#curly hair is surprisingly fragile (in my experience) and you're going to give your kid a complex

[hyperfixationstation128]

My niece is half-Haitian and has pretty loose curls. For like, the first four years of her life, her hair was washed like she had straight hair, and omfg I wanted to cry for her. It was frizzy, matted, and brittle. Thankfully, eventually, my sister wised up and bought her hair products, but never used them.

I eventually got so fed up with her hair looking like that because she was about to start school and I know how mean little girls can be. So I went online, figured out how to do loose curly hair, bought her a brush meant for curly hair, and would sit her down once a week for "hair day".

She used to cry and scream (it was a huge learning process for me), but eventually, we were able to figure it out together. She would watch She-Ra while I did her hair and since then, no more screaming or crying. It became like a sweet ritual for us and sometimes I miss doing her hair.

I moved away from my family about 5 years ago and she's so grown up now. She started doing her own hair about a year after I left because STILL no one does it for her, which pissed me off, but I was also so proud of her.

I miss my niece so much. She was practically like a daughter to me, and I can only hope to pick the ritual back up with my own children, or maybe have one last chance to do her hair again.

somewhere out there right now is a kid with curly hair being raised by people who have wavy hair at best and those people are giving them 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner and telling them to dry brush it. and that kid is gonna spend all of middle school and high school hating their hair and moping over the flat iron. they're being told right now that if they don't dry-brush their curl pattern into oblivion every morning it means they're unkempt and gross even though they naturally have the kind of ringlets that a thousand bridezillas would commit horrible murders for every june. it's happening right now it's an absolute epidemic and a tragedy every time