Timeless Wisdom

Despite being one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever known, my mom always had a grounded perspective on beauty.

Perhaps it’s because of what she learned from one the stories of fighting for civil rights in her deep south, hometown.  She, and others, were at a demonstration when a member of the authorities questioned, in a syrupy sweet, Southern drawl, why she had joined the demonstration.

“Don’t you know that we love you?”, he sincerely asked her.

My wife never heard that story but she’s no less grounded.  Whenever I forget myself and praise my daughters about their good looks, my wife is always there to correct me.

“Tell them their smart!”, she scolds.

If my daughters have heard that story or noticed the scolds, they haven’t let on, but I’m sure that they’re getting the message.  For instance, Marcel didn’t hesistate to test out her new safety scissors on one of her braids the other day. One inch less later, my children have proven that they won’t let their beauty get in the way of the pursuit of knowledge.

 

This is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius

I’ve been washing Marcel’s hair from the beginning. That task was so difficult, and would leave me so exhausted, that I needed my wife to tag in to do the styling.

I needed her to tag in because of that fact and the additional fact that I didn’t know the first thing about styling. There was one other reason, too. Maybe my wife won’t admit it, but I have the strong sense that she wanted to be the one who styled Marcel’s hair.

I’m not sure how it is in other communities, but in black communities, hair is a big issue. And the ability to control and manipulate hair into a thing of beauty is a–not “the” but “a”–measure of a woman’s worth in the black community.

Now, this is loaded.

First, we have to acknowledge that, historically, white hair styles had set the standard of beauty, even though whites have a very different type of hair than blacks. This, in turn, required blacks to develop extreme, even unhealthy, measures to force black hair into white styles. Thus, black women found beauty in something usually alien to our community (white hair), but also found beauty in something uniquely ours (black hair care methods).

However, if you have one (white hair), you really don’t have the opportunity to develop the other (black hair care methods) and, on the other hand, if you have to rely on the latter, you probably can never claim the former (at least, not comfortably). Thus develops one of the most significant fault lines in the black female community.

My white-haired, black wife is well aware of all this and, because Marcel has black hair, I believe my wife feared that this fault line might develop between she and Marcel while also revealing that fault line between her and the other black hair women in our family who could, frankly, see that Marcel had the type of black hair that could easily come as close to white hair as black hair could come.

On the other hand, if my wife could show, through Marcel, that she could master black hair methods, then she would build her bond with her black-haired relatives. Most importantly, though, by teaching Marcel how to manage these treacherous waters, I think my wife felt that she could help build her bond with her own daughter.

But I want to build a bond with my daughters, too.

Marcel, again frankly, is girlie. Tristan, who already shows that she’s more interested in her big sister than any other member of our family, will probably be girlie, too. If I am going to bond with my daughters, then it’s going to have to be on their turf. That means dancing lessons, and princess training and…hair styling. So, while I was grateful for the help, I was also disappointed that I couldn’t finish the job.

Well, I know how to finish it, now.

Behold my first hair do.

 

Genes

Everybody…EVERYBODY…claims to see a little of themselves in my daughter, Marcel. My mother, for instance, claims that she spit her out. Seriously, she claims every inch of Marcel.

I will admit that I definitely think Marcel looks like the rest of my family and not at all like my wife’s family. My wife, on the other hand, of course thinks that that is nonsense. She claims all types of things. My favorite is when she says Marcel has hair just like her. Now THAT is a good laugh.

My dad, however, is more modest. He’ll only claim the eyes. You see my mother, my wife, her parents and I all have lighter eye colors while only my dad, like Marcel, has brown eyes. That may change, though. Apparently, my wife was born with brown eyes that eventually changed to green-blue when she was three and Marcel is now nearing that stage.

However, there is one thing that my father will always be able to claim. That’s “Hrmpf!“

Growing up, “hrmpf” was Dad’s go to signal for disapprobation. Something crazy come on the news? Dad would go “hrmpf!” Make a suggestion that he didn’t like? Dad would give you a “hrmpf!” Somehow fall short of his ideal, and he’d cushion your fall with a sharp “hrmpf!”

