Not to brag or anything, but I had curly hair before it was cool. All jokes aside, there’s a level of truth to that. I was born in 2004 with a full head of 3A-3B curls.
You can see them a bit in the picture, if you look. Thus, I grew up in the early 2000s and 2010s, when curly hair and glasses were hallmarks of every makeover’s “before” picture. If you don’t believe me, look at the makeover scene in “The Princess Diaries.
” For years, I saw nobody with curly hair that was depicted as pretty, admirable, strong or all three in the media. Additionally, the real-life treatment I received for having curly hair was mostly negative. I was born to a wavy-haired mother and a bald father who struggled with my curls.
Outside of that, words like “unkempt,” “messy” and even “sloppy” were tossed at me by other family members and strangers alike. Race played a major part, too. Some of my white and lighter-skinned classmates also had curls, but they were looser than mine.
I wasn’t like them, and my peers and teachers certainly made sure I knew it — their hair was acceptable, but mine was not. Essentially, my curls were treated like a character flaw, rather than a part of me. Because of all that, my greatest wish growing up was for straight hair, and it remained that way for years.
I didn’t put much effort into my curls, hoping that if I mistreated and hated them enough, I would wake up one day to find that my wish had come true. Additionally, people treated me .