Hair

I have not been posting because I have been dealing with a lot of life at our house. My last post was of the girls heading off to school for picture day. Larissa wanted to wear her hair down so we did that. She came off the bus very upset. A boy on the bus who often says little negative comments to her told her that her hair looked like a plop of poop. I have had a lot of discussion on my facebook page about this. Every time she wears her hair down she gets negative comments from she is ugly to the new plop of poop. Then when she wears it braided she is called ugly and she has even been told she looks like a boy.

I don't understand it but I know it to be true. Emma can go to school with the worst haircut possible and she might get the "who cut your hair" questions or even people laughing about her hair but she is not told that she is ugly because of her hair.

Larissa can go to school with braided hair, beaded hair, natural hair and someone will tell her that she is ugly. Not just her hair but her. Her hair makes her ugly.

That night she wanted me to braid it, I almost cried. I want her to be strong. I want her to not care what everyone says. I work towards that but we aren't there yet. She is very much a people pleaser and takes all the comments to heart. Lets face, it is human nature to want others to accept you. We wouldn't have as big of a bullying problem if words didn't hurt. But they do hurt and when they are spoken often it is hard to fight that.

Some people say that the kids are mean because they are jealous. I have seen some of that specifically in the dance area because she is so lean and long. However, that is not the answer in many cases. Sometimes there is just hatred, lack of understanding, the inability to see the person outside of skin color, the inability to accept someone different than themselves. This is not just a child issue, some adults act the same.

I will continue to build up my child and teach her about the world. Some days it is just hard. Why can't we all just learn to care, love and respect one another. Parenting from the trenches is hard.