Worried about Dd being ginger in the uk

[Takestwohourstoniptotheshop]

Redhead, Golden haired…

We are moving back to the uk next year. Dd was born in the country we’re currently living in. The majority of people are dark haired, brown eyes and tanned skin.
Dd is reddy gold hair, blue eyes and fair skin. She gets attention everywhere she goes about her hair and eyes, people compliment her a lot and are very gushing about her looks, it’s lovely

My impression is that this is very different in the uk and cruelly this is used as an insult almost, is this still the case? The thought of it is heartbreaking

@ClareBlue

you've lost me there, what do you mean?

This is about the most PFB thread ever.

She’ll be fine.

Ginger hair is pretty common in the UK, I am ginger and have never had any issues.

Ginger kids were picked on at my secondary school, but I wouldn’t say that they were badly bullied. However, I do think they were upset by it as one started dying their hair (badly). This was in the 2000s though. Times have changed (hopefully).

There is a family where my brother lives mum is pale skin ginger / red with blue eyes & the father is Pakistani
The kids are traffic stopping beautiful
ginger/ red hair olive brown skin and blue eyes 😂 all of them have these stunning blue eyes
they are absolutely gorgeous kids each one with a slightly different shade of red hair

I know that they sadly got bullied at school because of there unique looks and heritage even by there immediate family but they are absolutely gorgeous

What do you mean by anti semetic sentiment? My dad had carrot red hair until he was in his sixties and it went gradually white. My mum used to say he would always be spotted in a crowd as it was that bright and we have fond memories of seeing on TV attending a match among about 70,000 other spectators! My two daughters had red hair until they were about 1 and a half and it gradually turned blonde. I remember an American tourist in a restaurant admiring my eldest girls hair and saying that people spend hundreds of dollars to get that shade of red! I have to admit that my dds now tell me they are glad they didn't keep the red colour. We're in Ireland and it is sadly still seen as a negative trait to be honest.

I’m a red head and honestly get asked often what dye do I use ,I say it’s natural then said person always says your lucky to have that hair colour.
I was teased mercilessly at school long ago but it’s not really a bad thing now.

It generally tends to be the real carroty coloured people that get teased, in my experience anyway.

Um just wow to that.

Op, there will be a cultural change for your DD so it might intensify the impact of any comments. Honestly think you would just deal with comments if they are made.

There's a really interesting wiki page on red heads. I did not know for example that some studies have found we have a higher tolerance to pain. Or that red hair originates in central Asia. There's also an interesting bit on cultural myths around red hair - it's seen as fiery (therefore more easy to wind up), youthful, rare etc.

Oohh you have a chip on your shoulder. Explains your downer comment. Maybe when you were younger it was like that but in the past 10+ years black babies and kids have been been held up as some kind of ‘baby beauty standard’ and I’ve heard people literally say things like ew I wouldn’t want a pale baby etc or to have babies with a white man in case the end up pale.
You don’t need to try to drag op’s baby down because someone said something mean and hurt your feelings when you were a kid. Trust me being pale is not and has never (since the Victorian era) been hailed as anything attractive. Tanned white skin, sure. But white white skin gets soooo many nasty comments.

Really people are just dickheads saying stupid shit all over the place. Anyone who would say something like that to you has revealed themselves as an utter waste of breath and their ‘opinion’ is not worth shit. But I get it hurt you right - so maybe you don’t need to spread the bad feeling around..seeing as you know it doesn’t feel nice to be on the receiving end

I've not RTFT so, in my experience and without meaning to diminish anyone else's:

Girls with red hair can reasonably expect to receive unkind comments during and throughout their childhood.

Boys with red hair can have a far more negative experience, may fall victim to bullying, and prejudice against them is lilely to persist, to some degree, into adulthood (even if it isnt directly expresses to them). That said, it's not to the same extent of your average "ism" or "phobia". Probably a little milder, in terms of harm, than "fat-phobia".

Black babies are NOT held up as the beauty standard anywhere.

Some people may fetishise mixed babies but even that is not the norm

Oh come on, ginger haired kids are teased and mocked. Even if they are lucky enough to not be bullied, they will pick up on the anti-ginger vibes. You don't have to look far to find memes etc insulting them. It's only a few years ago mumsnet was up in arms about the Tesco ' santa loves all kids even the ginger one =++

Are you not reading the replies on here? It’s not a thing…..

