Red hair child

[bibbidibobbididoo12]

I have 2 red head girls age 7 and 9.
Both have started to questions about their hair.
Today one of my children asked is having red hair a bad thing.
Obviously I asked her why?
She explained in a book she was reading when they described a character they used all negative words such as 'fat, ugly and had red hair'.

I am constantly telling them how beautiful their hair is and other people regularly tell them.
But both girls have started saying people are just it to make me feel better about our hair colour.
It's a catch 22 situation.
The oldest girl has been bullied and called ginger idiot and you can't play with us because you have ginger hair.

The whole thing just makes me really sad.

I don't know what to say to them?
Do I say in the past people used to think ginger hair/red hair was not as nice etc or not even tell them that? Then they ask Why did they say that?

My tip to you OP is to be the biggest cheerleader ever. Build up their self esteem. Don't hold back in telling them how wrong their bullies are. I'd even suggest you make it abundantly clear that they will be supported if they argue or fight back. Because if it goes on and gets worse and they feel they can't stand up for themselves IF they want to then it will all go inside and they might forever feel like they have some defect and have to avoid parts of life for fear of being harassed. I think it's wonderful you are looking to help them and not just brushing it off. Insist to their teachers that the bullies be dealt with.

Can I ask if others contact TV companies or brands to complain when they see anti-ginger stuff? I am even too afraid of getting upset to do that after being told before that it doesn't break any rules as it's hair colour not skin colour. But I wish I was strong enough to do it.

The same girls who are being horrid about your DD's red hair will be at the hairdressers in 10 years time getting their hair dyed red...

I have 2 red haired DC and I’m always telling them how beautiful their hair is, because deep down it really worries me that they’ll get abuse for it when they’re at school. All I can do is teach them resilience and some good come-backs, but it makes me so angry and sad to think of anyone giving them grief for their hair colour.

Recently DD’s hair has started to darken, lots of brown tones are coming through and it starting to look a lot like mine. I’m ashamed to admit I felt relief. And I’m allowing DS to play in the sunshine without a hat (for short periods) because I noticed that the sun was lightening his hair to a blonde colour, like his dad’s. I can’t help feeling that life will be easier for them if their hair continues to change colour like it is doing now.

My DD has begun to notice the negative press for red hair in non real life. However in real life she has had people come up to her and say how special in a good way, she is to have a more unique hair colour, and as a toddler someone ran up to her and sushed how beautiful her hair is. So when she talks of the negative press I remind her of the real life positives.

Gushed not sushed!!

I've got red hair. Unfortunately I think kids hear this stuff not only from other kids but also from the adults in their lives so they just repeat it. I also think it's probably got worse over the years.

I think you should tell the school as it is discriminating and bullying and the teacher needs to raise it as unacceptable. Kids need to know it's unacceptable to say this stuff.

To be honest though, I think it could also be worth working with your kids to build a bit of a 'who cares' attitude. I used to shrug my shoulders and be like so what, the kids got bored when they saw it didn't bother me.

Funnily enough just before reading this post I was watching The Pioneer Woman on Sky Food Network, Ree Drummond has the most beautiful colour red hair !

My three year old daughter has got red hair ( with quite a bit of blonde too ) and I said to her "that lady has got hair colour like yours!"
I don't know where her red hair comes from, her big sis is blonde, nobody in the family has it, it must go way back in one of our gene pools!

But I love it! I always notice children now with red hair and how beautiful it is. I maybe naively thought that bullying didn't happen nowadays because of that. I guess it can just take one child to say something and the others might follow.
Is it just me though but I think there are more red haired children now than years ago?? Good!!!
I've never even thought she could be bullied at school because of her hair colour I hope not.
Red hair Rocks!!!

I was horribly bullied because of my red hair. Spat at, abused, every day. Teenage years were a nightmare. I hate how it is seen in the UK and how mocking ginger hair is supposedly 'banter' when it is just discrimination and bullying.

I dont know what the root of it is but it is 100% a thing. Your daughters may have a hard time with it, I'm sorry. Once I got to 17 it was ok. I woudld definitely try and show cool fictional characters and celebs with red hair. It helped me feel a bit less awful.

Once I got to 17 many people started to see my hair as a lovely asset so it does get better.

Just bear in mind if they dye it, their roots will grow in ginger. I dyed mine jet black (eek) and never thought of the regrowth issue hahaha. Bad times.

I have red hair. I went through a phase where i really wanted to dye it and change it and got bullied about it! It's hard being a child though, my 9 year old sister (18 year gap between us) is currently worried about being fat.. so whether you are ginger, black, white, a little on the chubby side, freckly or have birth marks to name a few.. people are always going to take the pee out of you.

It's difficult as a child because they don't really understand, but to be honest i still do get comments about how 'beautiful' my hair is and it really doesn't bother me anymore, as shallow as it sounds i always thought to myself if all they can think about is to slag off my hair colour then the rest of me can't be that bad can it 😎

I am pregnant with my first and people do ask about her having red hair, and i'm actually quite excited to have mini-me's!

Ginger hair is different, unique in it's own way so that's why people are mean.. but it's nice to be different!

