NEGATIVE HAIR MESSAGES you have recieved

[ChocalateDiva]

Yep. My mother used to refer to my sister as the one with the "good hair" and me as the one with the "bad" hair...........it always bothered me. But look who's got some "hangtime" now. Hint- it isnt my sister...

 

[GV-NA-GI-TLV-GE-I]

Brava!!! Self-discovery, that's the greatest gift anyone can give himself!

 

[1QTPie]

My mom didn't spend anytime putting me down as a child. She just wasn't the type to insult any part of her children. BUT NOW, she just says whatever she wants. But I don't care, I'm grown. I was lucky enough to have positive things drilled into my head so what she says now only makes me laugh. She created the monster.

So I know 100% that she THOUGHT negative things about my hair as a child, but she wouldn't dare purposely say mean stuff to me.


What's a nappy mess? If your hair is not slicked back or slicked down, it's a nappy mess? I'd tell hubby to go suck it too.

 

[mahogany_horizons]

My mom didn't spend anytime putting me down as a child. She just wasn't the type to insult any part of her children. BUT NOW, she just says whatever she wants. But I don't care, I'm grown. I was lucky enough to have positive things drilled into my head so what she says now only makes me laugh. She created the monster.

So I know 100% that she THOUGHT negative things about my hair as a child, but she wouldn't dare purposely say mean stuff to me.


What's a nappy mess? If your hair is not slicked back or slicked down, it's a nappy mess? I'd tell hubby to go suck it too.

NOOOOOO HE DID NOT SAY THAT. What I should have said was DISHEVELED. All over the place! Not tidy. He has NEVER CALLED MY HAIR NAPPY. He only teased me once when my hair reverted, and it became a big curly poofy like jackson 5 style little deal. But what he said was very loving, and playful, he called me his little pretty little poodle. And walked around with me the whole day unashamed. THE WHOLE DAY, in a public theme park LOL! HE IS NOTTTTTTTTTTT like my folks, he is walking the battle with me, does not care how long I stretch etc. He's a good one...and he's good about hair too. He always tells me my hair is soft and pretty...Don't beat up on him I luv him!

He's called folks nappy at times but never me.

I said nappy mess LOL! That was me.....and I'm saying as long as I didn't just wash my hair, and put no products on it at 12 weeks post, and then want to go downtown, HE WOULDN'T CARE.....as long as my hair is tidy. My hair would be untidy if I did that b/c it is curly and unruly.....it would not look like yours probably, which is still neat even though it is curly.

 

[LadyPaniolo]

My mom didn't say anything negative about my hair when I was little, but I still absorbed those "bad hair" ideas from the larger culture.

I'm glad that I love my hair now, even though I go through phases where I'm terrified to walk past a Walgreen's for fear I'll buy a relaxer and put that sucka in my head right in the public restroom!

 

[locabouthair]

I never heard anything negative from my family. Except the one time, my grandma was like "you must get this hard head from your father's side". And that was about it, everyone in my family was a type 4 so if you gonna talk about my hair, you might as well talk about your own

My mom never pressured me to get a relaxer. I got one when I was 12. I remmeber asking my mom for one at 4 and she told me no, of course. Yall can tell I was hair obsessed since then, what four year old knows about a relaxer

I got lots of hurtful, negative comments from friends and classmates.

I have 4b hair, well I should say 4z, and I'm not exaggerating. As a child my hair never made it past my ears. yes I said it, EARS. The kids in school would say, "oh that little first grader got more hair than you". "If I had your hair I'd get a weave". "OMG look at her hair". When I wore my hair natural three years ago, my ex told me I looked like a slave. One of my friends still tried to crack jokes about my "bad hair". "You got that n$#$# hair". I really wanna tell her to STFU but when my hair grows long, it will speak for itself

The comments were so bad, sometimes I'd come home and just cry. It's really hard for me to accept compliments about my hair, when people tell my hair looks good, I just can't believe it because most of the time, I've heard the opposite.

I dont even like talking about my hair outside of this board. I try to avoid any negativity. Im very sensitive about my hair.

 

[mahogany_horizons]

I'm glad that I love my hair now, even though I go through phases where I'm terrified to walk past a Walgreen's for fear I'll buy a relaxer and put that sucka in my head right in the public restroom!

