What's Wrong With My Son's Afro?

Xavier in all his Afro glory in a boxing stance, and with his hair in cornrows.

We sent Xavier to daycare with his Afro puff yesterday and when we picked him up, he had cornrows. I was a tad startled since no one had asked if it was okay to change the child's hair, but I was also shocked that he sat still long enough to even get that done.

So what's the issue? I have no problem with cornrows (I rock em myself on occasion) and I've had his Godmother Khadeen do said style before. The issue is the teacher who put these in had made a comment to my husband on Friday about us cutting off or taming the child's wild hair.

Now, as a black woman who recently stopped using chemicals to straighten my hair and started wearing my hair in it's natural state, I know that "wild" is code for nappy aka bad hair and I take major issues with that. In my culture, we also don't cut a child's hair before their first birthday so cutting said Afro is not an option for now.

Here's the deal, I want my son to grow up feeling like his hair in its natural state, is perfectly fab. I want him to know that when he gets older, rocking an Afro, cornrows, a mohawk or shaving it all will be perfectly fine.

So today I'm trying to craft the conversation I'll have with this teacher when I pick him up this evening. It'll be a delicate task because she's the only black teacher at the school and she'll in fact be his teacher in a few weeks when he turns a year-old. In other words, I'm not trying to piss this woman off and cause some major rift because I really do like this school. I know her intentions were good, but I need for her to also understand that there's nothing wild and untamed about his Afro and that she'll need to get used to seeing it on occasion when he moves up to her class. 

Who knew hair could be such a delicate issue! Any advice on how to tackle this mini UN moment?

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Write by: A-Efendy - Thursday, October 11, 2012