I have red hair, it was pinky blonde then went strawberry blonde, then when I was a teenager it had so many shades of red it was beautiful. Of course this was the time I went to hairdressing school and crazy couple red to an inch of its life.
I met a red haired, green eyed man and had two red haired boys, one copper with green eyes and one strawberry blond with blue eyes. We do use the word ginger. We are not afraid of it, we use it ourselves it is not thought of as an insult. We knew the boys were likely to be bullied so we gave them coping strategies. Secondary school and the copper haired boy dyed it down to brown once and then didn't bother any more. They had a positive comeback for most remarks and no one was particularly original so it was just repetition. For example they used to touch his hair and pretend they had been burnt. He would laugh and say it happens when you are so hot. We tackled the school and got them to put a stop to it.

My DH now has no hair, and I am brown with a hint of red so am forever slapping Nice'n'Easy dye on it to 'ginger' it up.

I would love to go to a redhead day. They look amazing, if you didn't have confidence in your hair colour after attending one of those I am not sure you ever would.

At least we have our own wine

Get them to look at adverts on TV - nearly all the kids are red heads.

I am as ginger as it is possible to be. Pale skin and freckley too. At school I absolutely hated it, but if same from about 18 onwards my feelings totally changed and I love it now!

My dad spent my entire childhood banning the "G" word - my hair was strawberry blonde, or auburn gold, definitely not ginger. I remember clearly one day telling him (jokingly) that the only thing worse than being a ginger, was being a ginger in denial.

It is tough, and kids are cruel, but they will just have to ride it out, and one day they will be so so glad they did!

When I was a child I had masses of long frizzy dark hair that my mother used to put into plaits every day. I was teased because I had plaits until I was about 10 when I decided I wanted it cut to shoulder length. From then on I was teased because it was shorter and frizzy.

I wore glasses from the age of five, I was tease about my glasses my whole school life.

Some children will find anything to pick on that they can make other children feel bad about, some children enjoy hurting other children.

One of my older sisters had a school friend who had the most beautiful deep red hair. I don't know if she was ever teased about her red hair but I somehow doubt it, it was absolutely gorgeous.

@passmethewineplease that’s absolutely beautiful. It’s a colour you’d pay for.

I had a friend at high school who would ask on a daily basis, why I didn't just dye my hair, saying that the bullying couldn't bother me that much otherwise I would do something about it. The problem was that I didn't feel I should be the one to change when the bullies were clearly the ones in the wrong, plus dying it would show them that they had won and I would be forever under their control

People said the same to me and I felt the same. I didn't see why I should change just to appease idiots.

I also had the nonsense of people questioning my parentage as both parents not redheads, but both grans were so that is likely where it's come from although one grandad also had a redheaded mother, genes can be funny things and skip generations

The gene doesn't skip a generation but it is either recessive or co-dominant with other hair colour genes. This means it can be passed on through the generations without being expressed. Put very basically genes are paired and one gene in the pair will be dominant over the other. So if you have a brown hair gene and a ginger gene, it will be the brown hair you can see as that is dominant. You can however pass the ginger gene that you are carrying down and if your offspring get the same gene from their other parent, they'll be ginger. (Apologies to any geneticists reading).

I think this adds to the prejudice - it's as if being a redhead lurks somewhere and you can have red haired children when neither parent is a redhead. Until genetics was better understood no-one knew why and so you get this 'are you someone else's child' stuff going on.

People (idiots and people who are insecure about themselves) will pick on people who are different. It's as simple as that.

People (idiots and people who are insecure about themselves) will pick on people who are different. It's as simple as that.

That is true but some of that is automatically stepped on and stopped in school. The anti-red hair comments arent automatically stopped. Adults feel free to make the comments and dont check their children when they do so.

So that they can counter back with "my mum says nobody really loves you". Jesus Christ that's nasty

Eh, no - so that they will be able to put the bullying into perspective and understand that it's not about them but about the bullies' problems.

If the OP feels she needs to remind her DCs not to repeat her explanation, she can say, 'This is between you and me, my dear...'

People are idiots. Agree it's racism as it's not something that you can change about yourself. My toddler has red hair and I think it's even worse being a boy. There are lots of red haired female role models but only Ron bloody Weasley for boys. Someone even said to me once that if they had a ginger child they'd hope it was a girl because red headed girls can be pretty unlike boys. Makes me so mad. His hair is such a beautiful colour.

I think it's the tradition of anti Irish prejudice in English culture. Countries like Germany and Denmark don't get in a tizz about red hair.

I think it's lovely, the redder the better. I am ginger and my son has strong highlights of it. I think it's great. I'm also not afraid of the word ginger, or as i like to put it, interesting and more unusual than you...

Why are people saying Brown is boring? Alot of women look gorgeous with dark hair, Irina shyak, Angelina Jolie, Adriana Lima, Monica bellucci, audrey hepburn, Madhuri dixit. No one should get bullied for their hair colour, but on mumsnet it's ok to put down brown and black hair colour

The simple answer is that it is rarer and more unusual than other colours. Narrow minded people feel threatened by “different” and cruel people like to exploit that. Rare = special and beautiful.

Thank you @Thehop I only wish I embraced it years ago!

@coffeekisses. WE ARE ALL RARE. There is no one like me, I am one of a kind and like wise.