to be rather hurt by the anti-ginger sentiment in my office

[SarfEasticated]

One of our departmental secretaries has just found out she is having a boy, and in the process of her coming round to tell everyone said that her partner had said 'if he's a ginger he's going back in'. Then quite a few of my colleagues who I have always liked, waded in with comments of agreement and general revulsion at the very idea of a red-headed child.
Made me feel awful as I do have red-hair, and any of my future children could have it too. So basically they all think I and other red-headed people are freaks that should never have been born. :(

I am ginger.
when pregnant with DS1 I was worried about him being ginger- i used to get bullied a lot when a child. Plus DH is quite hairy and I had nightmares I was going to give birth to some kind of baby orangutan.(?sp)
so he came out blonde and over the next 5 yrs and more babies I grew up a bit
DS3 came out with beautiful red hair and i was delighted! He is very handsome and now he is getting older it is fading a bit which is a bit sad

The whole worry about ginger son thing was immature of me...... I've grown up now though

See it just wouldn't enter my head to be green with envy over anyone's hair colour...because well it's just a hair colour isn't it?

I don't understand anyone really hating a hair colour and I don't understand anyone being really envious of a hair colour either.

I honestly think there's more to worry about in life.

Amen to that, Worra, live and let live and don't place undue importance - negative or positive - on something as trivial as a physical feature like hair colour.

Because people don't like anyone who's different. Got nothing to do with the colour itself. It's just because if you're ginger you're not one of 'them'.
Also now it's socially unacceptable to be racist, people still want to hurt other so they pick on the next thing, which is hair colour instead of skin colour.

How do you know it has nothing to do with the hair colour itself?

I know lots of people (Irish family) who simply can't stand the colour and the pale skin and freckles it often comes with.

That's their absolute right...just as it's anyone else's right to love the colour.

As long as no-one's being bullied, there should be no problem.

And what is one of 'them'?

If by 'them' you mean the same hair colour as the person doing the bullying...well then why wouldn't they pick on blondes/brunettes/black hair etc?

I am a redhead, a hairdresser has actually told me my hair is more blonde in texture. When I was younger I hated it despite being told over and over that people pay good money to get theirs dyed my colour.

Now I am older, I have embraced it. It is waist length and curly. I would have loved my DD to be a redhead but she is blonde. I am also one of the rare redheads that has brown eyes.

One advantage is that I know I won't go grey, my DF had the same hair as me and went blonde as he aged. So I will never live in fear of my first grey hair!

i agree Worra et al who are saying that a physical attribute is not worthy of envy, but i reckon most 'envious' comments are made from the embarrassment that some people are hateful towards others for no other reason apart from their hair colour

I am full on ginger and had to put up with my antenatal class joking about babies being ginger...but they were just joking.

I was relieved when my DD was born with brown hair. This was because of the health risks associated with being ginger, like increase skin cancer and increased allergies/eczema. I had also just 'survived' an utterly horrible labour due to my lack of internal painkilling mechanisms and my non-responsiveness to conventional pain killers, which is also strongly correlated with redheadedness.

I enjoyed being a red head as a kid because it makes you stand out. Even now people have a tendency to remember me more. But it's not enough to offset the other issues imo. I will certainly let DD dye her hair red if she wants to follow in my footsteps though :).

Entropy Really!? I had an awful labour and really struggled with the pain, I never thought it could be because of my hair colour!

i have to be honest i was worried ds would have red hair when i was pregnant (his granny has red hair and his dad red body hair) i have very dark brown hair

he had orange hair when he was born :) it was so bright. now it is a beautiful golden red colour very rarely see other people with his colour hair. it is less bright now than it used to be he was always being stopped before now he is not so much it is more blond now

stupidly i have worried about his being bullied more becasue he is shy too but you always worry about something just have to learn not to project your worries

I really wanted a red-headed baby! Lots of my cousins are various shades of red & auburn and I have always had inappropriate crushes on admired red-haired blokes. DH and I are both mousey.

Sadly although DS's hair went from black to red it carried on lightening to blonde although it does have a very faint strawberry tint.

I think red hair is really beautiful and I've never understood why people a) dislike it or b) think it is somehow ok to voice that dislike in public. How rude!

YANBU, red hair is lovely I don't get the hate for it.

Dd was born with red hair (or strawberry blonde) I wasn't at all surprised as a lot of my family have red hair varying from the lightest of light to dark auburn.
I was a little when her hair turned blonde.

I don't understand why people have an issue with it. It's a hair colour!

Forgot to post, YANBU

My DD has the most beautiful (in my opinion) orange red hair. It has a gentle curl and it flows behind her like a flame when she's running around. She's already being targeted for her hair colour and broke her heart last week, sobbing, didn't want to go to school.

Hair may be just hair, but when it's the subject of pointing and cruel remarks (albeit by other pint sized little ones) and blatant ostracizing, it very much matters.

Saying it jokingly just perpetuates the problem. Saying it's a joke doesn't make it acceptable. Try justifying it, and explaining this to my little girl.

WelshMoth... Could you perhaps speak to your daughter's teacher and ask her to do a general talk to the children about everybody looking different and not to make bad comments? You can then emphasise that at home.

You don't say how old your daughter is but I think young children can be silly and tactless and still in thrall of what teacher says.

I think all schools should have that on the curriculum actually.

Thanks Lying, already done so. The children are all 6, but it's gone beyond casual and hurtful remarks, to full blown torment now. School is aware, I've approached the 3 sets of parents separately.

Their response? "Oh girls will be girls....".

I'm about an inch from saying something to the children themselves, but I know that's not the right thing to do. I'm relying on the parents sorting it, but so far, none of them accept that it's serious.

'Cos it's a joke. Yeah, right.

This is my red hair. Do I want my children to have it? No. It is still the last acceptable form of racism and I would rather they didn't go through what I went through

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WelshMoth - go and see the HT, ask if it would be acceptable to do that if they were teasing about her skin colour. It wouldn't be and they need to take a more firm view. Children have been through hell at schools over their hair colour as it's seen as ok?

I often forget this hair colour comes with this temper

Are ginger people considered an actual race?

Possibly not but it is discriminating against someone for their hair colour which in my mind needs to be taken a lot more seriously. Replace kick a ginger day with kick a black/deaf day and see how it suddenly becomes a bigger issues. It isn't taken seriously enough, it really isn't and a lot of it isn't just "gentle teasing"
I moved schools and spent a year out of school as I was too terrified to go back. People still say stuff about my hair. I've been stood in a shop before and had someone behind me say to her friend "look, ginger hair" and her friend reply "yeah, ugly ginger hair innit"

WelshMoth... As brighthair suggests, go to the headteacher and, if you get the 'girls will be girls' response, tell them that you are taking it to governors - and do. Keep escalating. You're not the only parent out there who will be having problems like this. I doubt there's a parent of a child anywhere with a child who is so unremarkable in appearance that they escape all comments. Children can be horrid, this is part of their learning that they find out that it's not ok.

Please post back on how it went, I really want to know that you've been heard and this has been properly addressed.

sounds terrible welshmoth hope you get it sorted.