This is the first Ive heard of this but........Im sad for the boy & for everyone. Why make such a bbig big hoopla over it, certainly there are FAR more important issues in Life than this childs hair? This could be used to teach acceptance of the uniqueness of individuals........but instead it sounds like it is being a lesson in diversity. Over what? HAIR? in my opinion hair itself especially at this age is simply NOT a great and important life lesson exactly. Keeping it neat & clean, yes, but......short long pony tailed or braided? No.
That said, we are caucasion here, VERY fair, & almost white hair on difficult child & son. VERY thick hair, difficult children is wavy. I wear my hair very long, & my girls loved long hair when they were little, too. I did comb it daily, threee times, did not leave it to them until they were by many others standards- rather old, like 13 becuz "I" liked their hair to look nice. We used hair time as bonding time. I did pony tail, pigtail & braid it, sometimes I braided it in one or 2 braids, sometimes 40-50 smaller braids, & sometimes Ibeaded the braids. I will say the smaller tighter braids DID break hair....sometimes a LOT of hair. BUT sometimes pony tails also broke hair if we were not careful. My son had beautiful hair. I left it long when he was preschool simply becuz I loved it & so did he. In preschool he did begin to get teased....but HE liked his hair. I told him we could cut it, HE did NOT want to. LOL. And now? My son LOVES getting his head shaved, just as well since he is in civil air patrol & must wear it VERY short. LOL.
I can also say braiding did NOT save me time or tangles. The tangles mostly came from washing & swimming. even if my girls hair was braided, it would loosen in water and tangle, sometimes worse. And I will say, hey, I worked 80 hjours, sometimes 120 hours, cuz dang, I did what I HAD to do to feed my family, cuz my husband is/was 100% mentally disabled (GAF never higher than 30 since 1991) & we have no family at all, and he was/is also physically very handicapped. BUT his social security was just enough to put us a couple $ over the limit to get ANY help. We couldnt get help for medications, either.......and didnt have insurance unless I worked, and my work insurance didnt cover medications, & difficult children medications were almost $3,000 a month back then and so, I did what I had to do, & worked myself beyond extreme. It was so hard, very risky, and I was exhausted, with difficult child & her intense needs & husband and his intense needs..............and yes, I did collapse......Yes. my kids were at risk sometimes simply becuz I had to work so much. But as many here know, you do what you have to do sometimes. Even if it sounds extreme, weird, strange, abnormal, impossible.
While we work so hard to get help for SERIOUS problems with our children, and while we live lives others could never imagine and noone should ever have to live, we needc to remember that some things are NOT a matter of life or death but..........wow, more than anyone, most of us should know, every person is different & unique and these people seem to be thinking of that little basic principal. If were going to be biased against a hairstyle, how will we ever get people to stop being biased over serious mental -neurological problems?
