“Little Miss Pre-K,” the picture of an angelic face Black girl is captioned. The picture went viral, and the reason is that the pre-schooler is wearing a lace front wig, cut in a bob style, and acrylic nails. Obviously, it sent commenters into a storm, with many arguing that she is much too young for the look, while others don’t see it as anything dissimilar to a young girl having a bob with their own hair, and while I think both sides may have valid points, the one point that I did not see mentioned was, “what is this teaching her?”
Hair influences how we see ourselves in the world because how the world sees us is influenced by our hair. What message is this sending to a young girl who is growing up in a world where straight hair is seen as the standard? Now, I am not sure how often this little girl gets her straightened/wig installs, but I do know there is power in that transformation and that power is not always for the better. Even as an adult, I caution myself not to get too excited about a silk press, and I’m GROWN. While I’m sure it may have saved a couple of singed ears, which is somewhat a rite of passage for many a Black girl on Easter Sunday, or picture day, that does not mean there is no long-term damage.
The average pre-K student is four years old, and while I’m all here for self-expression and autonomy for kids, I do not think this was the child’s doing nearly as much as the mother’s. At a time when a mother should be filling her child with affirmations of self-love and self-acceptance, I do not think it prudent to present a child with a form of self-love that is not really a form of herself.
Black hair does not come without its share of woes or trauma, as much as we would like to pretend it doesn’t. From a very young age, texturism becomes a part of a Black child’s life. The good hair/bad hair trope or “training the hair,” comments come way before our first memories. With a soft bristle brush across a baby’s dome, Black mothers, along all class lines, wait anxiously (some in silence) for what type of hair texture their child will eventually grow to have because they know it will be a part of how the world treats them. The Black hair care aisles can be isolating in any neighborhood because they are often filled with dangerous chemicals promising things that are just not true, and those are the stores with the best selections.
The girls on the “Just for Me,” boxes stare blanking back at the child who longs to achieve the same look, to be viewed as precious and beautiful enough to be on a box too. We were literally lining up to put cancer-causing agents in our hair to achieve the approval of others, some of whom would never approve of us anyway.
There is very little emotional safety for a Black girl in a world that demands that she show up differently in order to be loved, and at the very least Black mothers should do is to be the affirmation in a world that uses axes instead.
