Nappy Hair

So everyone has a huge concern about how white folks' hair is different from African hair and how hard it will be on the white moms to keep their Ethiopian princess' hair in check. There are websites devoted to it and it is a hot topic on the Yahoo group. When I told my (Jamaican) friend Tamara that we were referred a girl, the first thing she said was that she'd have to show me how to do her hair. Even funnier, when I was in Ethiopia prior to receiving a referral, I mentioned to a Dutch woman that we were undecided about a boy or girl and she brought up the point that I would have to learn to do hair if we adopted a girl. Now the reason I find this so funny is that she had three Ethiopian kids and the first thing I thought when I saw them was that someone needs to teach that woman how to do hair. In fact, I came across several Norwegian and Dutch folks with girls and each had hair that any Ethiopian or African American would have been mortified over. I'm not trying to generalize but someone needs to fly to Scandinavia and teach those women how to do hair. But I digress...

For those of you who don't know, I've grown up in a very multi-ethnic environment. I was partially raised when I was young by my best friend's mom as my mom worked nights and slept during the day. She (and her mom) are black as were many of the folks I hung around with growing up. I remember I wanted to do everything my best friend did including getting braids with beads (before Bo Derek!), getting my hair hot combed (bad idea on my fine hair - the smell of burnt hair remains with me forever) and joining her dance group so I could have my own gold lame costume ala Solid Gold (also a bad idea as I hadn't quite developed much rhythm at the age of 5).

But since I've always had racially diverse friends and continue to do so to this day, I have this attitude that I have an advantage over other white moms and hair will be easy since I've been around black hair all my life. But then I think about it. And I realize I've never DONE any black hair and if someone asked me what products to use, I'd have no clue. So I realize I'm really lucky I have my friends to guide me through or people might start thinking I'm Dutch.