to ask what is so special about blond hair

[pocpocpoc]

My husband is white and English, I am not white and foreign. I have dark hair and my genetics pretty much guarantee that my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are almost 100% likely to have dark hair too.

DH's brother is married to a white English woman and their daughter is the same age as DD. She is taller than DD and has blond hair. Both are nice young ladies, reasonably attractive, but in different ways.

Something that bothered me for a long time, but I could only put a finger on recently, is how MIL (and others in the family) talk about DD's cousin's blond hair and height, almost as a counter-point to anything DD does that is of mention. For instance: "Well done for getting 12 A* GCSEs (saving a child from fire, winning Olympics, getting a Nobel prize), so proud of you being so academic/brave/athletic/hard-working and also of your cousin, who is a tall blond". I find it strange that DD is typically praised for something she has done and worked hard for, while her cousin is praised only for her looks.

Where it is getting ridiculous is that I noticed DH's sister doing the same thing, this time with our boys. Not long ago she said to me "aren't you lucky that your son has such a good friend to play with, with his beautiful head of blond hair" - the sentence really didn't make sense to me. Thinking back I realised that the blond hair has been brought up every time we met in the last couple of years.

In my culture we don't attribute any special value to blond hair. It is very rare, usually means that the blond person is of another ethnicity. Some people get their hair bleached, but it does not confer any superiority or praise. So help me to understand: what is so special about blond hair? AIBU to be bothered? AIBU to detect a hint of racism?

Isn't it thr Arian ideal ? Blonde hair and blue eyes ? I have it as do my children and they are always being commented on when abroad and here for that matter . I personally find olive skin more attractive than my pasty skin !

Aryan sorry

My husband is white and English, I am not white and foreign. I have dark hair and my genetics pretty much guarantee that my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are almost 100% likely to have dark hair too.
Whilst brown hair is dominant, this is definitely not the case.
Your children will inherit 50% of the genes from their dad. This may well already include the blond hair gene (even if he has brown hair). When they have your grandchildren, they could well be blond.
2 brown-haired parents can have blond children.

I think how your family are is quite common in the UK, but it isn't right, and it isn't everyone! Height is definitely a think to be noticed in the UK, and it is only when I left that I realised how odd it was. I remember comments about men like "He is really clever - but he is quite short", coming from men and women alike. And when I married a tall man people saying "oooh isn't he taaaallll"! Seems so ridiculous now. Anyway I now live in France where the average male is shorter and the UK obsession with height now seems bonkers.

I have dark hair. My whole huge family has dark hair and we love it! I think you could have words about the comments as they are unhelpful all round. But you could also embrace the dark and help your dc love it, as the more they love it, the more others will love it (the loving it is catching, I find!)

I'm 41 and naturally very blonde from being a child. My hair has actually lightened rather than darkened as I've got older. People assume I dye it. I don't tell people as a matter of course but I will if someone asks how I can wash my hair every day and keep its colour. I dread having to dye it with all the expense and upkeep as it is so greasy without a daily wash.

As an aside, my step sister is also natural white blonde so people think we are sisters as it is so unusual to see.

@huuuuunnnndderrricks

Isn't it thr Arian ideal ? Blonde hair and blue eyes ? I have it as do my children and they are always being commented on when abroad and here for that matter . I personally find olive skin more attractive than my pasty skin !

Aryan ideal? Yikes.

*I meant definitely a thing not a think...

Perhaps they see you as a bit of a show off and possibly quite arrogant with a chip on your shoulder?

So in their small minded way they have to pull you down a peg or two by using the blonde card.

Don't think that because you are 'family' they can't be jealous of you and in turn their grandchildren's achievements - as mad as that sounds.

And generally speaking whether one is blonde or brunette - beauty is purely in the eyes of the beholder. It really doesn't make someone racist if they prefer blondes.

All these comments about Morocco/ Turkey etc…I actually think it’s just the culture to be more outgoing and affectionate towards children. My brown skinned dark haired children would get a lot of attention in a kind way from locals and others (including the air stewardesses) on holiday in these countries. I think it’s just their culture and not especially because they are so overawed at being in the presence of blonde hair. Having said that my blonde friend visited South Korea with her three blonde boys and told me that people used to give them bags of rice as a gift!

They sound a bit daft.?

