Untamed Tresses

Yesterday afternoon when I walked into the daycare my eyes searched the crowd of kids to find Chica Marie. I noticed the pink stripped shirt she was wearing until my eyes could convey to my brain what they were seeing above her shirt. Instead of the intricate twists I had put in her hair the night before, her unbrushed, disheveled curls were standing on end all over her head. Her perfectly coifed hair had become a tangled lions mane, frizzing into a knotted afro. “What happened to your hair?!” I cried, thinking only some unfortunate misfortune could have caused the daycare to rip her hair out. What was it? Paint? Glue? Baby powder? Syrup? What could have caused this atrocious calamity? “She was complaining it was too tight,” the teacher explained. Um, what? “Yeah, she was crying and telling her morning teacher it was too tight, so she took it out.” I counted to three, took a deep breath and explained how displeased I was to hear someone took it upon themselves to undo my hours’ worth of work the night before.

 

It is not ok for someone to touch her hair and take it out of the style I put it in. It is even worse that her hair was just left free to be a total mess for me to have to comb out and redo. If the child was complaining, first take into consideration that this child is attention seeking in its illest form and if you pity her or baby her she will eat that up with a big ole spoon. Second, think how you might like to pick your child up at daycare and see her hair is totally destroyed. This is not your child. You did not spend an hour on her hair last night. DO NOT TOUCH! If she is crying it is too tight, loosen it a bit and tell me about it – DO NOT TAKE IT OUT! I made Chica Marie practice telling people to not touch her hair. And I asked her if her hair felt too tight this morning, since I put it right back into the same style I had it in previously. She said it was ok. I made sure every teacher knew I did not like what had occurred and asked for it to not happen ever again. Chica Marie has taken her own hair out, or portions of it but she has been good lately. Her hair is growing and looking healthy because it is being protected in the styles I put it in. She is not yet mature enough to have her hair free unless it is for a special occasion and a short period of time. That wild curly look might be cute but it wreaks havoc on her hair, causing it to dry out and break, not to mention it is painful when I have to comb those knots out! I certainly hope this doesn’t happen again because I was none too pleased about the whole situation.