Every day, Liam and I go out for a walk around the neighborhood. It gives him a chance to get away from the TV, gadgets and toys. Also, he gets to explore the stuff that kids love like rocks, sticks, birds and the occasional panhandler asking for money to buy lottery tickets.
Liam always gets compliments on how cute he is regardless of my incompetence in dressing him. Sometimes, I’ll get inspired and hit a homerun with his outfit and then there are the times when my styling skills are an epic fail. On more than a few occasions, I’ve put his shirt on backwards, put his shoes on the wrong foot or forgot to wipe the dried tears from his last tantrum.
Luckily, I never make it out of the building before a woman (most always a mother) will notice and laugh hysterically as she points out my screw-up. I have to admit, I feel lucky to have had a son and not because of any gender preference, but because there are certain appearance laws you can break when you have a boy.
All the little girls in our neighborhood are always dressed like it’s either Easter Sunday or the first day of school. It’s like a professional stylist was brought in to make sure every hair and outfit is in place. Take Liam’s crush “Behbee” for example ( you can read about her in the “Guppy Love” column). She never looks bad even if she’s outside jumping in dirt mounds. Unless they’re going on a special outing, the little boys in the building tend to look more like extras in a Kendrick Lamar video.
Why is it that girls have to have their look together in order to avoid a visit from Child Services, but with a boy, you can trot him around in a diaper and baby slippers and be just fine? Shouldn’t little girls have the same freedom to be a hot mess without their parents being viewed as savages?
The greatest fear for a lot of dads who are having a baby girl is–cue the dramatic music–hair care. Those elaborate cornrowed styles and multitude of parts and beads and barrettes on a girl child’s head cann strike fear into the heart of the most thugged-out dad. The next time you see a guy with his daughter, ask him who dressed her and did her hair.
Chances are the answer will be her mom, his mom or another woman in the family. Unless boys have a specific interest in hair care, they never think, nor are they taught how to braid, make a straight part or create a proper ponytail until they have a baby girl.
Personally, I didn’t even know you had to wipe a baby girl from front to back until my wife got pregnant and I started studying infant care. So hair care was a task that really scared me to no end. If we had had a girl, I was prepared to have her rock a fitted for as long as I could and when her hair got too long, she’d get cornrows from the African braiding shop and look like a tiny stunt double for Queen Latifah in Set it Off.
There are a ton of YouTube videos out there clowning guys who are fumbling with their daughter’s hair follicles but very few tutorials for dads on how to do hair properly. I get it, it’s hilarious, but to some of us guys, chopping down a tree and carving it into a statue of Nefertiti is less of a challenge than making two Afro puffs the same size.
I ask you all for this week, let’s help out all the homies with daughters and suggest some resources for fathers to improve their skills. Watch the cool video on how to do a bun with a sock to start the conversation. (By the way, fellas, although we give the dad credit for improvising, you can actually buy the bun starter already made. You can find them in the hair care section of most drugstores.)
Larry Hester is a Brooklyn-born writer who’s written for Vibe, BET.com, The Source, Complex and more. He now resides in Newark, New Jersey with his wife and son. He welcomes any parenting advice or encouragement. Check him out on Facebook and Twitter @almostcooldad.