@iseeu

I think how your family are is quite common in the UK, but it isn't right, and it isn't everyone! Height is definitely a think to be noticed in the UK, and it is only when I left that I realised how odd it was. I remember comments about men like "He is really clever - but he is quite short", coming from men and women alike. And when I married a tall man people saying "oooh isn't he taaaallll"! Seems so ridiculous now. Anyway I now live in France where the average male is shorter and the UK obsession with height now seems bonkers.

I have dark hair. My whole huge family has dark hair and we love it! I think you could have words about the comments as they are unhelpful all round. But you could also embrace the dark and help your dc love it, as the more they love it, the more others will love it (the loving it is catching, I find!)

What a positive message! Make no mistake we love our hair! DH envies us for being able to spend an afternoon in the sun without burning our skins and scalps - he turns lobster red after like 3.5 minutes.

And I've never had any complexes around my hair - I actually get a lot of compliments on how thick it is, so does DD. That's why it took me years to clock to the fact that the blonde hair was mentioned to us as something superior. For a long time I just filed it under 'strange sentences that don't really make sense'

Blonde hair is very rare in adults. True blonde that is.

Most "natural" blonde people have added dye to their hair

I think because it's rare , and it's lovely to see natural blonde which is very often only in kids

I was very white blonde as a child but by 10 I was that horrid dirty blonde it goes till becoming a lovely brunette colour

I think that blonde hair might be a novelty, and therefore interesting , in some Middle Eastern countries, where the norm is to have dark hair and brown eyes. But I wouldn't say it is feted in Britain.

But I think that the advent of cinema has made blonde hair desirable for famous celebrities to have. I think the contrast of the very light hair sets off and accentuates the facial features, especially when these are made up. I'm thinking of the heyday of cinema: 1950s and 60s - Marilyn Monroe, Diana Dors, Doris Day, Brigette Bardot. It's the same with being slim. In the 19th century, plumpness and an amorphous shape, was considered desirable. The camera prefers angles, and so actresses have become svelte, even if they have big busts with it.

I read a lot of period novels, and what is obvious is that blonde hair used not to be considered a hallmark of beauty. Judging by Thomas Hardy novels or Conan Doyle and even Jane Austen, rich chestnut was the ideal hair colour, and texture was important too. Thick ropes of wavy brown tresses. Auburn was popular; also dark brown hair and flashing dark eyes, but, no, heroines were not often blonde, nor so in great art. Blonde could be thought to be insipid. It was hand maidens who were depicted blonde - not the heroine in Pre-Raphaelite paintings. As blonde hair is often fine and rarely sumptuous, it wasn't considered to be lustrous and luxurious. I don't think blonde hair grows as long and thick as darker hair.

I've thought about what posters have written before about teenagers being gawped at by men, and I've decided that one typical model look of the 80, 90s, 2000s has been for females who resemble, actually, girls of 14. Long thin thighs and long wispy fair hair. Fair hair which will darken as the girls reach their twenties, as the thighs and hips fill out too. I think sometimes people who look or stare at fourteen year old girls walking in the street just think they look like a model: there might not be a sexual angle to it at all - just "She's like a healthy , fit model". We are conditioned to think that youthful, honeyed look and not fat or bumps (androgynous figure) is fashionable.

So blonde and slim and teenage hasn't always been considered the height of feminine beauty at all. But older relations do sometimes say a lot of silly things.

I remember when DD1 was a baby/toddler/preschooler, her hair was bright bright blonde and she has lovely dark brown eyes. The comments were constant about her looks- especially her hair/eye combination. It began to annoy me slightly if I’m being honest and I’m experiencing same with subsequent DDs. DD1s hair is still blonde but less bright, more golden and she still does get comments. It was so strange to me as I was always dark haired as a child and don’t remember any sort of fussing!

@Voice0fReason

My husband is white and English, I am not white and foreign. I have dark hair and my genetics pretty much guarantee that my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are almost 100% likely to have dark hair too. Whilst brown hair is dominant, this is definitely not the case. Your children will inherit 50% of the genes from their dad. This may well already include the blond hair gene (even if he has brown hair). When they have your grandchildren, they could well be blond. 2 brown-haired parents can have blond children.

Yep. I recently did the family tree My great great grandad is black. My mums side is all dark hair, very dark olive skin and brown eyes (the sort that skip out in the sun for 1hr and return looking like they've spent two weeks abroad) My dad is white with blue eyes (Scottish ancestry) I'm a pale as fuck redhead with green eyes. Put against the rest of the family I look like someone photoshopped a pale Victorian child who won't survive the winter into the photograph

Also, I very often had tourists asking for photos of DDs and I assume it was the hair. It was bizarre and I remember feeling shocked when it happened when we were away for a weekend in a bigger city.

