thought I had it at the beginning but I didn’t. It changed and I had to change with her. Original poster please feel free to contact me for my daughters pictures if you would like to use them in any of your future blogs.
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Hi. I just wanted to thank your for this! I am a white mother of a biracial child who is about to turn 8. She has wanted cornrows with beads for a while, but due to COVID we haven’t approached it yet. Tommorow she has her 2nd ever professional appointment to have her hair braided. I am also meeting with the stylist because I have lots of questions about general maintenance for healthy hair. Much of your advice answered my questions.
I also appreciate your insight on other “non-hair related” issues.
I think you are a great writer with a great sense of humer and sarcastic wit! I am following your blog! Thanks!
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I find it funny that it’s not the mom who doesn’t care for their child’s hair that will be reading this but the one who does care for their child’s hair. I’m beginning to be amazed at how there is a developing culture of judgment. Thank you for allowing me to write this note.
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No love, predominantly the people who are reading this CARE, as in they love their child and want the best for them. They, however, are often also the parent who knows, consciously or subconscious, that they have been failing their daughter in this area.
Either through the false “we are the world, I don’t see color, we’re all the same” mentality, through a lack of devoted learning time and naturally occurring resources and knowledge, or, and this is the WORST ONE, because privilege meets blissful ignorance meets selfishness meets whataboutism.
As I said in paragraph one, luckily the tides are changing but there’s still more than enough who really don’t even see or understand the true damage they have or are doing to their child.
ESPECIALLY if they grew up doing the same damage to their own hair in a desperation to fit in with their peers, not seeing or understanding how it’s a whole different matter for their biracial child.
But thank you for commenting, opinions are always welcome 🍻
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Hits home. My daughter’s hair is a MESS.
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