People with blonde hair were bullied more when I was at school

My impression is that this is very different in the uk and cruelly this is used as an insult almost, is this still the case? The thought of it is heartbreaking

a lot of things are not going well in this country and are truly heartbreaking. Being ginger isn't one of them. HTH!

Jesus 🙄
Of course I’ve done this as well, please don’t be patronising and tell me what I need to do with my Dd

The thing is OP is that you've started a precious thread about your DD's hair and yes you are being unreasonable. As many other previous posters have pointed out. Maybe you do need to get over yourself.

I've worn glasses since I was 7 and probably was called specky 4 eyes (or whatever) a lot - but my Mum wasn't wringing her hands over it or even remarking on it.

True - but girls don't tend to be teased as much? Plus what is the OP going to do? Not move back to the UK because of this?

FGS.

This comment shows you haven't the foggiest notion of what life is like anywhere outside the UK, may be even within it. The OP mentioned being overseas and I have lived in several countries overseas. Colourism is very strong in Asia. You should look at baby adverts in india! There was a recent washing machine advert in China where a black man was "whitewashed". My comment was not to denigrate OP's baby at all- all babies are beautiful - but to show that positive attention based on skin/hair colour is harmful in its own way.

Yeah, totally agree. This mother sounds kind of weird and fixated on her kid's looks. It's not just "Oh, will she be insulted for having red hair?" It's "Oh no people won't fawn over her, boo hoo" which is, definitively, a fucking weird thing to fixate on. Wondering if she is a stage mother, or hoping to be.

It is interesting to hear that so many people insist that ginger hair bashing is not a thing in the UK, as this does not align with my experiences as a child or adult. One evening in the Comedy store, three comedians made it a very prominent part of their sets, which made it an uncomfortable evening for my friend and I, both redheads. I've been spat on in the street and was frequently mocked at school. Older people would admire my hair colour but the insults were the prominent voices and I internalised them all.

I really hope your DD has different experiences, OP.

I think adults have no problem with ginger hair and think it's lovely but children and teenagers certainly still use it as something to tease about.
I know a couple of ginger kids, both boys, who are teased about it.
But if it's not that then it will be something else like being overweight, big chest, huge spot on their nose, whatever, kids will always find something to tease about. Just prep her with a few sentences she can come back with so she's prepared.

Assume you work in a school - if any pupil, of any age, asks a teacher about the colour of their pubic hair they would be hauled straight to the Head to get a rollicking about misogynistic behaviour. It certainly wouldn’t happen more than once.

FWIW, I agree [edit: with the poster I tried and failed to quote, about how awkward being ‘fawned over’ abroad can be]

I am half-Lebanese, half-Scottish. I have dark hair - my brother had very bright blond curly hair as a child. We are both pale and have grey eyes. None of these things are hugely rare in Lebanon, but they also aren’t the norm in the way they are in Scotland.

Older people in Lebanon - random strangers! - would constantly carp on about our colouring, especially my brother’s, in comparison to fully-Lebanese family members of a similar age who had black hair and brown eyes. The comments people would make about my brother’s hair were off-the-charts fawning - an angel, a prince, a movie star! It was uncomfortable, particularly once you hit the age where you are old enough to understand some of the social history behind these comments. And Lebanon is far from the worst for this kind of thing.

(Also, sometimes people would touch his hair in the street (although Italy were the absolute worst menaces for this), which he didn’t like!)

We were only ever visiting, but we still talk about it now. God knows how all-pervasive it would have been if we’d lived there.

Anyway, to answer OP - popular red heads at my school in Scotland in the late 90s / early 00s didn’t get bullied about their hair. Unpopular ones had it added to the list. Similar to glasses or braces, in that respect.

MOH works in a semi-labouring environment. All men and all have nicknames that refer to their appearance or bodily hygiene or approach to work. One of them is referred to as Ginge - he doesn't appear to be any more offended than Sparky, Idle, Specky or Baldy (MOH). A slight derail, apologies.

To me it’s crazy that because people don’t personally experience it they think it doesn’t happen. Sorry to say yes ginger people do still get bullied about their hair . And nothing is really done about it at school .