LOL U MADE ME LAUGH WITH THIS ONE....I'm glad that I love my hair now too

 

[mahogany_horizons]

I never heard anything negative from my family. Except the one time, my grandma was like "you must get this hard head from your father's side". And that was about it, everyone in my family was a type 4 so if you gonna talk about my hair, you might as well talk about your own

My mom never pressured me to get a relaxer. I got one when I was 12. I remmeber asking my mom for one at 4 and she told me no, of course. Yall can tell I was hair obsessed since then, what four year old knows about a relaxer

I got lots of hurtful, negative comments from friends and classmates.

I have 4b hair, well I should say 4z, and I'm not exaggerating. As a child my hair never made it past my ears. yes I said it, EARS. The kids in school would say, "oh that little first grader got more hair than you". "If I had your hair I'd get a weave". "OMG look at her hair". When I wore my hair natural three years ago, my ex told me I looked like a slave. One of my friends still tried to crack jokes about my "bad hair". "You got that n$#$# hair". I really wanna tell her to STFU but when my hair grows long, it will speak for itself

The comments were so bad, sometimes I'd come home and just cry. It's really hard for me to accept compliments about my hair, when people tell my hair looks good, I just can't believe it because most of the time, I've heard the opposite.

I dont even like talking about my hair outside of this board. I try to avoid any negativity. Im very sensitive about my hair.

Oh man, I'm sorry it was rough for you like that! I really am. I hate that they felt that it was OK to say that to you. I hate that large culture makes it OK for black folks to say stuff like that to eachother. It's painful! It needs to be STOPPED. I don't like it. Not at all. It's very cruel. I hope you can heal. Your hair is beautiful regardless of the texture.

If it makes you feel any better girly I was teased mercilessly as a youth because I had long sideburns, which had the nerve to also be curly......they are thick and I have to shave them. So I know what that feels like. When I was little I did come home and cry occasionally.

when I got older, I trimed them down, then laughed gleefully at them, since I grew up to be much "cuter" than them LOL!

 

[locabouthair]

I got sideburns too. I was hardly teased about that. The main thing people cracked on was my hair.

 

[NYAmicas]

I'm not surprised, I hear the same things your parents say from time to time from others. Luckily my family didn't do that, or I just cant recall it.

 

[NYAmicas]

I never heard anything negative from my family. Except the one time, my grandma was like "you must get this hard head from your father's side". And that was about it, everyone in my family was a type 4 so if you gonna talk about my hair, you might as well talk about your own

My mom never pressured me to get a relaxer. I got one when I was 12. I remmeber asking my mom for one at 4 and she told me no, of course. Yall can tell I was hair obsessed since then, what four year old knows about a relaxer

I got lots of hurtful, negative comments from friends and classmates.

I have 4b hair, well I should say 4z, and I'm not exaggerating. As a child my hair never made it past my ears. yes I said it, EARS. The kids in school would say, "oh that little first grader got more hair than you". "If I had your hair I'd get a weave". "OMG look at her hair". When I wore my hair natural three years ago, my ex told me I looked like a slave. One of my friends still tried to crack jokes about my "bad hair". "You got that n$#$# hair". I really wanna tell her to STFU but when my hair grows long, it will speak for itself

The comments were so bad, sometimes I'd come home and just cry. It's really hard for me to accept compliments about my hair, when people tell my hair looks good, I just can't believe it because most of the time, I've heard the opposite.

I dont even like talking about my hair outside of this board. I try to avoid any negativity. Im very sensitive about my hair.

I'm sorry you had to go through that loca. That's a daggone shame that you had to be treated like that over your hair. I cant wait til you reach your hair goals and put them naysayers to shame.

 

[Hairsofab]

I did not get any overt negative hair messages from my mom. But I did get them from other members of my family.

 

[Kay.Dee]

Growing up
I always felt like my hair never measured up. I remember in middle school this group of girls walking behind me asked why I had all those little hairs on my shoulder and if my hair was falling out. I didn't know what to say.

But my dad is really negative when it comes to black women's hair in general.
As far as being natural, he just looks at me, shakes his head and laughs when he sees my hair sometimes.
For him a woman's hair needs to be pin straight, there is no room for anything else.
He's told me how I'll never have a professional career if I don't fix it, that I look crazy, all kinds of ridiculous things. After my BC he hinted that I looked like a lesbian (god forbid a woman have short hair).

