The ‘warning’ is one I’ve heard before. More times than I’d like to admit, family and strangers alike have cautioned me to “pick wisely” when it comes to the man I’ll marry and eventually have children with.
Not because marriage is, quite frankly, a ‘long ting’ or because you should be really, really, really sure about the person you bind yourself to for (our version of) eternity, lest you want to end up divorced soon after.
Not because sometimes men abuse their wives.
Not because sometimes men go bankrupt and expect their wives to save them from drowning.
Not because of any of these valid reasons.
People (oddly, always women) who have cautioned me about the man I’ll (hopefully) spend the rest of my life with and raise children with weren’t worried about my happiness or well-being.
All they cared about was hair.
And not even my hair.
They were worried about the hair of my yet-to-be-made, still-hypothetical, maybe-someday children.
I’ve been told to consider noses, height and genetic predispositions to obesity when ‘picking’ a man, but mostly?
Mostly I’ve been told to marry (or make babies with) a man with ‘good hair’.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit – when I was younger, that’s what I daydreamt about. A daughter with my mess of curls, soft and springy just like mine, and maybe jet black like her dad’s.
What kind of hair my children would have, whether they’d prefer it long or want to cut it to match mine, whether, when it comes to texture, they’d take after me or their father… That’s the kind of thing I wondered about.
Now? As long as they’re happy and healthy, I couldn’t be bothered about the details.
Back then I didn’t have much of a comeback for the women who told me to “pick wisely”.
Now? The string of expletives that comes to mind can’t be printed in this family newspaper.
I didn’t give the term ‘good hair’ much thought then, but the more I hear it, the more it bothers me.
We’re indoctrinated to believe, from birth, that nothing about us is good enough unless it prescribes to the claustrophobic idea of beauty sold to us via mainstream media.
Our hair isn’t good enough unless it’s straight, soft, long.
Our children’s hair won’t be good enough unless we go on some manic search for a man (or woman) who can somehow guarantee children with long flowly locks rather than a lush, thick afro. As if genetics aren’t one big biological lottery.
They say ‘good hair’, but what they really mean is white hair.
What they really mean to say is that our curls, kinks and coils are only ever good enough when they’re diluted. Tamed. Forced into submission.
Like our manes, crowns and halos could ever be anything less than majestic. Just the way they grow out of our heads.
It took me a lot of time and a lot of unlearning to get to this point, but to me, the only thing that makes hair good or less so is how it makes you feel.
If you love it, rock it. If you don’t, change it. Cut it, dye it, weave it, braid it, relax it, twirl it, twist it. Do what makes you happy.
But most importantly? Love it.
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