Hair - it's a touchy subject

The care of African American hair is a hot button issue.  There are certain do's and don'ts for sure, but what products you use, whether you straighten or keep it natural are all up for debates.  Frankly, when you can't get the same opinion from two different black women it makes it pretty difficult for this white mama to have any idea what to do.  

My 10 yr. old daughter is not interested in fancy braiding etc.  The sooner we're done messing with her hair the happier she is.  Generally I do the best I can at home - it's a necessity financially as the few times we've had it done it's run between $60 to $100+ and that gets you 6 weeks if you're lucky.  Now, I am 56 and have waited decades to be able to afford to have my hair cut and dyed by someone else.  Frankly, if the choice is between me or my daughter?  Well, after 50 I decided putting myself first occasionally was a rite of passage I definitely planned to take.

Even after the 10 years I've been doing their hair I'm still learning new things and discovering stuff I'm doing wrong.  It's a learning process and if I'm lucky she'll decide she cares in the next couple of years and take on the care and feeding of her own hair and tell me to leave it alone. It's probably wishful thinking as I had to resort to bribery to get her to lotion after her shower so she didn't get ashy, which I still feel reflects poorly on me in public.  I definitely feel a cultural responsibility to teach her proper skin and hair care, but if she just doesn't care, then I have to be good with that - or walk 5 steps away from her and pretend we're not together.  That's easy enough to do.