I didn’t really notice it, though, until my youngest brother picked up the habit. Like the rest of us, he had only ever been a victim of the “hrmpf.” Then, one day, he decided to do a little victimization himself. It’s one thing to get criticized by your dad. You figure he’s just doing his job. It’s a whole other thing to get it from the spoiled brat of the family! That’s when I realized how powerful the “hrmpf” really was.

Unlike in my youngest brother, however, dad can’t find anything to disapprove of in Marcel. So, unlike my little brother, Marcel can never have actually heard the powerful “hrmpf.” That is, she never heard it until she uttered it, herself.

Now, if I suggest Marcel say “hi” to someone when she’s not interested in saying “hi”, then I get a “hrmpf.” If I offer Marcel a piece of food that she’s not interested in eating, then I get a “hrmpf.” If I suggest that she spit her pacifier into my hand, then I get a exaggerated body turn, squenching up of her nose, full-throated, “HRMPF!!!”

And, I’m sure, somewhere my dad is offering a very warm, “attaboy!”

 

Sins of the Father

Marcel loves to play in water and is usually eager to take baths. She hates getting her hair washed, though.

At the beginning of a bath, she usually rushes to get in to play. She won’t let it interrupt her, but we can bathe her without any problem. Even when we get to the hair washing, we can usually get it wet and even soaped up…just so long as it doesn’t interrupt her play.

She has absolutely no patience for rinsing her hair, though. She fights the rinsing.

When we start rinsing, she starts reaching out for me to pull her out of the tub. The hand shower that she previously grabbed for, she now pushes away. The child that loves sitting in the water and splashing or banging on her floatable instruments, now becomes the child that tries to climb out of the bathtub soaking wet, even though it risks a terrible fall. When it comes to hair washing, fun always turns to fights.

On Saturday, though, there was no fun before the fight. When I asked Marcel if she wanted to take a bath , she didn’t jump at the chance, as is her usual wont, but declined vigorously. When I got her naked and in the tub, she didn’t plop down to play, but stood nervously through the bathing, waiting for the onslaught. And, this time, instead of begging to be pulled out, she immediately started to climb out of the tub when the rinsing began. Then she fell.

She only fell flat on her butt, but it scared her enough to stop her from trying to climb out of the tub. She clambered to her knees and gripped the side. Then, she cried, yelled and begged for me to stop rinsing her hair. Neither my words of praise and patience nor her pacifier provided any comfort. I hated to put her through this.

When I was little, I didn’t like anything being done to my hair, either. One of my earliest memories is lying on my back with my head falling in the sink, holding a washcloth tightly against my face to keep the water and soap out of my eyes while my mother washed my hair.

I also recall that the barber’s clippers gave me such a chill, that I couldn’t stand to get a haircut. And I screamed and cried so loud during the morning hair combing before school, that it’s a wonder that concerned police and child welfare workers never raided the house. The result was hair so nappy and unruly that kids teased me mercilessly with the nickname “Beady.”

But I was comfortable with that compromise because I was more concerned with the way my head felt then the way it looked. That’s why I totally understand Marcel’s issues with hair rinsing.

I think she doesn’t like the hair rinsing because the soap and suds hurt her ear tubes (inserted to combat the constant ear infections that she was getting after starting daycare). Maybe it’s because the suds muffle her hearing. Maybe it’s just because she doesn’t like anything in her ears. That would explain why she doesn’t like using earplugs.

When she got the tubes, the doctor gave us earplugs to keep water out when she goes swimming. They said it wasn’t necessary for baths, but given how much she fights the rinsing, we thought we’d try it, anyway. No dice. Marcel doesn’t like them in her ears anymore than she likes suds. So we were left to fight through her anguish.

When all the soap was finally washed away, I was grateful to turn off the water, wrap her in a towel and carry her to the bed. I laid her on her back to dry, lotion and dress her. As I dried her, she examined the earplugs. Ultimately, though, she found no reason to find comfort there. Ultimately, she could only find comfort in me. So she reached up to me, grabbed my head, pulled me to her chest and held me. And I held her.

“Sorry”, she seemed to say, “for not being strong enough.”

“Sorry”, I tried to say back, “for not being strong enough to find another way.”

And for fifteen minutes my baby girl and I had that silent conversation until we understood each other’s hopes as well as we understood each other’s fears. Satisfied, we got dressed and took a nap.