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AIBU?

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Original poster

I'm 40 and my Mum just told me to brushy hair!

40 replies

PennyWhistleSweet · 18/05/2025 12:32

For context we (me and my son's).are having a sleepover round my lovely mum's. This is fairly light-hearted.

All my siblings had straight or wavy, glossy hair growing up and I had and have, uncontrollable mad hair that turns into a candyfloss halo if it's brushed dry. This led to a childhood of dodgy photos and painful hair. If I wash it and let it dry with loads of products on it, it can look quite good and very curly.

My mum suggested this morning that I should brush hair as I'd showered last night and didn't plan to till this evening.

To make a point I did brush it and she was shocked by the size of it and how dry it looked. I turned into a sullen teenager and muttered that this is what happens if I brush it. Aibu to have turned into a stroppy teen in my 40s?!

OP posts:
Communitywebbing · 18/05/2025 12:59

Not unreasonable at all, everyone of every age is entitled to strop when ordered about by a parent.

Original poster
PennyWhistleSweet · 18/05/2025 12:50

That's a good idea, I've also recently bought a bonnet but didn't pack it for the sleepover.

OP posts:
TheShadowOfTheWizard · 18/05/2025 12:49

This is like something my mum would do 🙄. Have you tried plaiting it when wet. Just a little bit of product, plait to dry. Next day when you take it down it shouldn't need brushed. I spray water on it and put a bit of gel on my hands. I can't put loads of products on my hair it weights it down

Original poster
PennyWhistleSweet · 18/05/2025 12:48

@imaginationhasfailedme that is so interesting and true. I need to practice this more often.

OP posts:
Original poster
PennyWhistleSweet · 18/05/2025 12:44

I'm so heart warmed to hear this is a familiar curly girl experience. I've now messed up my hair out of spite!

OP posts:
imaginationhasfailedme · 18/05/2025 12:43

OOh this is where I enjoy employing a 'transactional analysis' viewpoint.
Very simply, the theory is we're either Adult, Child or Parent at any one time.
Even though we're an adult now (I'm 45), we can still become Child again when faced with our parents, who step into the Parent role. The trick is to shift into Adult thought mode, thus forcing our parent to also step in the Adult mode with us (eventually).

It's hard but I have to do it with my dad. In fact, both my brother and I will strop and sulk when with him because we all step back into our childhood roles.
Fun to work on intentionally! But equally, it's sometimes comforting to go back into our old roles.

It's also applicable at work - I worked in a school and got shouted at by the headteacher. I literally scurried off down the corridor until I thought 'I'm an adult, at work, not one of the children' so I went back and 'adulted' at her until she spoke to me like an adult as well.

Nodlikeyouwerelistening · 18/05/2025 12:42

Parents just have a way of making you regress. Totally understand from a fellow curly girl from a straight haired family.

RosesAndHellebores · 18/05/2025 12:40

I'm 64 and my dear mother has a wonderful way of asking when I last went to the hairdresser, and looking me up and down to see if I pass muster there is anything she can find to criticise.

Original poster
PennyWhistleSweet · 18/05/2025 12:39

Oh god I was obsessed with the crunchy gel in the late 90s!

Also does anyone remember beach head products that was basically salt wal
Ter in a bottle?

OP posts:
outforawalkb · 18/05/2025 12:38

Sometimes you just have to do it and prove it
I got sick of people saying just brush it, have you ever straightened it, why don’t you use some frizz ease blah blah blah

Jobsworth7 · 18/05/2025 12:37

I had this as a teenager too and I am also early 40s. My dad had a massive halo curly hairdo in the 1970s, which I inherited, and my mum had hair like Catherine Zeta-Jones. Unfortunately (if you ever read Enid Blyton school stories where the girls brushed their hair 100 times a night to "make it shiny") it was a part of your morning routine when my mum was little and she tried to impose that on me until I was 12, when she finally listened to a hairdresser who said wash, mousse and scrunch, and leave to dry. Unfortunately I took it a bit far with crunchy gel but it was better than brushing!

Olika · 18/05/2025 12:36

Well at least she hopefully stops telling you in the future. 😃

Original poster
PennyWhistleSweet · 18/05/2025 12:35

And strop I did 🤣

OP posts:
Original poster
PennyWhistleSweet · 18/05/2025 12:34

Damnit should have proof read it. Brushy my , not brushy.

OP posts:
Overtheatlantic · 18/05/2025 12:34

Sometimes you just have to strop.