Braids for white daughter? I want to be culturally appropriate. Help!

[Anonymous]

I would do one braid with beads ... I see tons of girls with beads in their hair at school and they are all different races / I would not personally do a whole head of corn style braids -

[Anonymous]

Is your daughter French?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's fine. Do the braids and beads and let them match. Some people will consider you clueless and offensive. But it's totally normal for kids to want to be twinsies. She knows she is different from her best friend but she wants to imitate her and that is normal. But please, do not explain cultural appropriation to a 4 year old. This is a novel concept that will likely transition to a more enlightened view that, for example, kids can dress up as twins.

I sent my kid to a preschool where she was the only white kid. For her self portrait, she drew herself with blonde hair and black skin. Identity is fragile at that age and they want to belong. No one said a word to her about it, and that was the right answer.

I am the white mom of a black daughter and 2 Latina daughters. I agree with this.

I would let them have their braids and be twinsies. It sounds delightful frankly. It would be offensive to insist that the black girl can only wear black girl hair styles and the white girl can only wear white girl hairstyles imo.

Now, will you get some busybody means-well-but-clueless-white-Liberal-momma in your face about it? Yep. You just explain very matter of factly that your daughter is twinsies with her best friend (do NOT say she is black), and that you're so glad they have found each other. If you've got your phone then pull it out and show a picture of the two girls. Then walk away. Some people just aren't worthy of anything more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a complete idiot though I feel like one now. I know better than to let my kid have braids to match her friend. Could I do french braids instead and put beads in her hair that way? I'm so lost on this. I am an immigrant, sorry for not understanding. I am trying.

Just do a couple of French braids

[Anonymous]

If they’re best friends, you speak to her parents, right? Why not just ask them? “Hey the girls want to have matching hair for a day so they can be twins, is there a day we can coordinate their hairstyles? How should we style it?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in a free country. If the girls want to be twins, let them be twins. OMG! Enough of this B.S.

No kidding. Op my 6 year old white dd loved braids and beads. I’m sorry I didn’t ask permission here first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's fine. Do the braids and beads and let them match. Some people will consider you clueless and offensive. But it's totally normal for kids to want to be twinsies. She knows she is different from her best friend but she wants to imitate her and that is normal. But please, do not explain cultural appropriation to a 4 year old. This is a novel concept that will likely transition to a more enlightened view that, for example, kids can dress up as twins.

I sent my kid to a preschool where she was the only white kid. For her self portrait, she drew herself with blonde hair and black skin. Identity is fragile at that age and they want to belong. No one said a word to her about it, and that was the right answer.

I am the white mom of a black daughter and 2 Latina daughters. I agree with this.

I would let them have their braids and be twinsies. It sounds delightful frankly. It would be offensive to insist that the black girl can only wear black girl hair styles and the white girl can only wear white girl hairstyles imo.

Now, will you get some busybody means-well-but-clueless-white-Liberal-momma in your face about it? Yep. You just explain very matter of factly that your daughter is twinsies with her best friend (do NOT say she is black), and that you're so glad they have found each other. If you've got your phone then pull it out and show a picture of the two girls. Then walk away. Some people just aren't worthy of anything more.

+1. Actually, you tell her to myob

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry I think it’s cultural appropriation

No one cares what you think pp. “sorry”

[Anonymous]

I'm a mixed-race foreigner and don't understand the American concept of cultural appropriation at all. It doesn't exist in other countries. It seems to be another one of these self-flagellation concepts that privileged people add to their lives because they have nothing of importance to worry about.

I say your daughter can have braids, whatever kind she wants.

And if anyone wants to dress up as someone from any of my two cultures, they're welcome to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's fine. Do the braids and beads and let them match. Some people will consider you clueless and offensive. But it's totally normal for kids to want to be twinsies. She knows she is different from her best friend but she wants to imitate her and that is normal. But please, do not explain cultural appropriation to a 4 year old. This is a novel concept that will likely transition to a more enlightened view that, for example, kids can dress up as twins.

I sent my kid to a preschool where she was the only white kid. For her self portrait, she drew herself with blonde hair and black skin. Identity is fragile at that age and they want to belong. No one said a word to her about it, and that was the right answer.

I am the white mom of a black daughter and 2 Latina daughters. I agree with this.

I would let them have their braids and be twinsies. It sounds delightful frankly. It would be offensive to insist that the black girl can only wear black girl hair styles and the white girl can only wear white girl hairstyles imo.

Now, will you get some busybody means-well-but-clueless-white-Liberal-momma in your face about it? Yep. You just explain very matter of factly that your daughter is twinsies with her best friend (do NOT say she is black), and that you're so glad they have found each other. If you've got your phone then pull it out and show a picture of the two girls. Then walk away. Some people just aren't worthy of anything more.

+1. Actually, you tell her to myob

That, too.

Unfortunately people are getting so aggressive and confrontational these days that you never know how any of this will go ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a complete idiot though I feel like one now. I know better than to let my kid have braids to match her friend. Could I do french braids instead and put beads in her hair that way? I'm so lost on this. I am an immigrant, sorry for not understanding. I am trying.

Just do a couple of French braids

Again, is her daughter French? Is it ok to steal from the French? Since French braids are a "white" hairstyle, they must have been stolen from another culture. Ergo French braids are just as bad as anything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a complete idiot though I feel like one now. I know better than to let my kid have braids to match her friend. Could I do french braids instead and put beads in her hair that way? I'm so lost on this. I am an immigrant, sorry for not understanding. I am trying.

Just do a couple of French braids

Again, is her daughter French? Is it ok to steal from the French? Since French braids are a "white" hairstyle, they must have been stolen from another culture. Ergo French braids are just as bad as anything else.

You're embarrassing yourself.

[Anonymous]

It’s ridiculous to impose adult racist nonsense on two innocent children who clearly have no sense of any such thing between them. People have a right to look how they want to, even 5 year olds. Getting all wrapped around an axle about something like this, in the name of “equity” or whatever, is what perpetuates racial conflict by reducing people to the color of their skin.

OP should be pleased and proud that her daughter is an open and non-racially obsessed person

[Anonymous]

I'd talk to the girls mom to check in, but they're young and this is about friendship.

I also think if we had real equality in this country, this stuff wouldn't matter. It's the discrepancy between imitating aspects of Black culture without respecting Black lives that might also be one source of irritation


...as someone put it, imagine if white people cared as much about Black people as they do about Black culture...but I think that more about adults making choices.

[Anonymous]

Ask the other kid's mother. That's who you should be concerned about offending. If she is totally fine with it (like doesn't even hesitate to say yes) then go ahead but you can have a conversation with your kid when it's age appropriate. But for now, go ahead if the other parent is fine with it.

I know some will say who cares about the other parent but they are friends so it does matter in this case.