Curl Power

Like many babies, I was born without hair. I stayed bald for the better part of my first year. And I’m pretty sure that was the only year of my life during which my curly hair wasn’t an issue between my mom and me.

As a toddler, I had a mop of crazy blonde curls. That’s a cute look on a two-year-old, so my mom would add a bow and call it good. People fawned over me. I got used to being referred to as “little Shirley Temple,” and I thrived on the attention.

But even little Shirley Temple grew up. By the time I started kindergarten, my curls had stopped being cute.

My mom had been born with thin, straight hair. She had it washed and set at a beauty parlor once a week—I can’t remember a time when she didn’t have “helmet hair,” as Sally Field calls it in Steel Magnolias. She had no idea what to do with hair like mine. I’d inherited curls from my dad, and the problem of his hair had been solved by a military career. The “high and tight” wasn’t an option for me, so my mom was stuck trying to figure out how to tame my mane.

This was in the early 1970s, when the only hair product available to women was Dippity-Do. That worked well for helmet hair. But there was no mousse, hair serum, curl soufflé or hair yogurt–in the 1970s, conditioner was a new idea. And my mom wasn’t convinced that conditioner was absolutely necessary. Frizz, she thought, was just evidence that your hair needed brushing.

In my school pictures from first through third grades, I wear the same basic hairstyle: a partial ponytail pulled flat across the top of my head. The texture of the hair at the sides of my face depends on the weather and time of day. That was my mom’s attempt to make it look like someone was trying to keep my hair from looking wild. This was her favorite word for my hair in its natural state: wild. She used sponge rollers to make my curls more uniform, and I screamed every time she combed and set my hair. (Curls washed without conditioner tangle in a way I think few people can understand. Unless, of course, those people have curly hair. Which, as I’ve mentioned, my mom did not.)

By fourth grade, she had given up on trying to tame the beast: in my school photograph, I sport a pixie. I still remember the day my mom took me to her beauty shop and told her stylist to cut off my hair. But my mom didn’t realize that a neat little pixie would turn into a wonky mess unless we had my hair cut every six weeks. That was considerably more often than she’d had my long hair trimmed.

Also, I was something of a tomboy. One day I picked up some pocket change an elderly man had dropped at the grocery store, and he responded “Thank you, sonny.” My dad brought me home that day and said, rather tersely, “People can’t even tell she’s a girl anymore.”

That was the end of the pixie.

My fifth and sixth grade photos show my hair in various stages of disarray as the pixie grew out. When my hair had grown long enough, my mom went back to setting my hair in sponge rollers on Saturday nights, in preparation for church. I spent most Sunday afternoons trying to pull out the curls before school on Monday morning, since straight hair was all the rage.

Junior high ushered in the age of hot rollers, which finally save me from the sponges. By the time the Farrah Fawcett years of high school had arrived, curling irons had made the scene. But no matter what style I was aiming for, not even my mom’s industrial strength hairspray was strong enough to tame my wild hair. I cut it all off again, much to mother’s delight, just before I left for college.

This would become a pattern: I’d cut my hair short, grow it out, get sick of fighting the curls, cut them off again. I’ve worn my hair in every length from bristle-short to well past my shoulders. Though she didn’t mind it long and straight (once flat irons became widely available), my mom always preferred my hair short. “It lays so nice” was her way of saying that a short cut did the best job of hiding my natural wildness.

That was all she’d been shooting for with that pixie: a little domestication. But I’ve always preferred my hair long, whether straight or natural. If she visited during a period when I was sporting curls, my mom would reach out to touch it and ask “You really like your hair all wild like that?”

I’d like to say I never responded to this question with sarcasm, but that would be a lie.

When I had a curly-headed daughter of my own, I was better prepared. Jordan ate up the attention her blonde curls attracted. She knew who Shirley Temple was when none of her friends did, thanks to those friendly (often elderly) strangers. But I knew from experience that this attention would fade. In the end, it would be just Jordan vs. her hair.

I did my best to help her develop a positive attitude, but—like most girls—Jordan grew up wanting the hair she wasn’t born with. She dyed it black. Then red. She used a flat iron. She cut it short. Now, at 22, she can’t be bothered to color or straighten her long hair anymore.

“At some point,” she told me, “you realize there are better things to do with your time.”

I’ve stopped straightening my own hair, too, after many years of spending time with the flat iron every morning. I’d convinced myself that straight hair was easier, that it looked more professional. Those were the things I told myself instead of I hate my hair,  because they sounded less vain.

But then, one morning, I decided I was done. I grabbed a can of curl-activating mousse instead.

When my mom passed away, though, I straightened my hair before her memorial service. I knew it didn’t really matter; my mom wasn’t going to be there, after all. It just felt spiteful to show up with the hair she’d hated. I wasn’t going to cut it short for the occasion, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to meet her halfway.

For now, my curls fly free. And sometimes–depending on the weather–they do look a little wild. My mom never learned to like that part of me, but that’s okay. She didn’t have to.

The important this is, I do.

 

This post also appeared, in slightly different form, on The Huffington Post.

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