She's two years old.
My MIL continually refers to her own hair, and kinky Black hair in general, as "bad". I rarely see Natural sisters in my locale, not even in the 3a's, 3b's categories. There's simply not a lot of diversity here--just about every Black woman I know has a stringy, broken-off relaxer, Jheri Curl, or weave. I'm considered the oddball because I keep my hair trimmed ("ain't you scared that it won't grow back?!") and am sometimes inclined to chop it from bra-strap length to TWA.
My dd's little cousin (5 yrs old) has very 4-ish, EXTREMELY thick hair that is also extremely long. Her mother (young and immature) seemed to feel that she just had no time for even basic maintenance of her child's hair. She'd just pile it up in a ball, stick a hat on her, and let her go to to church or to my MIL's house.....my MIL reported that one time her hair had been uncombed for so long that when she took the bun down it was matted TO THE ROOTS. It took her hours to get it detangled, the kid was crying and everything but my MIL was trying to be as gentle as she could...
To be brief, my SIL finally went ahead and relaxed the child's hair, against her mom's wishes. Don't know exactly how I feel about that. On the one hand, the kid is starting school this year and my SIL is in charge of her during the day, including hair care duties. The matted-bun thing has happened more than twice.
On the other hand, my MIL keeps talking about my dd's relaxer that she's supposedly going to "need" when she gets in school. I swear I will seriously hurt somebody if they relax my child's hair without my permission. Especially since this is a family who is not particularly knowledgeable nor skilled in hair health. Far as I can tell, they all just get home relaxers with absolutely no regard for trimming ends, moisturizing of any type, or other care to actually keep the hair healthy. Even my dh and his brothers don't get regular haircuts, looking quite unkempt at times.
My sisters and I all have widely varying hair textures---I'm a fine, flyaway 3b, my sister is kinky 4zzz and my other sis is a very coarse and wiry 3a-3b...BUT, all three of us take care of our hair's health, regardless of the texture. I don't recall my 4zzz sister (when she used to relax) ever having breakage or raggedy ends. She wore weaves rarely.
I grew up having such a hard time dealing with my huge mane that I'm not too well-versed in styling hair
period, much less a tighter texture like dd's. It's easy right now because she's little, and we keep it in basic sectioned-off plaits or pigtails and bows, though I tend not to put on the "ball" holders at the base of her pigtails. I do a lot of conditioner washes, and keep her hair moisturized as best I can. I also trim it, much to my relative's chagrin.
Anyway, to end such a long ramble, I'm really worried about when she gets older and gets sick of pigtails, not to mention the extremely negative atmosphere that pervades here. My only hope is my 4zzz sister, who's gone completely natural this year, is a licensed (though non-practicing at the moment) beautician, and very creative with natural hairstyles to boot. But she doesn't live close by.
Are there any good websites of pics with AA children's natural hairstyles? Thanks for reading if you got this far!
3c-4a baby vs. evil influences.....
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