The Problem with Girl Hair

I am a failure.

Most of the many and varied issues that are thrown in my direction on this journey we call parenting, I tackle with gritted teeth, determination, (sometimes fake) enthusiasm and a smile but one thing has completely floored me; girl hair.

Boy’s hair is so simple. If they have it short, you really don’t have to do much with it at all. If it grows a bit longer, you may have to tackle it with a brush every now and then and maybe a teach them the subtle art of hair styling products, but that is all so much easier than girl hair. Boy hair is easier to wash. Boy hair is easier to deal with at the hairdresser. Girl hair is to be quite honest; my downfall.

When A was born, I quickly got into the whole ‘girl thing’ pretty quickly and it was ace; pink, pink and more pink. As her hair started to grow, I had this nagging doubt in the back of my mind, but I shoved it to one side. She would have short hair.

As soon as her hair was long enough to cut, we had a short bob and that was a doddle. Wash, brush and go. No problem. As she became more aware of the heady world of clothes and accessories, she started asking for hairbands. I secretly did a little dance of joy; no styling, no faffing, just put it in and off you go. I rejoiced in hairbands and they were  going to be my cunning way of hiding my inadequacy.

Apart from a few unfortunate disasters where she unfathomably tangled her hair around the hairband or the hairband took on a life of its own during the day, it was all good. We created a hair band collection to rival the hair section in Boots and we were all happy.

I should have known it wouldn’t last.

Then school happened. All of the girls in her class have long hair. Some of them have such beautifully styled hair with intricate plaits and all sorts, I am sure that their mothers must get up at 4 am every morning to do it for them.  They tell me that YouTube is the answer and there are numerous videos that give you step by step directions to create the perfect look.  A even told me to watch videos on YouTube to find ways of doing her hair.

One morning, inspired by one particularly beautiful swirling plait that passed me on the playground, I took a deep breath and searched YouTube.  I have to agree that hair tutorials are in plentiful supply and I did watch a few.  Some made me laugh such as the dad who uses a hoover to get his daughter’s hair into the perfect ballet bun (I kid you not) and many made me weep as I knew that there was little or no chance of me ever recreating such perfection.

Plaits are big at the moment with A, I assume it is part of the Frozen effect as the female characters all have sweeping plaits.  A’s hair is now shoulder length and we have mastered the art of the (fairly neat) pony tail which in itself took some serious doing.  We watched a tutorial for fishtail plaits and managed to do that fairly successfully.  We have experimented with pigtails, two plaits but that of course is not enough.

Apart from my general lack of ability in this field, A has very fine hair and that makes it difficult to work with.  I should know as I have had to live with the same hair now for many years.  I have been through many years of hair frustration.

As a teenager I would spend hours having my hair permed to give it some life only for the curls to drop out after a week.  It is straighter than straight and one of my funniest presents was from my husband in the early years, when he had sought advice about what to buy me and someone had suggested hair straighteners.  Yes, the perfect present for a woman with straight hair, don’t you think?

I have accepted my hair for what it is.  I don’t do a huge amount with it and these days due to lack of time and energy, I usually scrape it into a plait or pony tail and that is fine by me; no faffing, not styling, no blow-drying.  I wash, comb and go.  Easy.

This does still leave me with the dilemma of my daughter who is usually tells me about two minutes before were are due to leave the house in a morning that she wants something done with her hair.  She is very patient as I try and fail to make it look neat and then have to start all over again.  Where am I going wrong?  Maybe I should try convincing her that short hair is great on girls?  Any advice on this topic would be gratefully received.