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?

Tell her red hair is beautiful and women like me and christina hendricks both dye our hair ginger red because we werent born that beautiful.

There are definitely some very positive redhead role models.
Merida and Ariel are ones I always say to them.

It is hard when in mainstream media there are always jokes made at red heads expense.
I've seen it in Eastenders a lot - comments like I hope the baby ain't ginger!
Also recently in After Life with Ricky Gervais. I loved that programme and then the comment at 'the ginger kid' made me feel sad. Then seeing it on Gogglebox and everyone laughing at it. I know it's a joke and people say stop being sensitive. But it just reinforced how hard it is for red haired children.

But Thankyou for everyone's ideas on how I can support my children xx

Bullying is disgusting and even though I am 46 with a 10 year old daughter and I still remember being bullied at secondary school.
I used to get called “chiney and jimmy hill” as i was told I had a pointy,big chin by the class bully.
That was over 30 years ago but I still remember .

Red hair is stand out lovely.and special. just keep telling your daughters this. Hopefully they are not too shy, and can keep ahead of any hassle from other children.

Read her Harry Potter - lots of positive red-haired role models in there

I had dark red hair when I was young, but weirdly it turned darker brown as I got older (About 30 - I have no idea how common that is, but my dad was the same) - and I was both teased and admired for my hair. I used to dye it dark when I was a teenager, but now it's gone, I would love my red hair back again now.

My DH was first attracted to me for my hair, and he's a good 'un, so it can't be bad

There are a few resources online as to how to deal with bullying for red hair - I suggest you look them up and start passing to your DDs the tools to deal with this - and emphasise to them how very special and beautiful their hair colour is.

This is a good one nypost.com/2017/12/02/science-shows-redheads-have-genetic-superpowers/

@Onemorefuck to correct you matt smith as doctor who actually said please say i am ginger. Because david tennants doctor had several lines as his time that he had wanted to be ginger. They meant it as a good thing that he wanted red hair.

Also the phelps twins who played the weasleys dyed their hair red for years for thw role and people were genuinly gutted to find out they werent real red heads.

I'm very surprised that a children's book would describe a character as "fat, ugly and red-haired", unless it was written any time more than 20 years ago - what was it? Nastiness and bullying about hair colour is horrible and needs to be taken as seriously as any other appearance-based discrimination.

Correction matt smith said still not ginger in refernce to david tennants dr wanting to be ginger.

Wasnt pipi longstockings red haired?

Karen gilen in doctor who is also a very popular red haired beauty.

My daughter (4) has the most gorgeous, brightest red hair. And she is proud of it thankfully. What kind of people bully people for their differences!?

Out of my 5 dc I have three red heads
One with blue eyes one with brown eyes and my youngest has green eyes
My oldest Ds didn’t have problems at school with being a red head and if anyone said anything they would get some comment back he is 22 now and likes being a red head
Ds 3 is 14 and he has never had a problem about being a red head and doesn’t comment one way or the other about if he likes his hair colour
Dd is 5 and has red curly hair with green eyes and has already asked why can’t she have brown hair
She wants to change her hair colour I don’t know where it has come from and it makes me sad that she speaks like this
I’m hoping it’s just because her poor old mum is going grey rapidly and I need to dye my hair and not because of other children’s comments
Everyone that sees her hair makes a lovely comment on it
I’m hoping that as she gets older she will grow to love her hair as it’s a beautiful colour.
I think that children can be cruel about anything that’s different
Hair colour, glasses the way they talk etc
Hopefully your girls will grow to love their hair and not care what other people think

Stunning!!

I’m a red head living in the US where I find there’s much less nastiness about red hair. A couple of years ago I was in London walking past a school carrying my baby (also a red head). These teenage girls were howling laughing, shouting ‘oh my God, see what happens when they breed’ and ‘why didn’t they make her have an abortion’. It still upsets me now to think about it. I don’t know when the discrimination against redheads became so acceptable. Luckily my DS thinks his hair is lovely, he has never had a problem and is 9 now. I hope the UK turns this around, I don’t remember it being like that when I grew up there.

I am French and live in Australia. When the kids were in primary school, I helped a lot, listening to kids reading or helping with crafts and I was shocked about this red hair attitude, this is something I have never experienced in any of the continual Europe countries I have lived in.

I don't get it and it was somehow accepted by the teachers who couldn't not have heard the comments

During the Renaissance having red hair was an aspiration as the beauty criteria was the Botticelli's Venus and she had red hair. So many women would put lemon and saffron in their hair and stay for hours in the sun hoping to get the colour, but the closest they could get to was the colour Venetian blonde. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Venus#/media/File:Sandro_Botticelli_-La_nascita_di_Venere-Google_Art_Project-_edited.jpg

So say to your girls that it was the most aspired hair colour, but as it was unobtainable people try to make it something negative.
Red is gorgeous and unique.

