Curl Power: Making Peace With My Wild Hair

Like many babies, I was born without hair. I remained bald for the better part of my first year. And I’m pretty sure that was the only time in my life when my curly hair wasn’t an issue between my mom and me.

As a toddler, I had a mop of blonde curls. That’s a cute look on a two-year-old, so my mom would add a bow and call it good. People fawned over me. I got used to being called “little Shirley Temple,” and I thrived on the attention.

But even Shirley Temple grew up. By the time I started kindergarten, it was clear that my curls had stopped being cute.

My mom was born with thin, straight hair that she had washed and set once a week—I can’t remember a time when she didn’t have “helmet hair,” as Sally Field calls it in Steel Magnolias. She had no idea what to do with hair like mine. I’d inherited curls from my dad, and the problem of his hair had been solved by a career in the army. Since a crew cut wasn’t an option, my mom was stuck trying to figure out how to tame my mane.

This was in the early 1970s, when the only hair product available was Dippity Do. That worked well for helmet hair, but there was no help for the likes of me—no mousse, serum, or curl soufflé. In the 1970s, even conditioner was a new idea, and my mom wasn’t convinced it was absolutely necessary. Frizz, she thought, was just evidence that your hair needed brushing.

In my school pictures from first through third grades, I wear the same hairstyle: a partial ponytail pulled flat across the top of my head. The texture of the hair at the sides of my face depends on the weather and time of day. That hairstyle was my mom’s attempt to make it look like someone was trying to keep my hair from looking wild.

That was her favorite word for my hair in its natural state: wild.

She used sponge rollers in an attempt to make my curls more uniform, but I screamed every time she combed and set my hair. Curls washed without conditioner tangle in a way I think few people can appreciate. Unless, of course, those people have curly hair.

Which, as I’ve mentioned, my mom did not.

By fourth grade, she’d given up on trying to tame the beast: in my school photograph, I sport a pixie. What my mom didn’t realize was that a neat little pixie would turn into a wonky mess unless we had my hair cut every six weeks. That was considerably more often than she’d had my long hair trimmed.

Then came the day I picked up some pocket change for an elderly man who'd dropped it at the grocery store. He responded “Thank you, sonny.”

My dad brought me home that afternoon and said, rather tersely, “People can’t even tell she’s a girl anymore.”

And that was the end of the pixie.

My fifth and sixth grade photos show my hair in various stages of disarray as the pixie grows out—a painful truth, given that pencil-straight hair was in fashion.  Junior high ushered in the age of hot rollers and loose waves. By the time the Farrah Fawcett years of high school had arrived, curling irons had made the scene.

But no matter what style I was aiming for, not even my mom’s industrial strength hairspray was strong enough to keep my wild hair in place. I cut it all off again, much to her delight, just before I left for college.

This would become a pattern: I’d cut my hair, grow it out, get sick of fighting my curls, cut it all off again. I’ve worn my hair in every length, from bristle-short to past my shoulders. Though she didn’t mind it long and straightened, my mom always preferred it short. “It lays so nice” was her way of saying that it hid my natural wildness.

That was all she’d been shooting for with the pixie: a little domestication.

 I was better prepared than my mom had been for dealing with a curly-headed daughter. As a toddler, Jordan ate up the attention her curls attracted. She knew who Shirley Temple was when none of her friends did, thanks to those friendly (usually elderly) strangers. But I knew that attention would fade and change. In the end, it would be just Jordan vs. her hair.

I did my best to help her develop a positive attitude, but—like most girls—my daughter grew up wanting the hair she wasn't born with. She dyed it black. Then red. She used a flat iron. She cut it short. Now, at 21, she’s returned to her natural color and curls.

“At some point,” she told me, “you realize there are better things to do with your life.”

I’ve stopped straightening my own hair too, after many years of spending quality time with the flat iron. I’d convinced myself that straight hair was easier, that it looked more professional, less wild. These are the things I said instead of I hate my hair, because they sound less vain.

But one morning, I decided I was done. I grabbed a can of curl-activating mousse instead.

 When my mom passed away last year, though, I straightened my hair before her memorial service. I knew it didn’t matter; my mom wasn’t going to be there, after all. But it felt spiteful to show up with the hair she'd hated. I wasn’t going to cut it off, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to meet her halfway.

For now, I enjoy not worrying about humidity levels and hairspray--whatever the weather, my curls fly free. And sometimes, truth be told, they do look wild. My mom never learned to like that part of me, but that’s okay. She didn’t have to.

The important thing is, I do.

A slightly different version of the post appeared on She Dwells in Possibility .