Saturday 23 November 2013

Hair and beauty

So I just spent over 30minutes writing a post only for my phone to ring and for me to lose everything I wrote!! I'm going to start afresh....
I'm at this salon getting my hair braided, and there's this toddler here crying my ears off. This post is being written not because I can't stand crying babies. It is being written because I cannot fathom why for the life of me a less than two years old baby will be subjected to such torture! How can a mother seat her baby on her laps and hear her cry from the pain of having her hair being braided?
I'm convinced this little girl is gong to grow up with a warped understanding of what true beauty is. She's most likely going to grow up thinking to look beautiful, she always has to cover her beautiful reddish brown kinky hair with fake hair. Her cries were so much tearing at my heart that I almost asked her mother why she was doing this to the girl. I stopped myself because I cannot speak twi well and knowing myself, I'll end up coming across as judgemental (which I am on this issue by the way :D)
I am braiding my hair because it is natural and knowing how busy I'm going to be in the next couple of weeks, I'm better of putting it in an easy to manage style. But this little girl here has short natural hair which only has to be trimmed in order for her mum to be able to pass a comb through it when it's messy.
The crying got unbearable to the point where one other customer in the shop advised the mother to breastfeed the baby to sleep so the braiding can continue. She heeded to the advice and the baby is asleep now, but the whole situation has awakened in me something! It's got me asking myself what is wrong with us women? When are we going to get to the point where we understand that true beauty is not about how you look on the outside, but is something inside that radiates on the outside.  Of course that doesn't mean I agree with women who go about looking like they're crazy all in the name of keeping their hair natural. They twist their hair and keep it for weeks on end, making them look like they were crazy for real. This post is not even about keeping the hair natural. I have no qualms at all with whichever way one wants to keep her hair so long as the person understands that beauty is from within and not about what she adorns herself with.
I think I'll end my post here before I digress. And next time,  I'll make sure to intermittently save as I write. O wow! Call it perfect timing.  The baby just woke up and is at it again! Mercy me.