So here I am, considering straightening my hair again. It’s something I’ve not done in some 12 years, probably longer. Although the style has stayed the same for so long, I consider it fortunate that I can play around with my look, although for the most part, I am pleased just having it naturally curly and short. It’s a choice I made when I came to the US where I found suitable, but unpleasant beauty parlors. That is 35 years ago, half my age ago.

I’ve read several interesting blogs written by White mothers who have adopted children with kinky hair, although they don’t refer to it like that. It’s just great that these days there are adoption organizations that offer a forum for discussion of issues children adopted internationally or cross culturally present. In one such blog Am I a Hair Hypocrite? a White mother of an adopted Ethiopian girl sees herself as hypocritical because she straightens her own wavy hair, while admiring her little girl’s curly ringlets. There is also a most pertinent site: Chocolate Hair/Vainilla Care that addresses obvious issues related to different types of hair. I love them sharing their experiences in wanting to present their daughters as if they were well-adjusted girls in an African American community. The photographs shown online are precious and remind me of such with my German mother, always beaming at the camera, so proud of me. Although my mother had a Black community from where she could have received information, she did not chose to do so, and thus combing my hair became a daily ordeal for me, and whoever had to do it.

Several decades later, my much oder than me German sister Ruth, informed me on one of my visits to Guatemala that she had befriended a Black American woman working in the American Embassy. Ruth admired her braided hair, and in the ensuing conversation learned that our painful morning sessions could have been avoided, had we known that moistening the hair relaxed it, making it easy to comb through. By then I knew that little fact, of course, and shared with her that the braids were not opened on a daily basis – they sometimes stayed braided for a long time, sometimes until the hair grew out. The fancy braiding was sometimes not undone when washed.

I was fascinated with braids when they became fashionable, but by then I considered myself too old to experiment with them. I delight in seeing the supportive communities that have developed for White adoptive parents who have adopted internationally and interracially such as Adoptive Families Circle. However, my suggestion to these parents would always be: to allow their children ample exposure and interaction with at least one Black family. While hair is an important factor, healthy self-esteem comes from knowing others well who look like you and whom you can trust.