Red/ginger hair-what’s the big deal

[Flowersintheattica]

Toddler Dd has red/ginger/whatever colour you want to call it, and blue eyes. It’s the topic of conversation almost constantly among people-friends and strangers. It’s curly also, which adds to the hysteria more 😅
Dp and I both dark haired and people can’t seem to understand how this happened

Why is it such a big deal? In a good and/or bad way?

I have red hair. I have no idea what the big deal is. I was bullied at school for it, and so I hated my hair growing up. I've embraced it as part of my identity now, and once the bullying stopped, I loved it.

My ds has beautiful ginger hair with big green eyes.
It’s ridiculous how many people comment on it.
I said to bil at the weekend that if I had a pound for every time someone commented on it I wouldn’t have to work !!

I know people are been kind but 3 years in and I’m sick of it. He’s not aware of it yet but I’m dreading him having to deal with the “attention” of his hair.

I'm also the only person in my family with ginger hair, and seriously believed that I was adopted growing up. 😬

I have two red haired dd’s with blue eyes. One is super straight and one curly. They get lots of comments too.

My DS2 is a redhead with very pale blue eyes, pale eyelashes and eyebrows, bright orange beard. He was bullied for it throughout his schooldays and physically attacked as a young adult on more than one occasion. He’s been followed by small crowds in China (and never paid for a meal or beer there on account of it). He’s been chased by a hen party in Amsterdam.
He loves his recessive gene (MC1R) but it’s not always a blessing.

One of my DC has auburn hair (it’s a lovely red/brown colour) and dark brown eyes, she also has olive skin and I just think she’s beautiful. Obviously I’m massively biased but she has such a unique look, it isn’t every day you see someone with features like that!

She’s my only DC out of five with red hair, it’s obviously a recessive gene. The rest of us have dark hair. My youngest DC is 13 months and still has blue eyes which is another recessive gene, DH has hazel and I have green eyes. My DC all look very different but I love it.

I look like I belong to another family
My cousins all resemble my mum and brother, dark hair, brown eyes, blink at the sun and look like they've been abroad for 6 months
Me, green eyes, complexion of a Victorian child with flu, red hair

According to my friend who has an absolute mane of ginger curls, people go over the top with the compliments in an attempt to prove they're not prejudiced, to show they're not the sort of people who don't like ginger hair - they're the good people who shout about how much they love it! She hates them, and doesn't want anyone to ever talk about her hair!

Same. Both my kids have red/ginger curly hair and if I had £1 for how many times we've been stopped in the street I'd be very rich! Embrace it OP it's lovely that our kids have this gorgeous feature

@QueenHofScotland

I have two red haired dd’s with blue eyes. One is super straight and one curly. They get lots of comments too.

"You are the milkman's."

Clearly you are not but that is the shit that people say who don't understand genetics and the expression of recessive genes.

This is my partners mane of red curly hair. It makes me so happy!

I have 4 DC. The girls had strawberry blond hair and blue eyes, both darker hair now, and the boys have brown hair and eyes. It's like the Brady Bunch.

DD had really bright orange blond hair as a toddler and brown eyes.. everyone wanted to touch it and randoms would want to photograph her... er... nope ! I was sad that it changed to dark blond but didn't miss the weirdness.

I worry about bullying.

I just don’t understand the obsession either way

It might be a hangover from the middle ages when red haired people were thought to be witches/sorcerers and also thought to be over-sexed! They had a bad time of it during the Spanish Inquisition apparently.

Ginger hair is quite unusual - that’s why people comment.

As a red head, I agree that a lot of people go over the top in complimenting red hair, as a response to how negatively it is viewed by many. It's tiresome, but better than the unsolicited negative comments at least.

I think as people said above, that it’s because it’s fairly unusual. Historically, it was also seen as a negative trait, less desirable etc but I do think the tide is changing somewhat.

I’m strawberry blonde as is my dd. I’ve always had comments-more positive ones as I’ve got older and I like it now. Ive had lots of negative comments through the years though.

However many times I tell my dd aged 13 how beautiful her hair is, she still doesn’t believe me. I hope she learns to love it as she gets older.

Pic of my dd’s hair above.

I'm a red head and a lot of people were very confused that my daughter didnt come out with red hair. I guess some people missed science classes at school 😂🙈

Well people are gushing over ginger hair on here. I have ginger hair and the nasty vile and disgusting comments about it are what I remember. One person used to always say I had lovely hair and people even took a he piss out of that like it wasn't true.

As a young child of about 10 a grown man asked me why people with ginger hair were so ugly. Also as a child I had older boys asking about my pubic hair before I was at an age to have any and people saying really vulgar things about my vagina because of my hair colour, I found this confusing because I was so young. The things people said to me because my hair and because I also wore glasses were just disgusting and very hurtful for a young girl but treated like it was normal by every one.

People used to tell me I'd grow up and have ugly ginger children. I have 2 DC not one is ginger.

I don't know if people behave like this today ( I don't hear anything about my hair but is that just because I'm not a child anymore?) but in the 1980s and 1990s it was perfectly acceptable.

I do remember one of the most hurtful things that ever happened. We had family friends who would tell my mother she was like a daughter to them. They were all over her and made a real fuss of her but always treated me and my sister like bad kids. We had to call them nan and grandad and aunt etc.

One day, a member of their family had a baby who was born with red hair and they all commented how this baby was the first redhead in their family and that there were no others, it was said so many times . I'd known them well over ten years at the time. I never forgot it.

However many times I tell my dd aged 13 how beautiful her hair is, she still doesn’t believe me. I hope she learns to love it as she gets older.

This used to frustrate me so much growing up, I was bullied for having ginger hair and middle aged people telling me how beautiful it was didn’t help, it just felt like they didn’t believe me, I’d rather they’d have acknowledged the bullying and let me dye it.

It's faded now so you can't tell, but I struggled a lot with being targeted and bullying during school. Unfortunately it's seen as an easy physical target by some cretinous individuals Hopefully this won't ever be a problem for you and the world has changed in the past decade, but I hated it at the time, miss the vibrancy now :)

Because it's somewhat unusual - that's all.

Genetically, nothing strange at all about two non-ginger parents having a ginger child. It just means you both carry a single copy of the "ginger gene".

I have two cousins with gorgeous red curls (though sadly one straightens and dyes 😭 ) with two dark haired parents.

@TheRebelle but I do think that allowing a 13 year old to dye their hair is almost confirming to the child that yes, it’s something negative and should be changed.

Me next to my mum... you get the idea