Comments about red hair

[37anddone]

I have been getting a lot of comments about the ‘risk’ of my child having red hair (I’m currently pregnant).

The suggestion seems to be this would be a negative outcome, and something I need to brace myself for.

I personally think ridiculing my child’s appearance before they have actually been born is a bit much.

AIBU to tell them precisely what I think about their comments, irrespective of the fallout that may cause.

DS and I both have strawberry blonde hair, DS’s is more gingery than mine. I got plenty of unpleasant comments about mine when I was young but we’ve only ever had nice things said about DS’s.

Redhead here.
It took until I was probably 25ish to not be bothered about the ginger bullying.
I too noticed the ginger comment on BGT.
Not acceptable. DH said it was to make her feel better.... say no more!

Red hair is absolutely glorious, where did the negative views by eejits come from I wonder?

I have red hair (hate being called ginger), born in Scotland. It's definitely an issue in England and has anti Catholic bias. Have always felt very welcome in Ireland.

I learnt to appreciate my hair in my mid 20's. Now 51 I am about 5% grey and due to my skintone have always avoided the sun so my skin is pretty good. I find it amusing that someone who made nasty comments about my hair nows dyes her red.

Of course it happens. It's very unusual that your red head family members have never received negative comments.

I hate ‘ginger’ too. Although I’m rather ‘mangy fox’ these days…

Parent withs ginger hair now don't admit it. They either say red as a browny ginger , or strawberry blonde if their blonde ginger/.kids that are full on orange ginger are a long way off not being bullied because I've said a strawberry blond kid was ginger and it was like I'd abused the kid, mum was mortified I'd suggested her kid was ginger they're strawberry blond, I honestly thought it was fine now but ginger is a offensive thing still

"Ginger" is unacceptable to me as it is used as term of abuse. My son has red hair. he's red-headed. He is not "a ginger".

Actual Ginger is browny when dried or very pale brown coloured. If anything, we are the chilli powder people.

I also hate the word ‘ginger’ and especially ‘a ginger’. But as I said, I’m more mangy fox these days.

@bozna Saying you don’t want your child to be called “ginger”, “ginge minge”, carrot top”, “tampon” or any other term of abuse isn’t “not admitting it”. You’ve said yourself the parents agree their child has red hair so they are hardly in denial. Just not wanting you to use a rude word about their child, which seems likes a perfectly reasonable request. Do you think non-white people objecting to slurs are also in denial?

(And before you pop up to say “ginger” isn’t a slur, you admit yourself that it is in your last sentence)

When I was pregnant I did worry about having a child with ginger hair (DH is ginger). Not because I don't like it but because I didn't want my child picked on at school, which I'd seen happen to red haired kids in my childhood. I'm not sure it's such a thing now though, a couple of my sons friends have red hair and nobody bats an eyelid so hopefully times have changed in the past 30 years.

My dad is a red head, I'm not but when I was pregnant my own sister went on and on me having an 'ugly ginger baby'. Absolutely awful that some people still think like this.

Redhead 'jokes' are why I will always despise Zoe Ball. She gave a whole generation a new fresh way to bully their peers with her 'hilarious' pronunciation of 'ginger'.

She didn’t come up with that herself - I was being called that in 1989.

How does Zoe Ball say ginger?

Always hated my pale skin freckles and ginger/red hair. Its gone more auburn as I've aged as I was strawberry blonde. But one benefit is that now at 50 I don't need to dye my hair. I have a few grey hairs but it blends in like highlights.

I did hope my children wouldn't have red hair just because of people's awful comments and the bullying I've experienced. Luckily one has brown hair and other is mostly blond but has a ginger shaggy beard! 😀

You just can’t win sometimes, I complimented a school mum on her child’s gorgeous red hair, for her to walk off saying the child was definitely her husbands! I didn’t even know her husband and I wasn’t questioning the parentage of her child, such an odd reaction, never forgotten it.

I had a nanny friend who was gobbing off and saying she would refuse to her charge (3 years old) take his hat off cos "he was a ginge and would scare the other kids."

She found it hilarious until I pointed out that her disgusting remarks were uncalled for. She told me I was a 'killjoy'. I walked off and told her we would find someone grown up to hang around with.

Gin-gah. Hard G, like “get”.

I suppose she must have had a bellyful of ‘I wonder where that comes from’ with a squinty look at her husband. People used that say that all the time to mum (she was blonde and dad had black hair). People seem to think they can comment on the number of children and their colouring (well if red anyway) and make crude comments.

Can you imagine if someone said to a woman (if any race/colouring) with an Asian/black/ME partner ‘well as long as it doesn’t have (you can imagine the insults)’ or ‘I’d drown it it if had dark/olive skin’.

I do have to say - red is amazing. We have the range of eye colours hazel, dark brown, green, blue and they all look quite stunning. Especially the green (not biased).

I quietly cut a friend out of my life because she kept making comments about my daughters hair

Oh and when I was pregnant my DHs side of the family were saying that they hoped the baby would have red hair (unlikely but you never know if there had been a red head somewhere back in the mists of time).

He didn’t but when he was little he used to get a coppery tinge in the summer in his gorgeous black curls. They were chuffed.

Don’t blame you, I just can’t fathom some people.

I'm a very vivid redhead (I find ginger offensive) and I was very disappointed that my 2 dd don't have red hair.
When I look back its though quite shocking some of the comments that have been made to me in the past. I had an old uncle who only ever called me rusty even though it would make me cry. Kids would tell me I'm adopted/the milkmans because no one else in my family had red hair. When I hit puberty I would get the collar and cuffs comments and people even asking to see. My hair was waist length for about ten years and people would randomly walk up to me and start pawing at my hair.
Despite all that I love my hair colour, I've never tried to change it and at 43 I've only got about 4 white (pure white not grey) hairs. Years ago a world famous hairdresser was visiting one of his salons whilst I was there and insisted on cutting and styling it himself, so I paid £50 for what would have been thousands of pounds just because he loved my colour.
It's shocking though that in these woke times of acceptance its still OK to mock the gingers!!

I really think red hair is lovely. Goodness knows why people don't like it. Strange people OP and their opinions are not worth considering.