about the postman and my daughter's beautiful hair.

[Rosae]

My 13 month old daughter has (what I consider to be) beautiful ginger hair. Very ginger.
While signing for a parcel today the royal mail postman commented to me ' she is quite the ginge isn't she? You'll wanna be getting some hair dye for that soon' with a little snigger after it. I'm not very good or fast with comebacks so just looked at him I shock then went back in.
AIBU that this comment made me upset and worried about the future for her? My hubby has strawberry blonde hair and got badly teased and bullied for it at school.
Friends sometimes make jokes about it but in a more lovingly teasing way that I brush off in general and say 'yes she's gorgeous isn't she? ' Should I be stopping it?

MissesBloom - next time I shall definitely confide in them that I have had an affair with a ginger lover

Millie - I didn't know that about 3%. I have red hair and green eyes!

Sinead make sure you let them know he had 'matching collar and cuffs" or else they'll be dying to ask that too!!

And you'll be wanting a new career when I report you

YANBU. I think red hair is beautiful & 1 of the most beautiful shades ever. Ignore rude people & be proud of your daughters features. You're lucky to be blessed with a beautiful daughter but unfortunately the postman can't grow additional brain cells!!

I have 2 DCs with red hair. Ds1 hair has mellowed over the years and his attitude has always been 'It's your problem, not mine'. DD has very gorgeous thick auburn hair. Her first word was 'hair' because everyone used to comment upon it when she was in the buggy. People do still comment, I just reply with something like 'yes, we would pay a fortune in the hairdressers for that'.

I don't see how it's any different from making a racist comment. It almost as if people think it's the last 'acceptable' form of abuse. Why on earth direct it at a baby. My husband was a redhead (before it fell out) and I was hoping my daughters would arrive with beautiful red hair to go with their brown eyes but we weren't so lucky. I love it and admit I can't help but comment on how gorgeous it is when I see little ones with it - but only because I'm envious. I never considered parents may find it irritating. I'd better try and stop. I guess ignore it. I hope he's not your regular postie!

My daughter, now 16, has beautiful red hair and a strong sense of ginger pride! She did get some negative comments when she was younger but our hairdresser has always told her how lucky she is and how ladies pay her hundreds of pounds a year to get hair that colour (actually I'm one of them). Fortunately she's developed the self-confidence to deal with any rude comments herself, but I completely agree with all the other posters who've said the postman was a twat!

Was he bald ? There's your comeback ! Have one ready for the next time you see him !

Complain about this stupid offensive man now. Imagine if you had a baby with an afro and the postman said "yuck, you'll be getting the straighteners on that" you could quite rightly accuse him of racism so why not the same attitude to teasing toddlers with red hair?

This idiot works in customer services and needs training in what you can say and when to keep nasty thoughts to yourself. I imagine your child's red hair is stunning and give her lots of confidence and everyone else will see your child's unusual hair colour positively.

I love ginger hair. Last weekend we were watching the girls cricket team and one of the girls was ginger and I heard a few people say how striking and lovely to see it was.

Complain about that tosser and ignore all future comments.

Nixie60
Have we got the same daughter? My Dd's hair looked just like that before her Y6 prom this year

When did all this anti-ginger stuff start? I'm the wrong side of 55 and have/had red hair. I only ever got compliments about it. A woman on a bus once asked me what colour it was so she could ask her hairdresser for the same!

I've always loved red hair and can't remember ginger people being teased when I was a child. My mother had dark chestnut hair and fair skin but sadly I only inherited the skin, with brown hair. I'm now going grey and am colouring my hair red (verging on ginger) which has been much admired!!

We should actively encourage our daughters to find themselves lovely ginger boyfriends to increase the proportion of the population with this wonderful genetic trait. Apparently it is not a dominant gene and could eventually die out without positive discrimination.

Yes, I too understand that red hair is very fashionable all over the world at the moment.

My daughter ,now 19, has beautiful, auburn,/ red,/ginger (sometimes, it seems to change with the weather!) And she too was told at a very young age by a hairdresser that women pay good money to have hair coloured like hers. As a result, she has grown up never wanting to change her colour. Her hair is beautiful...but we often teased her as "Ginge",but she has no complex about it. I don't recall anyone ever making fun of her at school.

elephant that would be weird wouldn't it! Mine has had Y11 prom this year, so maybe in a different timeline...

fluffi - I'm not sure exactly when it started, but my sister had very ginger hair as a child (she's now 47) and certainly had more than her fair share of gingerism at school. So much so that she elected to go blonde and actually worried about the prospect of having a child with ginger hair herself.

My eldest son has ginger hair. He's 13 and loves it - infact as he's getting older, it is getting less bright - and he told me that he's worried it will turn brown, as losing his ginger hair would be like losing his identity !

Throughout his life, I have heard lots of insensitive comments like the one the postman made. When my son was a toddler, a shop assistant said "awww look at him smiling...shame that he doesn't realise that he has a lifetime of bullying ahead" and proceeded to tell me that her ginger grandson often felt like killing himself !

I can say, hand on heart my son has never been bullied over his hair. He gets his "ginger" comments and nicknames -but isn't offended by them at all. He seems to embrace it. Infact a lot of his usernames on email accounts and gaming sites have "ginger" in them.

I think the key is to not be oversensitive about it, and have a host of witty one liners you can throw back at people. It's a shame that people find it acceptable to ridicule ginger hair, and on occasions I've really had to bite my tongue. But you get used to it . Just teach your daughter to love her hair, and don't make words like ginger, orange or redhead taboo, as she will hear them a lot.

My sister and I both have red hair. I got her this card for her birthday last year - she loved it!

What a tiresome fool that postman was. Honestly, people who make ginger jokes bore me to tears.

absolutely nothing wrong with red/ginger/strawberry blonde hair...postman is a dick!

Postman is an ignorant git and needs to be told he is. Offensive and rude.

I've got ginger hair (that is the word I prefer for it) and nobody has ever been anything but complimentary about it, but if anyone suggested I should dye it, I'd say, "well, I'm hoping it will stay ginger for quite a long time yet, but if it ever starts to fade I might dye it." We need to educate people that lots of people with ginger hair actually like it, therefore they're not automatically going to get a rise out of everybody ginger just by mentioning it.

When my eldest ds was born (beautifully strawberry blonde) the midwife commented 'Bet he won't thank you for giving him that hair! If he was a girl he could dye it...'
He's now 19 and has never had another negative comment since!
In fact, he gets extra tips as a barman due purely to his gorgeous hair