Is it me or are women on the internet WAY too quick to mom-shame? If you ask me, it's gotten seriously out of control. Take for instance Crystal Harden. The mother of a soon-to-be two-year-old girl recently shared a video of her daughter sporting straightened hair. Apparently she straightened her natural curls using a flat iron and everyone's got something to say about it. The feedback has been harsh to say the least.
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"Straightened my baby's hair yesterday," Harden captioned the video.
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A fair amount of folks responded with compliments like "God bless her. Beautiful hair," or 'She's absolutely beautiful." But quite a few people went in and criticized the heck out of Harden's parenting. One person even went as far as telling Harden to "stop sexualizing" her daughter. Really?
But Harden refused to let the nasty feedback get to her. "I received the negative reactions that the majority of people gave me from my own mom," she told Yahoo! Beauty. "She was like, 'Oh it was too mature to do her hair like that. You shouldn't have posted that. There are creeps out there.'"
Apparently her daughter wanted to know what her hair would look like straight. Harden decided to flatiron it just this one time.
"Initially she was a little scared because she knows about heat," Harden admitted. In other words, Harden clearly educates her kid on how heat can damage her skin and gorgeous curls.
"But then she fell asleep, so I continued to do it while she fell asleep. She loved it," Harden added. "She was swinging her hair. I took her to the park and the wind was blowing. She just loved it."
Harden claims this was a one time thing and she doesn't plan on straightening her daughter's hair again anytime time soon. And also for the record, her curls immediately bounced back to their healthy and natural state. Not a single sign of heat-damage.
If you scroll through Harden's feeds she shares tons of photos of her daughter sporting her beautiful natural ringlets. I'm just saying.
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"I don't want her to preconditioned to think that she has to straighten her curls, because her hair is beautifully curly and it's beautiful straight," Harden added. 'I just wanted to see herself in a different light and know that she is beautiful any way that she dresses up or however she does her hair."
I get Harden. Growing up, my Dominican mom used to blow out my hair for special occasions including birthdays, holidays, even family gatherings that many times consisted of taking pictures. In fact, the first time she straightened my hair was for my 2nd birthday (picture below).
It wasn't a regular thing and my mom wasn't straightening my hair because she thought I was more beautiful with straight hair. She loved my curls but for many women with naturally curly hair, versatility is a thing that we embrace.
This was also a different time. Up until recently, curly hair wasn't exactly perceived in society as "polished." Us curly-haired girls were encouraged to wear our hair straight and brainwashed to believe we looked better doing so.
I can't blame my mom for something she was told herself growing up. As for the heat-damage, fortunately she didn't straighten my hair often enough back then for that to happen. I can only blame myself for the heat-damage I've experienced as an adult for getting weekly salon blowouts, and trust me, I've learned my lesson.
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So whether you're talking about someone like my mom who had small kids in the late 80s and early 90s or someone like Harden who's raising an almost 2-year-old daughter in 2017, no one has the right to call another mom a bad mom for straightening her kid's hair. That's her decision and her decision only. Let's focus on building and supporting one another as women instead of constantly bringing each other down. Life is too short to be attacking a mom for straightening her kid's hair ONCE.
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