 

[Prose Princess]

I don't blame my mother, or my father for my negative views about "nappy" hair. I blame American society.

I just remember a loooong time ago before my first relaxer, I was maybe 4 years old and my mother pressed my hair and it was all the way down my back and she showed me in the mirror and said, "Look how long and pretty your hair is, sweetie!" So after that I had really positive feelings about my hair, except for when my Daddy tried to style it once

Then I got my first relaxer when I was like 6 or 7 and my ends started to thin out, even though my hair was still kind of long. And I remember my friends from down the street who are mixed with Latina and Black I think asking me, "Why did you do your hair like that?" because I had it in plaits that were thick towards the roots and got thinner towards the end. I remember being really confused by that question . But that's when I first started to feel bad about my hair. Then when I was about 8 I switched to traditional school and was around white people all of the time and had mostly white friends, and that glorification of all things white that was ingrained in me by American media since I was born began to work its way out as I looked at all of the white girls with envy because their hair would always swing around every time they moved and mine didn't. Despite the fact that my ends were a bit thinner than my roots, my hair was still very healthy back then and I would still get compliments on my hair, but I still wanted my hair to be like the white girls, or my friends down the street, pretty much anything other than mine.

Of course as I got older I began to appreciate healthy hair regardless of its texture, but I began to believe less and less that my hair could ever be healthy again as I never saw anyone with my texture going natural or with hair down their backs...it was always someone who was biracial with white and black, or one girl who really did have Native American in her family, never just straight black. My hair was always the longest out of my friends (well, the black ones anyway) and even I had all kinds of issues with my hair which only worsened when I got to college.

Then I found LHCF and lived happily ever after!

No seriously though, I love this place, it has opened my eyes. And now I love my hair and hair in general so much, that I can't wait until I have little girls in the future so I can take care of their NATURAL hair until they're 16 and teach them how beautiful their hair is and how to take care of their own hair and deal with haters and what to do with people who pull on their hair etc. etc. lol!

 

[msa]

I didn't really receive any negative hair messages growing up. My mom had my hair pressed for a long time, which implied that straight hair was better, but she didn't actually say it.

I do remember one time in 4th grade, it was my first picture day at my new private (almost all jewish) school. By the time it was my turn to take my picture I'd sweated my hair out so it looked like a big blowdried mushroom. This one boy said that it looked like I'd stuck my hair in an electric socket. I think it upset me for that afternoon but then the next day when I came to school almost all the girls in the class had tried to tease their hair to look like mine. From then on they always copied me, so I felt really positive about my hair.

I've received way more negative messages since being an adult. And, I sure do see a lot here on this site, from relaxed and naturals alike.

 

[cmperez]

When I was growing up my mom use to wash and press my hair. Every single time I'd be sitting in the kitchen with half my hair pressed the other a big, wild mess my dad would walk in and say "Hey Whoopi..." I HATED that. He's always calling my girls grenuda (basically it means messy hair in spanish)...

 

[LivingDol1]

i don't think i ever got negative comments regarding my hair. the only times i get frustrated is when i talk hair with my mom. her hair is coarser than mine and she chopped it all off. so since she's my mother, she claims to be a know it all about -my- hair.

oh and i also got frustrated when i learned that most celebrities wear weaves. how misleading!!! i always looked at the black hair magazines and wanted my hair to be like something i saw in the magazines... well, without a few tracks, it was never gonna happen. oh well!

 

[Calia001]

my mother never said anything negative to me about my hair, if anything it was me wanting to be Rudy Huxtable that influenced her to make decisions on my hair.
Smh rudy rudy rudy, she started my obsession with long hair so young

 

[LivingDol1]

my mother never said anything negative to me about my hair, if anything it was me wanting to be Rudy Huxtable that influenced her to make decisions on my hair.
Smh rudy rudy rudy, she started my obsession with long hair so young

rudy is better than peggy bundy. i can't tell you how many times my mom would style my hair like peggy bundy when i was little. it was just for fun (for her) after the roller set and then she'd do something else. i always think about it when i see a Bump-Its commercial.

 

[mahogany_horizons]

I don't blame my mother, or my father for my negative views about "nappy" hair. I blame American society.

