My aunt has a child with beautiful hair. She has the type of hair that you can wet, put on a roller and dry, and the curl would come out perfect. Her hair is beautiful and growing. My aunt wants to put a relaxer in her head soon. No one understands why... she has beautiful natural hair, but my aunt insists that she's going to put a relaxer in it. I hate to see this happen and I know how bad relaxers are for hair (I've been transitioning from a relaxer I was forced to get). Is there any advice on how to persuade her mom not to put chemicals in her hair? Or should we let the damage happen?
Mane & Chic replies...
I went through the same thing with my aunt and two tweenage cousins. She eventually decided to use a "texturizer" and now roller sets their hair so it's bone straight. Even though my aunt knows about my blog, reads it and knows all the harmful effects of relaxers, she decided to go through with it. You can't tell people how to raise their kids. They are going to do what they want to do anyway. You can give her hair books, send her links to articles, state your opinion/the facts every chance you get and spin your wheels, but ultimately she's going to do what she wants. I'd say just arm her with a lot of info and let her make an informed decision. While your little cousin is still natural, just make sure you let her know her hair is beautiful every chance you get and be an example to her with your hair.
One of my all time favorite writers, bell hooks, wrote an amazing book called Happy to Be Nappy
. Some other great books for little girls with curls are I Love My Hair!
, Nappy Hair , Please, Baby, Please
by Spike Lee... just to name a few. Anybody else been in this scenario, how did you handle it?
When my niece was about 8 my sister put this "kiddie perm" in my niece's BEAUTIFUL long, thick hair and it really caused major damage. At first my sister was like she was happy and my niece was happy but just as I predicted months later my niece's hair which was waist length slowly shortened and broke off. My niece is 10 1/2 now and really embracing her natural hair and it is much more healthy. My sister totally regrets the decision.
ReplyDeleteI was at the playground with my younger siblings the other day and I noticed how many of the little black girls had such thick, beautiful healthy looking hair. It just saddens me that so many of us started off there and then our parents decided it was time to relax and all that pretty hair went away.
You could always show her the youtube videos of damage from relaxers.
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