Mums, is this weird or am I being weird?

Yes it's weird and I think the Dad is being cheeky to outsource doing this daughters hair to a strange woman. Can't men do hair? My son in law does his daughter's hair.

You sound nice. This man (and the similar ones mentioned on this thread) sounds pathetic.

None of us know if he spent an hour with a YouTube video trying to work it out with his daughter getting upset that he was doing it wrong, before he knocked on OPs door in desperation

Whatever the circumstances, he was stressed and his daughter was upset so I would cut the guy some slack.

Yes it is a bit of a weird things to ask but if it is something OP can do without it being a huge inconvenience it is a lovely thing to be able to do to help.

This.
I did very similar for a little girl at school a few years ago. Her mum was working away and her dad just couldn't grasp plaiting it - he washed and dried it beautifully but just couldn't do the plait - so i did it for her. She's always remembered, she's a customer of mine now and she always mentions it when I see her. It's the little things.

OP offered to show him and he wasn't interested, that's enough for me. He expected it to be done for him.

Again, plaits aren't difficult and if it was so important to his daughter then a decent father would know how to do them. Not expect the nearest woman to do it for him.

If you are going to do woman's work for this man ensure he will do blue jobs for you - un clogging loos, driving heavy things to the dump for you, putting your new flat pack together etc!

I agree

Google 'hair love' and send to him!

It isn't the perfect time but then he should already know. If he doesn't know, then another hairstyle would be perfectly fine as would looking it up on YouTube if the plaits are important to her.

I bet if he had to do buns every weekend, he soon would've got it with more practice and no one doing it for him.

It's a bit odd, yes, but I also think it's quite sweet!

My mum couldn't do a French plait so my friend's mum would do it in the playground before they let us in, if I wanted one that day 🤷‍♀️ ots not that weird.

You saying yes to doing it, perfectly normal. I’d be glad that my DD (same age) is getting her hair done how she likes it as she’s quite particular and would be upset about mummy not being able to do it.

If neighbour was my DH though, I’d be pissed that he couldn’t be bothered to learn how to plait her hair and had imposed on our neighbour to do it for him. That’s not her job, it’s his. My Dad wound up a single parent to me back in the olden days before the internet, and he paid the hairdresser to teach him how to do French plaits so he could do them for us. Perhaps I’m being unfair to him, but I feel like it’s a bit of a cop out on his part!

I'm just trying to imagine a mother taking her daughter to a relatively unknown neighbour to do her hair, and failing.

It’s a bit odd but I would have said yes too. When I was about 6 my mum went to hospital and my dad swung round to his workplace every morning to get a lovely receptionist to do my hair before school! 🤦🏻‍♀️

@SouthLondonMum22 Yes, sometimes and somethings obviously do have roots in outdated roles.
Sometimes people have different strengths.
You don’t have enough information from this post to judge this man, and judging someone during a stressful time is never a good look.

It is quite weird... but it's so nice that you are helping this little girl whose mum is ill and whose dad is odd and struggling. Kind people can make all the difference to a child's life.

Even if I accepted this, do you really think an emergency situation (mum is hospital etc) is the perfect time to learn?

I mean, I'm sure I could change a tyre if I watched enough youtube, but if my husband was in hospital, it wouldn't be my top priority and I'd be knocking on next door for help.

FWIW, my husband isn't useless by any stretch (altho we do generally speaking have traditional gender roles) but he struggled massively with doing DDs hair for dancing when I worked weekends and the bun was never up to scratch...no matter how many times I showed him.

Learned helplessness or deliberate ineptness really bugs me in men.

That was still lazy of him but at least your teacher wasn’t a rando

This could be the beginning of him outsourcing childcare/housework/babysitting to you.
Be wary and be prepared to say no as it can escalate quickly.

When I was 7 my mum went to her home country for a month and my dad asked my teacher to plait my hair every day, which she did 🤷‍♀️

and why isn't it unusual? Usually down to stereotypical gender roles which are based on sexism.

If his daughters hair is important to her then he needs to learn. It isn't rocket science.

This.

You can’t guarantee this, what a load of rubbish.

You sound so desperate to see the misogyny in this.

It’s really not that unusual for men who have never had long hair to lack confidence with long plaits. It’s also not that unusual for parents to have different roles at home, the fact that he might not have mastered plaits doesn’t make him sexist or a bad person.

It is unusual that he’s asked someone he doesn’t know to do it, but maybe they would like to know their neighbours better and he wants to find a way to help his little girl who may be quite anxious about her mum. A bit of consistency with her hair may be important to her.

I think they'll all be really grateful you've agreed to help out. With mum suddenly not there, they need to try and keep things as normal as possible for the little girl. And maybe it's a chance to get to know them a bit better - and who knows when you might need a favour. Somebody has to be the first to break the ice by asking!

(I remember going away for a week when DD was that age. I told DH that if he took her hairbrush with them when they went to school, I was sure that one of the other mums would do her hair for her in the playground, because I knew he struggled with it. School photos happened while I was away - and I could tell he hadn't asked!)