I just remember a loooong time ago before my first relaxer, I was maybe 4 years old and my mother pressed my hair and it was all the way down my back and she showed me in the mirror and said, "Look how long and pretty your hair is, sweetie!" So after that I had really positive feelings about my hair, except for when my Daddy tried to style it once

Then I got my first relaxer when I was like 6 or 7 and my ends started to thin out, even though my hair was still kind of long. And I remember my friends from down the street who are mixed with Latina and Black I think asking me, "Why did you do your hair like that?" because I had it in plaits that were thick towards the roots and got thinner towards the end. I remember being really confused by that question . But that's when I first started to feel bad about my hair. Then when I was about 8 I switched to traditional school and was around white people all of the time and had mostly white friends, and that glorification of all things white that was ingrained in me by American media since I was born began to work its way out as I looked at all of the white girls with envy because their hair would always swing around every time they moved and mine didn't. Despite the fact that my ends were a bit thinner than my roots, my hair was still very healthy back then and I would still get compliments on my hair, but I still wanted my hair to be like the white girls, or my friends down the street, pretty much anything other than mine.

Of course as I got older I began to appreciate healthy hair regardless of its texture, but I began to believe less and less that my hair could ever be healthy again as I never saw anyone with my texture going natural or with hair down their backs...it was always someone who was biracial with white and black, or one girl who really did have Native American in her family, never just straight black. My hair was always the longest out of my friends (well, the black ones anyway) and even I had all kinds of issues with my hair which only worsened when I got to college.

Then I found LHCF and lived happily ever after!

No seriously though, I love this place, it has opened my eyes. And now I love my hair and hair in general so much, that I can't wait until I have little girls in the future so I can take care of their NATURAL hair until they're 16 and teach them how beautiful their hair is and how to take care of their own hair and deal with haters and what to do with people who pull on their hair etc. etc. lol!

Thanks for sharing your story!

 

[Patricia]

I haven't had any negative hair messages but honey I could see the funny look on my mom face when I tried to grow locs. She never said nothing though, I know what she was thinking

 

[bludaydreamr]

I can't say I received negative messages directly from my parents, in fact, they did the best to help us not feel self conscience about our appearances. For her convenience my mother relaxed our hair at 8 and 10 and boy was my father pissed. Since I was so young when I received my first relaxer, I realized that it played a part in my issue with wearing my natural hair as an adult, but if I didn't have those reservations, I would have never have found this site.

 

[HappyHairDreams]

I got negative comments from my mother about my hair when I was a child. She loved that it was thick and long but at the same time she always complained on maintainance days that it was TOO thick to manage and that washing, and braiding it was too much work. That's why she pressed it regularly; I hated getting pressed because she was always manage to burn me somehow and I hated the smell of burning hair. Then when I was 6 or 7 she relaxed it, without telling my dad first; he flipped out on her for that one. She really didn't take care of it after the relaxer and my hair just started breaking, I don't think it's ever been as long or healthy since.

 

[Optimus_Prime]

My mother relaxed my hair by at least the age of 4. She may have relaxed it before then, but that is the earliest I can remember. My mother has said negative things about my hair, made worse because she never knew how to braid, or press, or do anything else that all the other black girls' mothers knew how to do. It made me feel bad as a child that my hair was never done like other girls, even though I always had a lot of it.
In general, my mother is color-struck and seems to believe that black is a synonym for limited, handicapped, etc... Naturally, she is one of those people who think that all white women's hair is real, and she will stare at a black woman with real long hair like she stole it.
When I was in grade school my father said something about mixed (he meant 2a-3b type) hair being "the kind everyone wants, anyway." I have very thick 4a. My father has always been faux-afrocentric, and seemed kind of embarrassed after he let that slip.
On the positive side, hair stylists (West indian ones, but never dominicans) have said some very nice things about my hair that have helped me to think positively, and I have never forgotten them.

 

[MissYocairis]

I'm sorry that your parents were uninformed OP. My mother, the angel that she is, never made me feel "some kinda way" about my hair. BUT....now that I've joined LHCF....she DOES make comments.... "You are obsessed with your hair"/"You need to trim that", et. al.

It's all about education. I cannot blame my parents for they did what they knew was best and I believe that the knowledge we learn on LHCF is really revolutionary and new. So, I am just grateful that we are here now and have this info to grow from.

My hair is longer now than it ever was my entire life....I've had some setbacks....I'm currently about an inch shy of BSL...but I've been BSL because of LHCF (I cut 3 inches off to rid myself of thin ends). So, we just do better when we know better and send blessings to our parents for they knew not what they did.

