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?

@Chillicheese123 thank you, she's got lovely blue eyes too, and is such a sassy little diva. She doesn't like having 'orange' hair- her words. ☹️

I think red hair is beautiful and striking but I agree my little cousin had awful comments about it. The Disney movie brave and the weasleys in Harry Potter are all good strong characters but I also agree with others- show all the models with obviously dyed red hair it’s a beautiful colour.

@Vanhi
'it's better than being a boring brown-haired twat'.

I understand the desire to retaliate, but isn't that just as bad? Why is having brown hair "boring"?

I don't think it's right to say anything nasty to anyone about their hair colour.

I love my hair now, but in childhood I was teased and singled out a great deal over it. I was the most freckled child I have ever seen, and that was worse. Spent late teenage years with dyed dark brown hair and an inch of makeup as disguise.
Recent times- had a stone thrown at me by teenage girls shouting ginger bitch. Teenage girls at a train station making loud comments about it. Colleague who apparently forgot I was there saying never trust a ginger. Someone commenting on a friend's baby saying pity about the hair. Man on bus saying he'd never had 'a ginger'.
And that word- ginger- I hate it. It makes me shiver because it's just about only used as a term of abuse.

My red haired DD died her hair dark from age 15. She is now 19 and says when she is a little older she will grow it out. So sad, but at least she is nearly ready to "own" it.
My red haired DS,15, has always owned his. Calls it African Sunset. Boys seem less sensitive to it.

Oh and the cruellest boy in school about red hair is someone I see through other people on FB. He has three young kids and has gloated that they 'aren't ginger'. He's 35 years old ffs.

My dark haired 5 year old is always saying she wants “orange “ hair . We watch “adley “ YouTube videos , the little girl in it is American with red hair. Might be something for your girl to watch .
I have a red headed nephew and he too was called hateful names and left school with painful memories.
So sad that hair colour can cause so much pain

I don't think it's right to say anything nasty to anyone about their hair colour.

No it isn't, which is partly why I do it. It never seems to occur to these small-minded people what feature it is they're picking on. If you flip it back at them, they do sometimes have a lightbulb moment regarding what it's like to be bullied for your hair colour.

As for being just as bad, or rising above it and not retaliating, I've had decades of this. The bullying I was put through at school meant I struggled as an adult to form relationships and it was only once I was in my 40s I was able to forge a decent relationship. So frankly if I call someone a boring brown-haired twat in response to their comment, I don't GAF if I'm lowering myself or hitting out in retaliation. You dish it out, you can fucking well take it back.

HopeClearwater

Lots of races and ethnicities have natural red hair.
Lots of Arabic people and Indians do.
Even some black people.

King David was also a red head.

I grew up thinking I was wicked because I had black hair, just like all the Disney villains and book witches.

My friend has true red hair, her daughters do too and they go wild over it when they’re on holiday. Explain people will pick on whatever is obvious. A big nose, a wart, glasses, less common hair colour. It’s shit.

As a fellow red head, unfortunately you need to have a thick skin. I'm in my 30's now and got teased relentlessly for my hair colour through school up until late teens. As an adult it is quite literally the opposite and I find people, often strangers, are very complimentary about my hair. It's a strange transition. As a teenager, boys and random men in the street would use my hair colour for sexualised slurs, as an adult I've noticed how some men seem to fetishise my hair and numerous ex boyfriends have had a 'thing' for red hair. The whole dynamic with some people and red hair seems very bizarre to me 🤷‍♀️

'If red hair is so awful, why do they make permanent hair dye in every possible shade of red, ginger, orange, fire, etc'...

Perk you could tell them- we don't really age the same. I'm 35 and look about 28. Many redheads I know look much younger than they are.

Has OP returned?

@Blackbirdblue30 yes! I get id’d all the time. I think the freckles make me look youthful

Queen Elizabeth 1 had red hair (as did Mary Queen of Scots).

How is that relevant to a red head being bullied?

It’s like saying ‘Well Morgan Freeman is black’
Or Jo Brand is ‘fat’
Or Micheal J Fox is ‘small’

So therefore you should accept being bullied everyday.

I have red hair - it was just an observation.

most red-haired males experience less bullying than red-haired females

Many years ago I heard on the radio an account by a woman who experienced childlessness. She and her husband were desperate for a baby, but there were no young children to adopt in her area. She persisted in going to children's homes etc (this tells you how long ago it was - I think the programme was about the shameful shipping off of children to Australia by the government) to see if any had become "available" for adoption - no luck. Then one day when she was talking to the matron of one of the homes, the woman said to her - "There just aren't the children coming through at the moment. There was only that one, but he was ginger but nobody wants that.:" And so the child had just been passed into the system and lost to them forever. She was crying as she told the story. "We wanted him. We would have taken him and loved him - we just wanted a child - any child. We didn't care what colour his hair was."

So a child was assumed to be unadaptable because of his hair colour. I obviously don't know if it would have been the same had he been a girl - but it's a horrible indictment of general attitudes.

@mathanxiety hit the nail on the head. STOP banging on to girls especially about how beautiful they are or their red hair is. Stop making everything about looks and appearances. Exactly. And not all people find red hair beautiful. Bullies should be stopped- that's all

Luckily it wasn't really a trend to bully red-haired people when I was little. Mostly stupid comments about being bad-tempered. I would tell them that red-haired people were only bad-tempered as a result of being accused of being bad-tempered because of their hair colour.

I can across 2 arses a couple of years back - they drunkenly made a comment as I walked past them. I did hear and was pretty enraged (a couple of idiot men trying to bully a 50-year-old woman???) - swung around and hollered in their stupid faces 'you fucking what???' - being Glaswegian has its benefits - and they apologised and scurried away and I yelled 'you silly wee boys' after them.

My husband was/is a lover of the Pre-Raphaelites, so thats all ok.

I have red hair and, yeah, did get the odd negative sexual comment when younger but most people were incredibly complimentary, I have been stopped in the street by strangers to tell me how beautiful it is. My mum (not a redhead) tried to get me to see how lovely it was, she called it my ‘crowning glory’.

Mine has faded a bit now, I have a daughter, hers is a bit lighter, really lovely. I have another friend and she and her daughter are similar, we grownups are northerners exiled down south now where it does seem a bit more unusual, I told the children that red hair is our ‘superpower’.

Yes - mine is more mummified woolly mammoth/fox coloured now.

I will just proudly put these pics on, not identifying now anyway! The midwife asked me as soon as I gave birth "ooh, was you expecting that?". No, and didn't give a toss either way

I have red hair and was bullied because of it. Although as an adult people are more likely to compliment it than otherwise, I think that people assume that I am going to be "fiery". It is complicated by all sorts of other factors, like being a woman of course, but I honestly get the feeling that it takes very little assertiveness for people to behave as if you are making a massive fuss. When you have to correct an order gone wrong, for instance, no matter how smiley and cute you try to be about it, you very often get "oooooooo fiery redhead"

I used to be quite pretty and found that some men are quite hostile to women they fancy - now I'm 48 and boring looking I get an easier ride at work in many ways. I wonder if the attractiveness of red hair is why some boys are so awful to redheaded girls at school? I know that sounds really big headed - I'm not saying I'm anything special, though some redheads are really stunning. I did find though that when I put a (very flattering) b&w photo on tinder I didn't get anywhere - when I uploaded some colour photos I found that I was extremely popular.