AIBU to feel upset after hearing anti-redhead comments at library children’s event?

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I took my child to a baby and toddler event at the library this morning. There was a mum with her baby whose hair was starting to come through. She was telling her friends loudly how happy she was that her child wasn’t ginger because her husband had some redheads in his family and they were so worried about it.

All said in earshot of my red haired daughter. Luckily she was oblivious but she won’t always be.

This was in a very diverse part of SE London and the mum sounded educated and like she should know better.

I’m not from the UK and was aware of the bullying redheads faced here in the past but maybe naively thought those days were over. Is this what my daughter is going to have to live through here?

And if that woman is reading this, or her friends who laughed along - shame on you.

There’s red hair in my family. My experience is that the negativity is more or less gone, certainly my family members get more compliments than anything. It does stand out though, always has!

ps we’re northern English, there are others with it around up here.

I have red hair and ‘ginger’ is always used as an insult, not a mere descriptive term. Even as an adult I find it ignorant. Said no thanks to a man who was trying it on not that long ago and he turned around and snapped ‘ginger bitch’.. Have a listen to Tim Minchin’s ‘Prejudice’ which is just a brilliant way to explain how it is.

I’m a redhead. It’s worst as a teenager but tbh I was very comfortable with my hair and it didn’t bother me. I got bullied far worse for being fat!
as an adult I’ve never had a bad comment.

How horrible. Will be dropping ginger then from now on (even though I’ve never used it in a nasty way!) Will take a look at the Tim Minchin thing, thanks.

Oh apart from two 50 year old blokes shouting ‘Oi Ginge’ across a petrol station when I was in my thirties. I stopped, laughed at them and asked if they were really still doing that. They looked embarrassed, mumbled ‘sorry love’ and drove off.

I’m happy with ginger. Some bloke once said I was strawberry blonde before which was worse but he didn’t want to offend me by saying redhead!

We do tolerate it, though. All the 'as long as it's healthy' when asked the sex. There's multiple threads about awards at school. You are born with your intelligence level, hard work should be rewarded, but some awards are akin to beauty contests. The attendance awards rewards healthy children who have good immune systems. Parents talk all the time about how relieved they are about their children not needing glasses/passing hearing tests. Challenge in the moment. My son in law has the strong ginger gene. I do feel for him dodging the sunshine, that's the only downside.

Some of us don’t tolerate it and we also teach our children to know better.

Haven't read the full thread but assume someone has already pointed out that it is rooted in prejudice against Irush Catholics.
JK Rowling echoes this with her portrayal of the red haired Weasleys as a large, poor (implying catholic) family, looked down upon by the Malfoys and their ilk.
I think it's still alive and well, only a few years ago Tesco sold a Xmas card (Santa loves all children even the ginger ones) and people talk about 'kick-a-ginger' day ( which if it were any other characteristic would probably be a hate crime) seems a source of humour for some 😡

Rather a redhead than a dickhead. DH and I both have cousins who have red hair, so it was no surprise to us (DH fair haired, myself brown haired) when our third child was born with a full head of red hair. Although we're English, we live in Scotland, where red hair is very common. To my knowledge the only bother DD ever had was from one dickhead at her school. He had clearly forgotten where he lived, bless him.

My dad's family was all red haired and my brother has it, so I've grown up wishing I had red hair rather than boring mousy brown. I am in Scotland though, so it's not that unusual.

I think anything unusual brings comments, but my brother had way more compliments than insults and there are pros and cons to everything that makes you stand out a bit. For example, in his football team there were 8 brown-ish haired boys, one black boy, my brother and a boy with almost white hair. The latter three were selected for things at a disproportionate rate as every time they did something well it was instantly recognised, whereas the others kind of blended in with each other. I suppose the reverse is true if you mess up.

If you stand out you want to blend in, but if you blend in, you often have times you wished you stood out. Do say something to the woman though, see it as practice for being your DCs advocate.

