(and crimes against the afro)
It happened today: Dalia’s first bad hair day. Or at least, the first day where she was self-conscious about how her hair looks.
It’s cold in New York, yet again, so I put a knit hat on her head, and when I took it off her head at school, her hair was its usual fly-away, static-charged Einstein mess. “Agh,” she said, “my hair. It looks funny.” She started batting at it, to little avail.
She just turned 4, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Shame and guilt, apparently, are normal in kids as young as 3, so it was just a matter of time. And at least one study showed that preschool girls have a better understanding of complex emotions — particularly pride — than boys do.
This is a problem, not least because I am the one who gets Dalia up and dressed in the morning. Pride is not going to serve her well if she’s getting dressed and styled by me. I am terrified of barrettes. I can’t give her pigtails without making her squeal in pain.
Vanity is a cruel mistress. How do I know? Because even I, a father of two shrugging into middle age, experience self-consciousness from time to time. It is, for me and my ilk, a completely useless emotion. Yet it never quite goes away. An example: Joel Stein, who is a funny man but not exactly Tim Gunn, has twice mocked my Twitter picture, and twice I have changed it, like a little bitch.
Dalia is going to be an adult in years that sound like science fiction to me: 2028, 2053. Let’s hope they will have invented, along with the death ray and robot harems, a cure for insecurity. Because if she grows up dressing like me, she’s gonna need it.
Stocking cap hair has been the primary styling tool for me lately so I can relate, we never lose that insecurity fully we just find ways of hiding or facing it, how do we give our kids those tools?
I dread that day with my three year old daughter, who still could not care less what she looks like at daycare, though also loves to dress up. Especially now that I am on paternity leave and the one IN CHARGE, I am on the constant lookout for bad influences – oh, my god, she just watched 4 minutes of Project Runway! – and here in Sweden they have this thing about not standing out that really gets me worked up, like she has to stand out, she has to love standing out.
But it is likely a losing battle. So I just try and rock my own (rather pedestrian) look and hope it rubs off …
If you had seen the photos, you would have emailed him too. It was a public service. Nathan, who is a Tim Gunn, deserved better.