Ginger & worried about the future.

Redhead here- apart from the odd comment at school growing up, thankfully I was never bullied for my hair colour. Now in my 20s I absolutely adore my hair and the compliments that come with it. I’m sure your girl will grow up to be gorgeous and appreciate her natural hair.

DD (15) wishes she had red hair and pale skin because it's the 'coolest'.

My youngest was ginger when he was about 1. He is now 5 and blonde. For what it's worth none of my kids have ever commented on their ginger school friends hair . It's just not a thing.

What a sad OP. Posts like this will keep feeding the nonsense that people with ginger hair are some how less. Make a stand. Assume all will be well. Stop feeding the crap.

My 19 year old has never been bullied, long red hair & blue eyes. She has never been a target because of her hair, actually the exactly the opposite, she has been very much admired for her hair and looks. Maybe bullying of this nature was the case 30 years ago in the playground but happily, certainly in our experience, times have changed. We made sure as her parents that her self esteem was high and that she was raised to be proud of her hair and heritage (Irish)

I have 2 red headed boys, although both of them say they don't like their hair, they have never been bullied, I think they just feel they stand out more which is why they don't like it. But if it wasn't hair colour, I'm sure it'd be something else... Girls in particular can add shades to their hair as they get older if they want too but if you're positive to her about the colour then that attitude and self confidence will rub off on her too. I get it though as I had the same concerns

Most UK primary schools are very supportive environments these days. Not much bullying goes on. If it does its usually unintentional. I've never seen kids being teased about their hair colour/wearing glasses/being overweight/ special needs as they were when i was at primary school n the 80s. Your DD sounds beautiful. There are lots of redheads here anyway so she will have good company. :-)

To be honest i don't think people are so negative about red hair anymore. My children have friends with ginger hair and none of them have been bullied

don't worry! I think red hair is much more common in the young in the uk than it was when we were at school. Dd is one of about 20 in her year group (about 250 kids) whereas when i was at school there were maybe 3 (and only one was a girl, poor kid). There's safety in numbers.

I am a redhead and I get loads of compliments about about my hair.

My daughter has beautiful bright ginger hair (lucky girl). We and others have only given her positivity about her hair, she loves it as much as we do. Every drawing she has ever done has ginger hair. If any one teased her she would be likely to kick their arse as she is no shrinking violet, but it has never come up, she is nearly 10 so time yet I suppose but I'm not worried. Don't stress just give positivity.

One of my best friends at school had lovely red hair - and many more admirers than most of us. Several members of my family have red hair, too, and it has most certainly not been a disadvantage to them.
Just call it red or golden or strawberry blonde and be positive. Here in Scotland it's not unusual, but elsewhere it has rarity value. Think of the Italian artist Titian, for example, who chose redheads as his most beautiful models.

Things are not the same as they used to be in my experience.

I was ginger before my hair color faded and I was bullied a lot at school, I am late 40's.

Ds1 is bright carrot ginger and has never been teased. There seem to be so many more red heads around these days and he has always been fine. He's 18 now.

I do think as well that on the whole schools are also much better at dealing with bullying and tolerate a lot less than when I was at school.

Please don't worry, your daughter will almost certainly be fine.

Could jibes be more prevalent amongst boys? We had plenty of ginger and auburn haired girls at my school (admittedly, all-girls school) and never heard anything mentioned.
In my 20s however I had a ginger boyfriend who used to have random male strangers throwing insults at him due to his hair colour. When it first happened in front of me (car whizzed past, bloke leant out shouted an insult) I was totally shocked but boyfriend just shrugged, laughed and said it happened all the time. V bizarre!!

I'm a red head and was never bullied, only ever complimented

To be honest, I wouldn't worry a whole lot. I am sure most kids from when they are born or as they get older could be picked on for one reason or another. With my son over the years, it could of been his name, his height or his glasses. I have brought him up by saying for instance with his name, "going from what relatives have been called you couod get called 'this' or 'that' and it is best if you are ok with them, and have a like with them so if someone says it you can shrug it off or laugh with them. If a bully see you cower because of it it will be a whole lot worse. So best to just embrace it

My DD's good friend (year 5) has the very same colouring and she is one of the most popular in the class. No bullying at all.

I went to school with a few red heads. Only one of them ever came in for any real teasing and that was due to her height (really, really tall) rather than her really beautiful hair.

She was also extremely unpleasant to me but I never had any quarrels with her over her hair colour! I think gingers are gorgeous!

My niece's are both ginger and their (( ginger )) parents got in first with bigging up the ginger hair and also a little ribbing and teasing because they knew it would come.

Yes, they got names. But it was water off a ducks back by then.

That’s not prejudice! DDs family nickname is “Ginger” and she is totally happy with it!

Really?! Um, that'd be like my whole family calling classes-wearing DS "four eyes" as his nickname? Sorry, I do think nicknaming your kid along the lines of their unusual physical characteristic is maybe not the best idea - whatever that characteristic is.

Anyway, back to the OP - I grew up in the 80s to mid 90s, and had no teasing at all, apart from one fucking horrible incident on a train with my boyfriend in my teens, with a big gang of drunk men shouting shit for ages about "collar and cuffs" etc etc - I can't STAND the term ginger as a result of that. However, don't let that upset you; I'm sure they'd have found another way to harass a teenage girl in other ways, so I don't think the hair made me a target.

During discussions on this topic, secondary age DD says there's no bullying on the grounds of red hair.

So hopefully your DD will be fine. And congratulations - my DC haven't inherited my hair, so I always feel a little surge of happiness when I see a new baby redhead in the world

We’re not in the UK at present but we left when DD was 7 and the only comments we got were from adults slightly older than me - passive aggressive stuff on the supermarket till like “so where does the hair come from then?”. That doesn’t sound rude but the tone was very much “who’s at fault” - and when you answered “it has to be on both sides” rather than sounding interested they’d sort of fall a bit flat, like they were trying to catch you out and failed. We had one teen yelling “ginger baby” when she was 1 and another older lady when DD was crying in the car park saying “I’m tired and I’m ginger, is that it?” (she regretted it). But in her peer group - nothing. And nothing since.

It's males who are teased about being ginger isn't it? It's seen as desirable for women. At least it is for me as I've spent a lot of money trying to be ginger!

My natural colour is auburn it goes lighter in summer but a dark chestnut colour in winter. I was never bullied at school. I sometimes got the odd ginger comment when someone couldn't think of anything original to say but I always had something to say back and it was usually the first and last time they ever said it after a comeback from me! I got so many more compliments about my hair than I ever did negative. My parents both had very dark hair. I am however currently blonde now as I like a change like the rest! Oh and I'm into my 40s now and I still don't have a grey hair...I think redheads keep their colour but that might be a myth! 🤣

I was teased in primary school due to wearing glasses and then bullied on and off in secondary school - didn't have to wear glasses.

However, looking back on things - I think my DM didn't instil much resilience in me in primary school and if I'd had children I would definitely do that now. Just because in primary school I was quiet, shy etc.