The Great Hair Blasphemy

Because I'm still struggling with pain and fatigue, I'm behind on a lot of things and just not doing a whole bunch of other things. One thing I am perpetually behind on is caring for Yehva's hair. Her hair is very thick and curly (at least it seems thick to me) and the best way to manage it is to put it in braids or twists after washing it. She doesn't like having it washed, even when we use the minimal-rinsing-required No Poo method, and once it's washed, she's pretty well done having it touched. So we are falling into a bad cycle in which her hair gets washed but not styled and devolves into a crazy textured Buckwheat-style sad linty mess; or I do manage to braid or twist it, but the style gets left in too long and taking it out becomes a whole time-consuming ordeal in itself, which just reinforces for Yehva that having her hair touched is a big pain, both literally and figuratively.

David and I have thought seriously about starting locks, in part because her hair seems to want to lock so very badly, but every time I get close to doing it, I lose my nerve. I'm not patient or especially dextrous, and I'm worried about starting them badly. "It's only hair!" David says, but I'm not sure there is any such thing as "only hair" where little black girls are concerned. And locks need to be maintained, too.

The author of my favorite book on black hair care blogged awhile ago about having to shave her daughter's head because of head lice (something I hadn't thought of: those nit-combs will not go through most African-American hair); she and her daughter both cried about it, but she ended up thinking her daughter looked really adorable with a TWA, or "teeny-weeny afro." And it made me think that Yehva, with her very elegantly-shaped head, would also look adorable with a TWA.

But you don't cut a little black girl's hair. Culturally, it's just not done. I was interested in the comments on Cherie's blog post about the lengths other Black moms had gone to not to cut their daughters' hair when they came home from school with lice. When I asked on the Adoption Hair and Skin Care Yahoo group about doing a short cut for Yehva, I only got a handful of replies--and they all told me not to do it. One woman said she's taught for 17 years in a predominantly Black school and has never seen a little black girl with short hair. Other people suggested that if I couldn't come up with a better plan, I either pay someone to braid Yehva's hair, or get one of my friends to learn how to do it (I am sure I have many friends who would love to give up their Saturday afternoons to come to my house and do Yehva's hair). In googling around, I found one website (warning: auto-play sound) with this question and answer:

My child's hair is so thick, very, very tight kinks, and it is always a battle to comb it. Should I cut it in a cute, short style?

And the answer is:

NO, DON'T CUT IT, if you do she'll be considered ugly and you a bad parent by all the African-American adults and many of the AA children you meet!

I'm not sure why not cutting black girls' hair is so important, culturally. But it does seem to be. Moreso than for little white girls, although as I've been thinking about this today I've been reflecting on the fact that I don't know a single young white girl with short hair, either. Chin-length pageboys and blunt cuts abound, but I don't know a single white girl with hair cut above her ears, for instance. No pixie cuts in this generation. So there's a girl thing there that is separate from the black thing, but I think the black thing goes deeper than the girl thing.

I honestly don't know what to make of it, for me and Yehva. On the one hand, I think I do get the cultural stuff. I mean, I don't fully get all the reasons behind the specific taboo about cutting girls' hair, but I do get that this really matters to black people, and I respect that. On the other hand, I think people should do whatever they want with their own hair. And, as I said in a discussion about this on my Facebook page, "Yehva hates having her hair washed and cries the whole time; short hair would not only be easier for me until I feel better, but it would be way easier on her. Who am I supposed to respect more, my own child or 'black culture'? Am I supposed to torture her in service to some cultural ideal?"

To complicate things for us, I cannot use any scented products. As far as I've been able to find, there are no unscented or fragrance-free product lines for African-American hair; this means that what I use on Yehva's hair is the same fragrance-free conditioner I use, which may not be right for her hair, and whatever I can cobble together from my kitchen: coconut oil, my own mix of leave-in conditioner made with water and olive oil. I don't know for sure because I can't try them, but I am told that products like the Carol's Daughter line make managing thick, nappy hair like Yehva's much easier. But we can't use them.

(This also makes the suggestions I've gotten to have her hair done at a salon not very useful; not only can it cost $70 and up to have hair braided, but hair salons are like Stinking Pits of Death for me.)

I'm not sure what my point is. Except that one reality of adopting a black baby girl is that a seemingly simple thing like, "Maybe it would be better for her to have a short haircut until I'm back on my feet" is not simple at all. It's tremendously fraught. As I jokingly said to David, "I am not allowed to cut Yehva's hair. All The Black People In America say so."