Caring For My Daughter's Curls Healed My Childhood Hair Trauma

Illustration by Ana Jarén

Welcome to It’s Textured, a column where we untangle the joy, trauma, confusion, and frustration that can come with Black hair. This month, writer Shani Hillian shares how taking care of her daughter’s hair has opened up a path of healing for herself.

I sat as still as possible, anticipating the Marcel iron’s scorch as it inched closer and closer to my head. For about 45 mins, a stylist pressed my 3C curls into bone-straight silky strands. The salon smelled like burnt hair and the chair was uncomfortable but as a 10-year-old Black girl in the '90s, I'd have sat through anything to get straight hair like Aaliyah and Monica. After every strand was pressed to perfection, I admired myself in the mirror, squealing with joy as I ran my fingers through my new hair. It was the first time I'd ever gotten my hair pressed—and I was hooked. From that day on, the high I’d get from straightening my hair came with an increasing belief that my curls were difficult, unmanageable, and not good enough.

My negative perception of my natural hair started with that first silk press. It only got worse in high school when I moved from a predominantly Black neighborhood in North Philadelphia to Voorhees, New Jersey, a predominantly white area with just a handful of Black, LatinX, and South Asian students at my school. It didn’t help that the starlets of the day all preferred straight styles: Alicia Keys with twists in the front, straight sleek hair in the back; Beyoncé and Brandy with the notorious micro braids. There was not a curly hairstyle in sight—neither on-screen nor IRL. All the influences around me pointed to the idea that my natural hair was not good enough. So, I either wanted my hair straight or in a protective style, never out in its natural, curly state. At the time, I didn’t think of it as trauma—I just thought of it as making my hair pretty.

At home, my mother often encouraged braids or other protective styles because, as a working mom, those were easier for her to maintain. I don’t believe this was because she didn’t think my natural curls were beautiful; she just didn’t have the capacity to teach me how to care for them. Without that education and validation, I saw my hair as something that needed to be tamed or hidden rather than celebrated and cared for. In my 20s, I, like many Black women my age, began my natural hair journey, during the early 2010s natural hair movement. I remember it as the Youtube era because everyone was getting their natural hair education from influencers like Hey Fran Hey, and Urban Bush Babes (two creators who, to me, set the trend of holistic, natural beauty during that time). There was a big shift from straight styles to intense natural hair care regimes including 10-step wash days including everything from pre-poos and hot oil treatments to DIY hair masks made with random household items. It took dedication, and I was on board, but even then, deep down I never truly embraced my curls—I simply tolerated them.

It takes a significant occurrence to break out of this type of trauma—the kind of glaring, impactful, and life-changing event that stops you in all your tracks. On Feb 19, 2021, that thing happened when I gave birth to my daughter. A lot of thoughts ran through my mind after giving birth, but none of them pointed to this truth I would later learn: Giving birth to a mini-me would be the beginning of healing my hair trauma.

The first time I attempted to care for my daughter’s curls, I felt a sense of relief, joy, and responsibility. When she was about a year and a half old, I was giving her a nightly bath when I noticed something for the first time: a curl. She splashed and giggled in the bathtub as I sat on the side carefully massaging shampoo into her scalp. It was the first time her hair didn’t just look like wispy strands but distinct, delicately placed curls all over her head.

This was the moment I decided, with confidence, that my job would be to guide her into loving her hair—something I hadn’t learned to do for myself until much later in my life. As I’ve watched my daughter’s natural hair grow, I’ve felt my inner child watching her with me. It's like my younger self is healing, watching my daughter live and love her hair unapologetically. My daughters' curls became for me a symbol of victory, reflecting the hard (yet unfinished) self-work of embracing my own hair.

My childhood was filled with hours of detangling, tidying, and styling. I remember sitting for hours as my mother tightly braided my thick, long curls to "keep them neat,” a process that made braids feel more like an obligation than an option. I realize now that an integral part of learning to love your hair is having positive experiences associated with doing your hair. For my daughter, who is now almost four, I’ve decided to focus on the small, simple things such as allowing her to shampoo and condition her own hair, with my guidance, which will hopefully allow her to familiarize herself with every coil and curl of her natural texture. She’ll take more control of her hair as she grows more independent. When that time of autonomy comes, I plan to support her in exploring styles that she enjoys and feels confident in (whether that’s braids, twists, locs, etc.) instead of imposing specific looks or routines based on what I’ve experienced or think she should do.

I had fully internalized the myth that my natural hair always had to be nipped and tucked but my daughter will have the option of choosing to let hair thrive in its natural state. It’s already a joy to see that she takes great pleasure and pride in her hair. She welcomes wash days with a smile on her face and feels accomplished in her efforts to care for her hair, which makes this journey and our bond, even more special.

In allowing her curls the freedom to flourish naturally, I’m not only helping her love her hair today, but I’m also setting a foundation for the kind of self-love and confidence that will grow with her. As she gets older, I know she may face pressures from society and possibly even from her peers (and even herself) but she’ll never face it with me. The goal is not to force her to always wear her hair curly but to have a well-balanced view of herself that allows her to make choices that make her feel good. If she grows an affinity for straight hair, so be it! But it’ll be a choice informed by the truth that her curls are just as beautiful and valid.

I trust that the self-love and acceptance I am nurturing will empower her to make those decisions on her own, grounded in confidence rather than conformity. In the process, I’m breaking the cycle of my hair trauma.

Discover more from It's Textured:

• My “Heat-Trained Hair” May Actually Be Heat-Damaged

• For Black Women, Traction Alopecia Costs Us More Than Our Hair

• I Feel Lied to About Curly Cuts

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Originally Appeared on Allure