Nappy by nature

Fried, dyed and laid to the side. I can still remember the smell of a hot comb on the stove. The sound of  sizzling as it ran through the white rose grease in my hair. This was my mothers Saturday morning ritual so I could be pretty for Sunday morning ritual of church. One hair couldn't be out of place. And no kinks could be in my kitchen. My hair had to be done. 

Today my own daughter came home with her hair done. It wasn't fried or dyed but it was done!!!  It was full of beads and tight rubber bands. My heart immediately dropped not because she wasn't pretty but because the fairytale was being planted in her head. The fairytale that your hair has to look a certain way in order to make it in this world. 

I asked the person who decided to do this why they thought it was necessary for her hair to be constrained at 2 years of age. I was told "because her hair is never done". See they have been brainwashed to think that if your hair is just naturally out that it's unacceptable. And anything besides fake hair, beads, perms, rubber bands, is ugly. Of course I immediately took it out with no time spared. 

Now I don't knock anyone for the choices that they make when it comes to their own hair but I vowed that I would raise my child to love herself exactly the way God made her and to not be focused on what grows on top of her head but more focused on what is in her head. To be proud of who she is,  not because she looks the way society wants her to , but because she is a child of God, smart, kind and loving.