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?

I live in the US now and I really notice how nasty people are about red hair when I'm home on holiday. I had some teenage girls shout abuse at me - I have long red hair, and I was carrying my baby boy (who also has red hair) - they were laughing at us and shouted that I should get my tubes tied instead of bringing more ginger babies into the world.

I was really quite upset by it - here in the US I only ever hear nice comments about my hair. I was teased a bit growing up but it seems really awful for red heads in th UK now.

You say "how rude, only another ginger can call a ginger person ginger" :)

Outtogetyou i like it - i do love him!

I have red hair as do my two children both boys. I would personally be making a formal complaint to Royal Mail about the post man making such disgusting discriminatimg remarks regardless of whether it was in jest. There is no place for that kind of behaviour. Next time you see him I would make it clear you're not happy and a complaint has been made. I love my hair and the boys. Jealousy Is an ugly trait. Xx

Shanster - same here, live in the USA now and my DH and his family have unbelievably gorgeous red hair. Dh's sister is simply stunning. Their experience of having red hair is that they have been viewed as extremely good looking and beautiful. The first and only time my dh got laughed at for his hair was when he first met my family in the UK (I mentioned in an earlier post).

It's just so ridiculous to me that this is a thing in the UK, of course it's really an outlook for old prejudices (celtic looks = being celtic = therefore lower class). That's always been my conclusion.

Outlet not outlook!

One day I would love to be able to edit a post...

Friends make jokes?! Get new friends. And tell the postman he's a see you next Tuesday if he ever dares to even whisper her name again.

Ignore the comments lovely ! I married a fiery redhead and we have produced a beautiful daughter who is well in her way to being red. Celebrate your daughters beautiful hair colour and stuff what others think. The ginger gene is powerful !! Teach her, as i will, that her colouring is unique and rare. And if anyone says anything otherwise, give them the death stare and loudly say how rude they are and how glad you are she's a redhead.

I love red hair. One of my friends has a DD who has the most gorgeous rose-gold coloured hair. I comment on it every time I see her because it is stunning. Her eyelashes look like they have been dipped in gold dust.

Do you still have the parcel wrapping? If so it should have a sticker on it telling you which firm made the delivery. You can then ring their customer service line and lodge a complaint.

I would tell your friends - nicely - next time that they make a joke about your DD's colouring, that it's not very nice to mock a baby. She's a year old; can they not find a more appropriate target for their jokes? Your DD needs to be proud of her colouring, so if anyone is nasty to her then she has the strength to be able to ignore it and walk away from the comments, rather than take silly and ignorant remarks to heart.

As for the PP whose son got hair dye in the secret santa - WTF? Can't help thinking the reception would've been different if he'd bought her a tin of slim fast.

What a prat! I love red hair as do my teenage daughters and many of their friends. It really really annoys me that people think it is okay to be nasty about red hair and, to some extent blondes (my family are mostly one or the other).

Yes what the hell is the deal with red hair?? It's like it's pre-determined that it's awful unfortunate and undesirable before anyone actually looks at what it looks like on the person. It's something we grow up thinking is a bad thing. As a teen we giggled about boys with red hair, "but would he have ginger pubes" sqweeee 13 yo laughter. As if we would know what what to do if we ever came in touching distance of a pube!

I absolutely adore red hair! - I love nothing more on a baby than a great big shock of red hair, I spotted a baby at nursery and it nearly knocked me to my knees with cuteness.

As a teenager to me the ultimate colouring was red hair and creamy skin. Rare and beautiful!

Postman was an unbelievable dick. I'd be upset too. Very upset. But it means nothing, just the opinion of an idiot.

I'm a ginger that was viciously teased as a child and it has stayed with me forever. I love my hair now, but it was extremely tough as kids can be so cruel. I'd keep something along the lines of 'go fuck yourself you arrogant twat' in reserve for comments like that from adults about your daughter, but make sure you rave about it to her and always tell her how gorgeous it is. She will get teased, brace her for that and she'll be the most confident little thing so nothing anyone says will hurt her. I think that's the key and wish my parents had done that for me.

