4 Yr. Old Kept From Pre-K Because Of Pink Hair

[txsvicki]

My first response to this situation was that a 4 year old should not have dyed pink hair in a school setting. I thought its inappropriate and not conducive to a proper decorum for a succesful school enviornment. Then I thought about this for a while and realized that that resposne comes out of my very traditional middle class upbringing and maybe it needs to be challenged. I decided to look up the town in Texas where this incident has occured and I learned somethings. The town is 75% Hispanic with a huge migrant population. The average family income is 25 thousand a year!! Imagine trying to raise a family on that in the United States in this day and age. These folks deffinitly have a lot more issues in their live to worry about then the color of Their childs hair. I imagine life is very tough for these families, working day labor jobs and trying to hold their families together. I assume they have very little to give their children material things . I imagine if I was in that situation and a simple thing such as pink hair made my 4 year old happy and feeling good about herself for Halloween I might be tempted to let her keep her pink hair indefinitly. I guess what I am saying when cirumstances are such that life is stacked againts you and you want your children to feel good and proud about themselves and a little pink hair brings a smile to childs face is that really so terrible?? When you know the world you are sending that child out in is going to be so difficult do we really have to depribe the child of something as trivial as this ? Maybe we have to realize in a world where hunger and poverty is rampant a little pink hair to boast up a childs self esteem maybe isn't such a bad thing.

mjak

Lots of Hispanic and other young parents don't live on very much in Texas. Many towns are not that expensive to live in and most Hispanics that I have known work more than one job or take extra seasonal jobs just to give their kids a great Christmas. There's not the highest wages around here and despite that, Hispanic people tend to dress their kids in the best clothes and spend more on clothes for their kids than Caucasians and most families pull together and help each other out. I don't think that being Hispanic really has anything to do with it though since the streaks aren't that bad. Whatever he does, he'll have to bleach out the red and then apply a toner to match the rest of the hair or she'll still have bangs of a different color. They shouldn't have given him permission to apply the dye in the first place.

 

[pedinurse]

It's distracting. Every school district I know of has a dress code meant to keep dress from distracting children - that includes makeup and hair. I think that the dad is disrespectful for sending her to school with PINK hair. That's not something to be teaching a child - to not comform with "the rules" of school. I think the school has every right to not allow her to come back until she has her hair a natural color.

 

[IrishMist]

Ok, I admit in advance that this is off topic, mostly. But it's really funny.

When my oldest was in high school, she used to dye her hair different colors all the time. (Purple, green, yellow, etc!)

Anyway, the first time she did it, she was going to try blue. What she didn't realize is that if you DYE YOUR HAIR IN THE SHOWER it runs all over you!!

My child was a purpley kinda blue from HEAD TO TOE!! Her neck was purple, her feet were purple... the darn tub was purple!

She's 22 now, and still thanks me for not making her go to school the next day.

 

[GlitchWizard]

My daugher wasn't allowed to dye her hair when she was four - but only because hair dye is a chemical and I didn't want chemicals around a little one.

At age 13, however, she dyed her hair a brilliant red and her self esteem went from in the toilet to extremely high. Lots cheaper on me than therapy! Anyway, she now goes to a school where it's not allowed and her hair is brown again. Last week, we were informed that the school is moving to inside a larger school and I jokingly asked the new principal if Donna could dye her hair brilliant red next year... (keep in mind this is the Microsoft Information Technology Academy...) and she said "SURE, my daughter's hair is bright purple!"

I'm going to love this new principal.

 

[Mr. E]

This reminds me of a Post Secret I saw a few weeks ago. Someone's postcard secret was something along the lines of "I dye my hair purple (or green or whatever) and I love the way it makes people look at me." A response to this was: "My daughter is four and dyes her hair pink, and she loves how people look at her, too."

Those aren't exact quotes, but it reminded me of this incident.