 

[Latomian]

I don't remember anything bad being said about my hair as a kid but my hair is what is considered pretty thick (but the thinnest in MY family) and my mom has two other girls so she would do their hair and then get too tired to do mine...sometimes up to a couple weeks. I wasn't allowed to touch my own hair...EVER...wash it or comb it so I did have negative feelings towards my sisters who went to school with their hair freshly braided and mine with braids looking weeks old...and poofy...and dirty...made me cry.

My mom and younger sister probably have 4b hair while everyone else has between 3a and c (except me...I have a little bit of everything. I'm a mophead) so my brother always talks about their "good" hair or my mom and sister's "thick" hair while...me...he makes fun of. So...yea...

 

[Lyoness]

Growing up in the 80's I used to watch He-man and my mum wud say "by the power of dry skull" [replacing greyskull ..mocking my hair]... She was the one that used to do my hair so I don't see how she could say anything.. That's the only negative comment I remember everyone else liked my hair..

 

[_belle]

-my mother used to RIP through my wet hair with a comb because 'that was just dead/sheding hair anyway'. why could I feel it coming out of my scalp then?

-the typical 'you just cant grow your hair'

- the typical 'only people that know how to do hair are stylists. . . . you should go to a salon' but I get there and all of the stylists are bald and/or damaged too. . . I wouldn't let a woman with no fingers do my nails or a doctor with no experience do my surgery or a dentist with bad teeth do my hair. . . why would I let a random who knows NOTHING about me, my hair or my hair regime be in control of my hair from $60+ every 2 weeks? when the shampoo was $10, the conditioner was $8, and the comb was $2. . . and when I walk out it is CUTE but not healthy. [/rant]

-my mother still sends those messages now tho. . . all of that 'obsessed with your hair' and 'why don't u just go to the salon' and 'when are you going to get a touch up'. . . if monthly touch ups, weekly salon visits, etc WORKED wouldn't everyone have hair to their buttocks? it OBVIOUSLY doesn't work. . . when I think about much hair would be on my uniform shirt in the morning.

 

[that_1_grrrl]

Hmm. I don't think I got too many bad messages. The only reason I got a relaxer in the first place was, at 8, I wanted a hairstyle that required a relaxer. Before that, my grandmother sent me to a beauty school to have my hair braided every two weeks. I had really cute hairstyles then.

I used to hear jokes about combs breaking in my hair and the such, but it was more of a joke then something to make me feel bad. She would complain, but we laughed about it, ya know?

But, I also heard the good hair vs. bad hair ish. It was more of a "Look at so-and-so, she has that good hair" then a "You have bad hair" thing.

When I went from public school to Catholic school, people would ask me if my relaxed hair was a wig because it never moved. I also got made fun of because I used to wear my hair the same way all the time (I really liked that hairstyle).

I always wanted curly hair, I do remember that. I went to a mostly Latin school. I would see all these girls with long, straight hair or long, curly hair. I felt that if I had long, curly hair, I would look more Latina. I mean, I was really self-conscious back then because I didn't know many Black Latinas. I felt that I didn't look Latina.

But thank God, I can wash my hands of all of that. I'm natural now. I have my curly hair, lol. My grandmother was cool with me going natural. Some family members acted like I was crazy when I went natural, but I have a family that prefers to talk behind people's back, so if they still have issues about it, I don't know.

My mom and my siblings are natural. Although, both my older sister and younger sister want to get relaxers. I'm trying to convince my little sister not to. I told her I'd teach her how to do any hairstyle she wants on her natural hair, so she won't have to straighten it. She goes to a mostly White school, so I think she sees White girls with hairstyles she wants to try.

 

[TheNewFine]

I got negative comments from my mother about my hair when I was a child. She loved that it was thick and long but at the same time she always complained on maintainance days that it was TOO thick to manage and that washing, and braiding it was too much work. That's why she pressed it regularly; I hated getting pressed because she was always manage to burn me somehow and I hated the smell of burning hair. Then when I was 6 or 7 she relaxed it, without telling my dad first; he flipped out on her for that one. She really didn't take care of it after the relaxer and my hair just started breaking, I don't think it's ever been as long or healthy since.

It looks pretty healthy in your siggy, chica!