We are a red haired family and just don't hear any of this. Lots of compliments though!

19 years ago, around a week after I’d given birth to my red haired baby, my parents looked after them so I could get my red hair cut and styled.

A nice treat you’d think? Well no, the conversation amongst the stylists and customers was why you should drown ginger babies.

I wasn’t in a state to say anything, looking back I was a bit shocked mentally and physically after a tough birth, so I let it go.

I was still at that stage where your hormones make every cell in your body stand to attention to protect your kid. So it didn’t feel ironic or funny, just genuinely threatening.

If it happened now they’d regret the day they ever crawled upon the earth, I can tell you!

I’m not going to say it’s as bad as racism, I’m not stupid! But I got a little taste of how that level of stupidity and nastiness must feel.

I think red boys get teased more. My DD has red hair (on the auburn side but people still refer to her as ginger) and she gets nothing but compliments! She does have amazing thick wavy hair now well past her waist.

That’s shocking. I’m sorry that happened to you.

Wtaf. Speechless.

So weird! My youngest is ginger and has had only one attempt at teasing on account of it (a boy at school saying “you’ve got ginger hair”, to which she replied “thank you” because she loved it and is proud of it 😂😂). Everyone else is complimentary or uninterested and this is also the case with the girl in her school who has deep red hair. When your DD gets older, you could react by having a giggle at that sort of comment (if you ever overhear another) and pointing out that those people must be jealous 🤷🏽‍♀️

My 4-year-old DD is more of a strawberry blonde, but she was very red as a baby. We get a lot of compliments on her hair and I noted that a lot of fellow gingers give her an approving look! lol.

There are still a lot of jokes made about ginger hair, but I say most of them are made in jest and are not serious.

I agree.
Yes some Normans were invited in by Dermot Mc Murrough who wanted help getting his kingdom back but soon it became the Irish being colonised, their land forcibly taken from them and they being discriminated against. 🥲

I can honestly say we've only ever had compliments about my daughter's red hair. That's not to say other people's experiences aren't valid, but I don't think negativity around red hair is universally expected.

If he had redheads in the family, I'd guess why he was worried about it was because they'd been bullied for that reason. I had a friend who's dh was really worried his dc would inherit his sticky-out ears because he'd found comments really nasty as a child, for example.

Not unreasonable. We make up about 2 percent of the global population or less from what I've read. My daughter is actually disappointed she didn't get my red hair. My gran used to tell me how beautiful it was all the time. Her sister's hair was also red but hers wasn't.

In short I've heard it all before and ignore it as I like my hair colour. I've bleached it blonde before and tried to dye it back but never could find any dyes that looked natural so had to wait on it to grow out.

It's quite strange that it's okay for red heads to be the target of comments and jokes given how rare it is and everyone jumps on the bandwagon to protect any other 'minorities'.

I think I would start telling your daughter every day how beautiful she is..

I joke with my daughter that if she has a red headed kid that one will be my favourite grandkid.

Thank you for doing this. I've been discussing this a lot recently with my daughter

I Do think it's almost another form of prejudice or racism. We are very rare and why tf should we put up with it as banter.

I have more auburn hair but it goes lighter in the summer

I find it offensive. I didn't like it when I was younger at all. I just ignore it these days.

My daughter says she wants a 'ginger' kid and I correct her and say one with red hair. She's just using the term though.. but we don't live in the uk any more and it's just the English term for it that she has heard.

I think this might depend on where you live maybe? Used in a non insulting way where I am. I’ve heard it used by teachers too in a factual way, the same as you’d say blond.

Think it’s a personal preference how people like their hair to be referred to - my DS doesn’t like it and corrects me if I don’t call his hair ginger 😊. So it’s worth following the lead of the person with the hair.

It may also depend on whether people have negative connotations with the word ginger I guess. In general, if it appears that a few people on here don’t like the term, so if no lead to follow then maybe red haired.