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Deeper than hairdos

 

My daughter Katy has been in love with long hair for as long as I can remember. The first doll she ever liked had hair below the waist, and by the time she was old enough to brush and braid her Barbies' hair, Katy was inventing new hairdos. She styled her girl friends' hair in grade school, and after that began fixing my hair on a regular basis. Tonight is no exception.

"Mom, can I do your hair?"

Rather than wait for an answer, Katy heads to the bathroom for her tools. Armed with brush, comb, clips, and elastics, this teenage designer tries to persuade her middle-aged mother that a glamorous transformation is possible, with a new hairstyle.

Once again, I'm a captive in my own easy chair after dinner. Sometimes she creates a new form of French braids, sometimes it's a fancy twist she saw in Seventeen. Since my hair is long, she has a million ideas on how to braid it, roll it, or wind it up and around my head. Sometimes she invents a hairdo I really like, and I wear it like that until she lobbies for a change. Then, out comes the equipment again.

One of the reasons I think Katy is so interested in hair is that she's confounded by her own. Coming from a heritage that is part African-American, Katy's hair is very thick and wiry. Since no one else in the family has that heritage or hair texture, she has always viewed her own hair as different.

The real discontent began when she hit adolescence. The message she was getting from John and me was that her halo of tight curls was beautiful. But the message from peers and the media was that long, silky hair was beautiful. She couldn't accept that both could be true, and judged her own hair as deficient.

What can we do? John and I want our kids to celebrate differences: to believe that beautiful hair can be many lengths and textures, that natural (make-up free) faces are lovely, and attractive bodies come in several sizes. But our values are pitted against the images blasted on every TV, movie screen, and printed page. These media, along with trend-setting peers, are the authorities teenagers trust when it comes to physical appearance. Not parents. Whenever we try to take on these giants, the kids kindly point out our age, wrinkles, and outdated wardrobes, suggesting that we don't even qualify as judges of teenage fashion.

Beyond expressing our own opinions concerning personal appearance, and teasing them about baggy pants and bare belly-buttons, we leave fashion decisions up to them. Teens use their appearance as a way to express themselves, and we think it's important to allow that relatively benign means of self-expression. Consequently, our kids are free to wear their hair and dress as they like, within a few guidelines regarding cleanliness, self-respect, and respect for others.

But Katy, the one who has always helped others achieve a variety of hairstyles, was locked into one short and fuzzy Orphan Annie style she hated. Occasionally she tried to grow her hair, but when the snarls grew too painful, she always agreed to let me cut it.

By the time Katy was 13, and clearly unhappy with hair that was radically different from most everyone else, I reluctantly suggested she could have it straightened. She was ecstatic. She let her hair grow for three months, and I drove her in a five-inch Afro to the hair salon.

When I came back to pick her up, I scanned the heads in the waiting area and passed right over hers. She waved, grinning and tossing her new smooth and shiny hairdo. She looked so different. She looked like everyone else, and she was happy.

Now, three years later, Katy's hair is straight and long. She wears it differently almost every day, and continually searches the fashion magazines for new ideas.

Having her own hair to fix, however, doesn't mean she wants to work on mine any less. Indeed, my head has become the place to practice. "It doesn't matter if it looks dorky on you, Mom," she reasons, as she pulls up a handful of graying hair and twists it into a bun on top.

When it's finished she stands back and observes her work. "Well, you don't look glamorous or anything, Mom, but at least you're presentable."

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