Book Review: Dont Touch My Hair!

My son's locks at 3 years old. 

Dont Touch My Hair by Sharee Miller caught my attention at the library one day after story time. Not only was the main character a beautiful brown babe, but it discussed an issue that is a conflicting one for me.  I understand the idea and historical significance behind not touching a black person's hair... but I also don't necessarily agree.  As a non black person, maybe I don't get to agree or disagree on this issue; however, as a parent, I feel its my right to take a position regarding my own children. So, I decided to give it a read.

The story begins with a little girl named Aria who is sharing her amazing self love for her hair. "Its soft and bouncy, and grows toward the sun like a flower." Then Aria sets out into her city for adventure. It turns out, everyone else loves and is curious about her hair too. She goes through her day filtering questions and comments about her hair. Then people want to touch it. This gets to be too much for little Aria. "They are so curious about my hair that they even want to touch it without even asking for permission."  People, dragons, and aliens are all guilty of this and she finally has enough. "This is My hair."  The book ends with her learning to set boundaries regarding what she is willing to experience with others regarding her hair.

Its a fun, light, first person narrative that invites the reader to join in the world of a little girl who makes it all the way to outer space and a deserted island from her home all in one day.

I liked this book for so many reasons:

1) It was all about self love and not letting that which makes you different affect your positive self view.
2) It serves to educate people who may unknowingly be offending or making another feel uncomfortable.
3) It teaches boundaries. Anything that helps my kids claim their own bodies and teach them boundaries gets gold stars in my book.

The book ends with some discussion prompts that you can use with your own readers to further the discussion. Its recommended from an audience preschool to second grade. My three year old thoroughly enjoyed it and asked to read it again and again.  There are also tons of Youtube videos of kids reading this book. Its a fun way to read to your kids if you're in a crunch.

Amazon Reviews: 

"Since reading this book with my 3 year old, she has had the confidence to tell 4 adults not to touch her hair! We love this book! It teaches them about consent. I’ve told her many times what this book says, but I think seeing a little girl with hair like her, dealing with the same issue, helped it sink in."

"This book has generated many important conversations in our classroom, grateful to the author for this."

"An excellent book for black girls and anyone of mixed heritage, my daughter absolutely loved it!"

Police can be Heroes.

Our first little bear is officially four years old and solidly into the hero stage. He loooooves all things hero and practices his rescue of people, toys and pets regularly. Prior to even walking, we had discussed the role of the police with him. It took repetition, but every time we would go to a public event or even grocery store, we would stop, greet the officer, and review the rules. "If you cant find your grown up, you tell a police officer and he will help you."

Thanks to Youtube, my son now also has the concept of jail. Apparently, little cars who wouldn't follow the rules of the road would have to go to jail. His world began to open more to the idea of good vs. bad guys.  For example, my car was broken into and the police had to come make a police report, Santa's "naughty and nice list," and of course, those pesky Ninjalinos from Pj Mask.  

On the way to school one day my son announced, "police catch bad guys and take them to jail. Police are heroes right?"

"Yes, son. Police are heroes." But my heart sank a little as I responded. This pure admiration and innocence. He couldn't possibly grasp that while this statement is also true, there is more to the story. As a white presenting female, I recognize this statement is more true for me than it will be for my son.  He will one day be a "black man" in America. 

It was time to get real. 

"Yes, police are heroes. They help people. But bad guys can be sneaky and sometimes bad guys can pretend to be heroes. Right now you are too little to tell who is a sneaky bad guy and who is a good guy. So you can always ask Mommy or Mama and we can teach you. One day, you will be big and will know on your own."

Furthering the conversation little bear asks, "bad guys go to jail, right?" My response, "yes! the police take bad guys to jail. But sometimes other people go to jail too. Sometimes, the police make a mistake and take a good guy to jail or sometimes a good guy makes a mistake and has to go to jail, but he is still a good guy." 

We have had versions of this conversation a few times and its amazing how easy it is for him to grasp. It is also very satisfying to know that while I am not ready - and he is not ready - to grasp the full understanding of these concepts, he is at least introduced to them in a way that wont shatter his idea of the world when they come tumbling into his reality. 

I cant raise my children assuming they will have the same privileges as me. They wont. But, I also don't want to raise them with the full weight of transgenerational oppression and trauma during early childhood. I want them to be confident in navigating the world. I want them to understand how these systems work and translate that into opportunity not marginalization. With the number of multiracial citizens tripling in the last census, systems can change too. There is power in numbers and empathy established when issues start to hit the masses closer to home. However, Trayvon Martin was murdered when I started my fertility treatments. The year my son was born, black men were 9 times more likely to be killed by police. These facts cant be ignored. 

Today is Martin Luther King Day. My inquisitive guy of course wanted to know who he was and why we didn't have school. I explained, "Martin Luther King was a hero. He helped save kind people from mean people. There is still a lot of work to do, but he was a hero too." We went over pictures of MLK and the massive crowd of his "I have a Dream" speech. Little Bear was amazed! Little Bear also has no concept of race. I don't want to teach him about race by first introducing racism.... Good and bad are not directly related to race and I want his discovery of race to be built on appreciation and curiosity.  On this day, regardless of who you are, consider your privileges and what you are doing to make a better world for our children. Also, consider how we start to teach privileged with simplifications like, "police are heroes." Yes. Police can be heroes....