Looking Grown
I’m often left baffled by this obsession with demonizing little girls who don’t have a hundred hair bobs and braids. Is this a western thing, an American thing, a black thing? Today’s wtf moment was brought on looking at FB (always good to get your blood pressure up) I’m in a group ostensibly about vintage black American pictures but there seems to be plenty of contemporary photos posted. Someone posted a pit picture of two elementary school aged black girls with the girl on the left wearing a ruffled dress with hair in multiple pigtails and adorned ponytail holders, the girl on the right was wearing jeans and at shirt with her waist length hair falling straight down her back. The y posted the pic with the comment little girls back in my day vs little girls now.
Everyone knows the secret to enjoying anything on the web is to not read the comments, advice I all too often don’t take. There were over a hundred comments and while I didn’t read them all the overwhelming trend was to say how terrible the parents of the straight haired girl must be for letting her look so grown and how people need to let children be children. Of course lots of folks also shared pictures of their children as proof that they were maintaining the standards of childhood appropriate hair. More than a few people made dumb assed comments along the lines of this is why little girls are being snatched, why pedophiles go after girls etc. Some folks did try to bring some realism to the discussion saying how little girls wearing pigtails get snatched. I can personally attest to the fact that grown men paid me too much mind throughout my childhood despite me looking younger than I already was, hair all braided up, dressed frumpy, and nothing more exotic than chapstick adorning my lips. Funnily enough no one seemed to recall that Easter Sunday all us black girls had our hair pressed and out, often wore pantyhose/tights as well as kitten heels with our decidedly grown up looking outfits. So I guess you only look grown when you aren’t celebrating Jesus.
My question is why is a black girl wearing her hair out such a hot button issue? Damn near every white girl I went to school with wore their hair free all the time and I don’t recall one instance of people saying they were too grown. It’s made me wonder if this attitude is somehow a result of the hypersexualization of black women, an outward sign to all and sundry that she’s a baby leave her be in an attempt to stave off lecherous intentions from untrustworthy men. Maybe it’s the parenting equivalent of baggy clothes worn by girls who develop early in an effort to disguise their more womanly shapes to better blend in with their lesser developed peers. No one seems to recall that putting a kids hair up was simply easier in most cases. Less worry about it getting tangled while playing therefore less work on the part of the caregiver. When traditional hairstyles worn by black girls went from a matter of function to a determination of a child’s character and her parents parenting skills I’m not sure.
This came up in my own family with my niece. When she was a kid her mother took her to get mani pedis, and let her wear a bit of make up to play in. She wore purfume and played in her little kitten heels. Basically she played dress up and spent time bonding with her mother. I saw nothing wrong with it since I recall doing the same things at that age, well until my parents decided that they were too holy for make up. Playing dress up and getting prettied is a common girl thing to do, I had a Barbie head whose hair I styled and makeup I did regularly, normal kid stuff. Let’s face it even with lipstick and nail polish my niece looked like a cute kid in makeup not a short adult. I dare say any reasonable person can easily tell the difference. Where I think lines got crossed is my niece’s mother is white and my parents are black. My sister in law wasn’t approaching sharing these girly pursuits with her daughter from the same cultural space.
Everything that child did wrong was somehow the fault of her being so grown so young. How exactly nail polish makes a kid act out is beyond me but obviously, at least to my parents, such adornments had the power to transform a normal child into a spoiled kid throwing a tantrum, a picky eater, a child not always as studious as she could be and so on.
There are things I think aren’t good for children like wearing high heels. As grown women they are known to cause problems with muscles and tendons and I’d assume this would be worse for someone still growing, not to mention it’s hella hard to run through a sandbox in heels, just saying. Wearing makeup daily is something I frown on for the simple reason that make up can be very irritating to your skin, not an issue young girls need to deal with. Also when you have on a full face the likelihood of engaging in physical play that is generally a part of childhood goes down. It really comes down to being appropriate. What gets me is the obliviousness of folks that when they look at a child wearing make up or straightened hair or legging/tight pants and see not a child wearing these things but a mini women whose sexuality needs to be commented on it’s they who are secxualizing the child, not whoever dressed them.
Everyone knows the secret to enjoying anything on the web is to not read the comments, advice I all too often don’t take. There were over a hundred comments and while I didn’t read them all the overwhelming trend was to say how terrible the parents of the straight haired girl must be for letting her look so grown and how people need to let children be children. Of course lots of folks also shared pictures of their children as proof that they were maintaining the standards of childhood appropriate hair. More than a few people made dumb assed comments along the lines of this is why little girls are being snatched, why pedophiles go after girls etc. Some folks did try to bring some realism to the discussion saying how little girls wearing pigtails get snatched. I can personally attest to the fact that grown men paid me too much mind throughout my childhood despite me looking younger than I already was, hair all braided up, dressed frumpy, and nothing more exotic than chapstick adorning my lips. Funnily enough no one seemed to recall that Easter Sunday all us black girls had our hair pressed and out, often wore pantyhose/tights as well as kitten heels with our decidedly grown up looking outfits. So I guess you only look grown when you aren’t celebrating Jesus.
My question is why is a black girl wearing her hair out such a hot button issue? Damn near every white girl I went to school with wore their hair free all the time and I don’t recall one instance of people saying they were too grown. It’s made me wonder if this attitude is somehow a result of the hypersexualization of black women, an outward sign to all and sundry that she’s a baby leave her be in an attempt to stave off lecherous intentions from untrustworthy men. Maybe it’s the parenting equivalent of baggy clothes worn by girls who develop early in an effort to disguise their more womanly shapes to better blend in with their lesser developed peers. No one seems to recall that putting a kids hair up was simply easier in most cases. Less worry about it getting tangled while playing therefore less work on the part of the caregiver. When traditional hairstyles worn by black girls went from a matter of function to a determination of a child’s character and her parents parenting skills I’m not sure.
This came up in my own family with my niece. When she was a kid her mother took her to get mani pedis, and let her wear a bit of make up to play in. She wore purfume and played in her little kitten heels. Basically she played dress up and spent time bonding with her mother. I saw nothing wrong with it since I recall doing the same things at that age, well until my parents decided that they were too holy for make up. Playing dress up and getting prettied is a common girl thing to do, I had a Barbie head whose hair I styled and makeup I did regularly, normal kid stuff. Let’s face it even with lipstick and nail polish my niece looked like a cute kid in makeup not a short adult. I dare say any reasonable person can easily tell the difference. Where I think lines got crossed is my niece’s mother is white and my parents are black. My sister in law wasn’t approaching sharing these girly pursuits with her daughter from the same cultural space.
Everything that child did wrong was somehow the fault of her being so grown so young. How exactly nail polish makes a kid act out is beyond me but obviously, at least to my parents, such adornments had the power to transform a normal child into a spoiled kid throwing a tantrum, a picky eater, a child not always as studious as she could be and so on.
There are things I think aren’t good for children like wearing high heels. As grown women they are known to cause problems with muscles and tendons and I’d assume this would be worse for someone still growing, not to mention it’s hella hard to run through a sandbox in heels, just saying. Wearing makeup daily is something I frown on for the simple reason that make up can be very irritating to your skin, not an issue young girls need to deal with. Also when you have on a full face the likelihood of engaging in physical play that is generally a part of childhood goes down. It really comes down to being appropriate. What gets me is the obliviousness of folks that when they look at a child wearing make up or straightened hair or legging/tight pants and see not a child wearing these things but a mini women whose sexuality needs to be commented on it’s they who are secxualizing the child, not whoever dressed them.
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