Why I Made The Decision To Relax My Hair (I was Humiliated For Having "Ugly" Hair)

A few days ago I shared a post about the dangers of hair relaxer. If you missed it here is a link (What relxer does to your hair). 

A lot of us have stories of getting our hair permed. Some of us made the decision, while others just found themselves already initiated into the trend. I remember the first time I requested to have my hair permed. I thought it would be the solution to all my problems.
It all started with BET...


    Yes I said BET. Who remembers those days that BET would play music videos with the sexy ladies that always looked oily and had long luscious hair. I was a curios child. After school I would turn on the TV and tune into BET to admire what I had made my own perception of beauty. To me little Gaby, those women were the most beautiful and perfect creatures to ever hit earth. And their hair... oh that was just from another planet! I could never understand how they were black but had the hair of white a woman. It was very intriguing. I tried answering the question by saying, well maybe they just have the genes, or maybe they are mixed race, but 1 and 2 were just not adding up.
      The year rolled over and it was my first day of 4th grade. I was officially a big kid. 4th grade was the highest grade at my elementary school, so you know I was on cloud 9. I met up with my usual click of friends and we hit it off. That year we formed a group called the cheetah girls. Yes I know what you are thinking, I was only 8 okay! lol. We were all so cool, you couldn't sit with us. Every single one of us paid detailed attention to what we wore, who we played with and how we did our hair. We all had one thing in common, except me, all of them had straight luscious hair.
       My mom was my hair stylist when I was little. Like most kids my age she did my hair every weekend to get me ready for school. Most days I would love my hair and think I was so cute. The usual style she would do was 4-6 big twists in my hair with colorful hair clips and bubbles.After some time I felt that I had outgrown that style, I would ask her to make my hair like the girls on BET and my friends at school, but she would always tell me that its their genes, and she can't make my hair like that. She encouraged me to love my features because they were beautiful. Fast forward...
        My friends and I decided we were going to do a dance for the talent show. So every morning we would meet in the bathroom for practice. One morning I got to the bathroom to practice and was told that i'm out of the group because I have nappy hair. It broke my heart. That day I ran home crying and told my mom what happened. She felt so bad for me but tried to explain to me that they were mean for telling me that and that they are not my friends. As a kid I didn't really understand that, to me they were my friends and I was wrong for not having my hair up to their standards. That was how I discovered the creamy crack, aka hair relaxer. It was like the best thing ever made. I persuaded my mom to relax my hair so that I could be like my friends and the girls on BET. After days of whining she finally caved in and agreed. The next day I got to school with my new hair do and my friends were all over me. They flung me right back into the group and and told me to forget about anything that happened before. It was such a great feeling.
     Today years later, I'm off the creamy crack and back to doing things my way. Of course now that I am older and wiser I realize that my perception of beauty was all wrong, and that my mom was right. There's no way I would change anything about my self and my appearance to please anyone and neither should any of you.

Hope you guys enjoyed my story as much as I enjoyed digging into my memory box and narrating it for you.
Any advice for little Gaby and what other little girls can take? I am always happy to read your comments!