I'm naturally blonde, but never saw it as an asset, especially when an ex said I had off blonde hair. I now dye my hair turquoise and receive far more compliments. I didn't get a good deal in anyway for having blonde hair, eventhough my parents tried to tell me that I would when I was young, not saying that was right For what its worth, I hate being fair and would much prefer darker colouring.

I would love to have blonde hair but only because it would be so easy to dye bright colours! My ideal hair colour is bright red and I am dark brown so have to bleach it to death first.
It doesn't work like that, I'm afraid, you'd still have to bleach it to get a bright colour. If you want to dye it natural looking darker shade as I have, it never works out - just looks really dull and flat. That's with home dye jobs though, I don't know if getting it done professionally would make a difference.
As for all those lamenting they could never be angels in the nativity, my commiserations, but consider that being an angel isn't all it's cracked up to be. Same part every year, never a solo or speaking part, just singing together with a couple of other blonde girls in an old bedsheet! It was boring and predictable. I wanted to be Mary but that always went to a dark haired girl, so I guess the grass is always greener.

@Octopus37

I'm naturally blonde, but never saw it as an asset, especially when an ex said I had off blonde hair. I now dye my hair turquoise and receive far more compliments. I didn't get a good deal in anyway for having blonde hair, eventhough my parents tried to tell me that I would when I was young, not saying that was right For what its worth, I hate being fair and would much prefer darker colouring.

Good point - there is a distinct advantage to blond hair: you can dye it any colour you want! When I was young and obsessed with experimentation, I had to bleach my hair before dying it blue/green/red. That was tough on my scalp and hair and required quite a bit of commitment.

33 years old and naturally blonde here

Agree it's very strange that people treated me differently especially as a small child. I remember On holiday in Italy as a child people kept giving me food. No idea why. I think it's probably just unusual plus racist undertones.

My mum has said about ex bfs "but you won't have blond babies..." as if this is a factor I would even think of!!!

Also l, it's pretty mad when people don't believe my hair is naturally blonde ... why would I lie about this!!!

Personally I think the OP should move to somewhere with more of an ethnic mix. I think it’s quite damaging for children to grow up in areas where they are made to feel ‘other’. I say that as a mix raced person who grew up in a very non diverse area. It made me quite confused and angry when I was a kid. Soon your kids will be blaming you for them not being blond and crying saying they wish they were blond because they’re being made to feel not as attractive as their cousins.

I’m married to a white man and our kids are fair brown. Although I still live in a majority white area it is still racially diverse and nobody looks twice or makes comments on anyone’s hair or skin colour. It’s not a novelty or something you notice. Some of the kids are blonde, brunette, some are Asian, mixed race or black. DC have never come home crying because they feel different or want to change their skin colour/hair to fit in.

Move the kids far away from the blond fetishists weirdos.

@JackieWeaverHandforthCouncil I think with some things it's always noticed. I've been bullied all my life and constant comments (not positive ones) on my hair and pale skin
That's been everywhere from Oxford to Bolton so not anywhere in particular either!
Years of Duracell, asking if my pubes match, how I should fake tan..

Blondes have a reputation for being less intelligent, they are perceived as being just pretty . It’s all very old fashioned. Look at the idolisation of women such as Marilyn Monroe. Sounds like the people saying well done on passing exams and mentioning blonde hair is because they’ve been brought up in the culture of blonde is beautiful and they’re shocked they are clever too! Insulting to the person who’s achieved the exams etc

@SuziLikeSuziQ

On the flip side, I have very dark hair and brown eyes and so does my family. My DH had blue eyes and was lighter-haired when younger although grey now. My mum and SIL can't get over how my son has blond hair and blue eyes, as according to my mum that "goes against everything I know about genetics". They mention it a lot. I just shrug.

Sometimes people just need to mention looks. I'd feel sorry for your niece, who apparently will only ever be her height and hair colour to your MIL. At least your daughter's achievements are noted, surely?

Your rellies need to look up how recessive genes work. We are two dark-haired, brown-eyed, right-handed parents with two blue-eyed, left-handed kids, one of whom is strawberry blond.

@Indoctro Mine is. Rare I grant you, but it happens more than you probably realise.
I joke that I'm depreciating in value as I age as I'm going from gold to silver.