@Doyouavocado - do you have any idea how frustrating it is to hear people like you negate the lived experience of people like me, just because you haven't experienced it yourself? Just LISTEN to what people are telling you and accept it is THEIR experience.

I was a junior school child in the 1970s and boy did having ginger hair cause me grief! And it didn't stop there, although it diminished as I got older. Even one bloke in my 20s who told me kindly that "foxies stink of piss" - how pleasant!

A friend I made at my first job in my 20s also told of her bullying experiences at school in Glasgow.

Having red hair was no fucking fun at all in some places. But I have to say that most of my bullies were male. And I've also found that most red-haired males experience less bullying than red-haired females - haven't done extensive research, just anecdotally.

It did make me roll my eyes when everyone started dyeing their hair various shades of red as they got past the mid-teens though. Apparently it's ok to DYE your hair red, so long as you weren't born with it.

My MIL had auburn hair when she was younger, so there was a reasonable chance that I might have a red-haired child - and even SHE said "I hope they're not ginger!" ffs!! DH too! But their rationale for saying that was that they didn't want the child to suffer bullying for it, not that they thought it was bad per se. And this is in Australia, not the UK. It's less overt here - I know a few children with red hair who don't appear to be bullied for it - but then you have Tim Minchin writing the song "Prejudice" which just tells you how bad it could be.

Until people stop bullying people for being "different" for ANY reason this will carry on - parents need to teach their children NOT to do this. It doesn't come from nowhere.

Bullies.
I never liked it personally till I had a red head child the tones and colours are beautiful
Where we live I can not go past a person without them commenting how beautiful my child's Red hair is.
Tell them to reply "I like my red hair" or "I like it ". The response is still going to be negative but then person critising sounds abit silly.
Any child is pulled to bits at school for standing out or features, names.
Lift them up and any small minded people or annoying people hate no come back or a smile tell them.

I've always liked the Tim Minchin song.
Ds2 is a 'ginger ninja' (he calls himself). He's ginger and proud.

Why are children reading a book where a character is described as fat/ugly?

There is a very famous PR girl called Roxy Jacenko and her daughter Pixie has red hair. She has made a fortune selling hair accessories and models all of them, with her beautiful red hair. You should show your DDs this: pixiespix.com.au/

Why do people say redheads are different? Different to what?.blondes, brunettes? Don't get it.

Speaking as the mother of four girls, two of them red heads (and one son with a red beard) -
Stop telling your girls that they are beautiful and that their hair is beautiful.

The more you talk about their looks the more they will worry about how they look. Don't try to tell them about the many movie stars or famous beauties of yore who have or had red hair. They will see it as you desperate to compensate for the curse of red hair. You will always come across as defensive, and you will convey to them that they need to be defensive about their hair.

What is happening to them in school is not about their hair. It's about what is going on inside the bullies.

Tell them that children who are cruel to others come from miserable homes where nobody really loves them, that these children are insecure as a result and feel the need to pick on anyone who has something special or different. Nobody has ever told them they are special and they can't handle it when they see it in others. Tell your daughters that if it wasn't them it would be someone else being picked on, and to try not to take it personally. If it wasn't red hair it would be someone else whose difference they couldn't handle.

Try to encourage Biggerstaff36's attitude - ok NEXT PLEASE
'Talk to the hand...'
'Boring...'

Tell them the only thing that matters about people is how they treat others, and keep on encouraging them to develop goals and pursue them.

I agree that the "Ewww, red hair!" response isn't a thing elsewhere, or at least it doesn't have the massive amount of nastiness behind it that you find in England. It's down to an old feeling of superiority over the peoples of the Celtic fringe - the Scots and Irish.

And complain to the school until something is done about this bullying.

Be the squeaky wheel.

Be 'that parent'.

Make them stop this toxic culture.

I haven't been through the whole thread but just wanted to say red heads are gorgeous! X

It is the last socially acceptable prejudice. Not so long ago I heard a colleague tell a red haired colleague with one red headed child and another child soon to be born that he would make his wife have a termination if he thought the child was going to have red hair.

I was shocked and still am. The bile which was falling from this man's mouth was disgusting. It was as if every prejudiced thought he had was spewing out.

Take them to the hairdye aisle in any supermarket / Boots and show them how many different packs of red hair due you can buy. If it were 'ugly' people wouldn't pay a small fortune to try and recreate it for themselves!

Obviously after lockdown, good luck OP!