A few months ago my 8-year-old daughter started talking about “rose braids.”
“I want to have ‘rose braids’,” she said.
“Ok, I don’t know what those are, but we could probably figure it out,” I told her and promised to look it up later.
Later became later and then later again until eventually, she caught me on the couch in a rare quiet moment on a Saturday with nothing to do. She said, “Can we search up rose braids now?”
I typed in a Google image search on our iPad.
Up popped pictures of dozens of women in white dresses with intricate braids spiraling into roses at the top of their heads, the base of their necks, or on either side of their ears.
My daughter’s face was scrunched.
“That’s not rose braids.”
She starts to explain, talking with her hands, trying to paint a visual picture for me and I’m not getting it.
“Like Ava on Bunk’d.” she says finally.
Lightbulb.
Bunk’d is a show on Disney+ she watches almost every day. One of the main characters is Black and has braids in her hair. This character is strong and cool and confident but also vulnerable and my daughter wants to be like her.
“I think those are called ‘box braids’ but I don’t think those are for you.” She was confused. I tried to explain.
We googled “box braids” and saw dozens of beautiful Black women with long braids draping down their shoulders.
I told her, “Hair is a very important thing to Black women and certain styles, like these braids, are a part of their culture and it might feel like we were stealing their culture.”
She could tell I was struggling to come up with the right thing to say, so she said it for me.
“Because we might break it?”
I stumble through teaching my kids about racism. I don’t know what’s age-appropriate, or if her age is even relevant. I don’t know if when she puts her hand on her hip and cocks her head and says, “Yas girl, yas.” like Raven Symone if I’m supposed to stop her or not.
Big glaring in-your-face racism is easy to see, but I want my kids to evolve beyond that and to understand subtle microaggressions. We are learning together and it’s uncomfortable, but it’s supposed to be.
I hope that if I make a sincere effort to explain the why together we can figure out the what.
This is where I am today. Thank you for listening.