Rude rude fucking rude. My daughter is 6 and has beautiful ginger hair and brown eyes, and also draws a lot of comments.She refers to herself as the ginger ninja, and since she was born I've told her how pretty it is as I know there will be idiotic dicks that have something nasty to say. I would have been unable to stop myself being a bit fucking rude back to him.

Not sure how people think it's okay to make comments at all? My daughter was born with lots of pure white blonde hair (not much different now she's in her 20's) and even when she was small random people would whisper 'Ooh how terrible she's dyed that child's hair'! It used to make me really upset that people made up their own minds about an unusual hair colour on a child. I love ginger hair, or blonde, or brown, or black on kids and in fact all the shades in between ! My youngest ds has down syndrome and I'm not even going to list what's been said either to my face or behind my back about him!!

Yanbu
Red hair is wonderful.

Having ginger/red hair is gorgeous, I would of comeback with how dare you and who wants to be boring with whatever colour his hair is. She will always stand out as she gets older and will have her admired, she might get the odd negative comment from idiots, teach her to brush it off!

LOVE red hair. I have a cousin (well several) with gorgeous red curls. Have always been envious of it. Even dyed my hair numerous times to attempt it. Went a carnival almost fluorescent orange once - terrifying, that was the end of home dying for me. I have the curls but am brunette, apart from the grey that is..... Someone said after the last Olympics that Gingers had won more golds than Australia or something like that, can't remember exactly. Seriously who wouldn't want to be like Princess Merida in Brave? Your little one will be fine, you have plenty of time to stop up some one-liners for her. x

I had a similar comment from our mechanic when DD was a few months old - on first seeing her, he said "Oh, she's ginger! Never mind!"
I was similar to you OP and was too shocked to say anything, but needless to say, we haven't used his services again. Unfortunately you have no choice with your postman.
Since then, I've had no negative comments - in fact, quite the opposite - we constantly get random strangers commenting on DD's beautiful hair, and a hairdresser once told me very seriously hat I must never let her dye it.
I think all we can do is instill confidence in them so that they can defend themselves and educate the rude, ignorant bullies who react negatively.
Loving the "Orange hair like Merida" girl! High five!

I am also a redhead. I really dislike the word 'ginger' it makes me really uncomfortable. I guess its because I also got teased as a child and gave me a complex about being different which I probably have't recovered from My kids do not have red hair. I used to be a teacher and would go ballistic if I heard about someone being teased for being 'ginger' / wearing glasses / being fat etc. I still would I guess. Yes its true that as an adult lots of people comment positively on redheads but I still never quite believe them. Walk a mile in my shoes...

PS. I hope your daughter isn't as sensitive as me obvs OP

Move to America! Where I am people go nuts for it! I'd be so hurt if someone said that about ds.

I'm a redhead and have only ever received compliments - I must be lucky!

I would definitely write a formal complaint to Royal Mail - in no way is it acceptable to make such comments to customers. I hope your daughter grows up proud of her beautiful red hair!

My little girl turns one tomorrow, she is also ginger, her twin brother and older brother have dark hair. I think she has gorgeous hair which i would kill for! I'm also dark haired, my DH was very ginger when he was younger but now his hair is quite dark but he has a ginger beard and moustache and fair skin. I am fully prepared for all the ginger jokes we will get about her and she will get. It's not fair, others who have posted are right, make sure she has good self esteem, show her a good example by not rising to it. If she grows up being confident about her image, people making silly comments like that won't be able to touch her

I love red hair. My mum's a red-head and so is my DH. I really thought I'd be blessed with little red-heads, but both DC have my boring brown hair. Sometimes DH and I joke about trying for a red haired #3!

I have red hair and my 6 sons also as you can imagine we have lived with this a long time .you even notice that all the "baddies " especially on children's programmers have red hair.south park and all that stuff about gingers have no souls did a lot of damage. I even complained about a Ribera advert where a little girl with beautiful red hair (well I thought it was beautiful )wanted her hair blonde and it was removed from tv. We all need to stamp out this modern form of racism .The main thing is to have pride and resilience there are lots of famous red heads notably prince Harry who is a great role model.