Conundrum

Last week, when M was out of town, and I was GOINGGOINGGOING, I realized one thing: I don’t have nice hair. I have high-maintence hair. Of course, I realized this long ago when my mom gave me perms to lend some body to my limp, blonde hair. Or in high school when my friends only had to wash their hair for it to be bouncy, silky, shiny, and not frizzy.

Never me. And last week when M was out of town, and I didn’t have two spare seconds in a row, I really hated all the time I took washing and drying and brushing and styling my hair. It was after midnight, and I was still blow-drying so I could get up early the next morning and not have street urchin hair, and I could get my little people where they needed to go.

I’m not exaggerating (this time). When you have limp blonde hair and you live in THE MOST HUMID PLACE ON EARTH, you’ve got to use product. You have to rely on some kind of heating device to fry the heck (and the humidity) out of your hair.

You can never, ever just wash and go. Blow-drying and tricky cuts and lots of (expensive) products are the only answer to not looking like a Dickens-era street urchin.

Speaking of the street-urchin look, I also have two girls who inherited my blonde hair. They very, very badly want long bouncy, shiny hair like their friends. They want to pull a brush through it in the morning and never think about it again.

But, and I hate to say this because it’s totally my bad genes wrecking havoc here, they don’t have nice hair. The color is beautiful, but it’s baby fine and stringy and really needs product and blow-drying and frequent brushing to get the Disney Princess hair they’re searching for. The hair we are all searching for.

Here’s my conundrum: I can’t stand to break this to my girls yet. They’re so innocent in their hair dreams. I can’t tell them they’ll be blow drying in their dorm rooms while their friends are already at the dance. They’ll be spending their hard-earned money on serums like Boosting Gel while their friends buy new shoes. They’ll be getting complicated cuts while their friends go to SuperCuts.

Especially since, right now, our girls love to go to SuperCuts.

Here’s the other conundrum: I think it’s okay for kids to love SuperCuts. I definitely think it’s okay the girls would hate wasting time blow drying their hair when they could be building a super-secret fort. It’s okay they hate product at ages five and eight. Really, as long as they comb it, I’m okay with not teaching them to obsess about their hair.

Because, oh, my goodness, they have their whole lives for that.

The third part of the conundrum is that limp, fine, white hair is unforgiving. It doesn’t care it’s on the head of innocent elementary-aged kids who don’t really want to take the time to add boosting gel before pictures.

And, apparently, the school photo industry is populated by people with nice hair. People who don’t understand you must brush blonde hair frequently–especially before a picture. Because is you don’t, this will happen…