Hair!

I took this picture of Sara today when we came home from church. Sorry she is squinting, as I had her looking right into the bright Colorado afternoon sun, while singing a song she had just made up. Sara will be four in two days. She has been with us since her sixteenth day of life. Her biomom was a prostitute who had no clue who the dad might be. Biomom was also fond of using a myriad of illegal drugs, even during her pregnancies. She was so violent, that she threw her previous child at the caseworker who was supervising a visit. Threw the baby across the room at the supervising worker! She had practically every diagnosis in the DSM, from Anti-Social personality to psychotic.

Sara was miserable for the first six months of her life, struggling to detox, suffering terrible constipation, up all night crying, not able to suckle, and had continuous acid reflux. We loved her from the first time we saw her and brought her home from the social services department. Even though we knew the genetic disposition was not promising, we never hesitated to adopt her when parental rights were terminated.

We drive 45 minutes each way to attend a church that has a black pastor and a large number of black congregants. We did that on purpose, because we wanted Sara to realize that having faith in God is not just a "white" thing. Our pastor is a brilliant Biblical scholar and the music at the church is superb.

Today, when Colleen picked up Sara at the door of the Sunday School class, the woman who was volunteering in the class, in front of lots of other parents and children, mostly black, said to Colleen, "You must have just adopted her. You obviously don't know how to care for her hair!" Colleen responded that she and the pastor's wife had decided that Sara's hair needed to grow out, and then the pastor's wife planned to do Sara's hair in "sister locks". The woman, who was black and was wearing what appeared to be a blonde wig, said, "Oh, dreadlocks?" Colleen said, "No, sister locks!" The woman then said "I've been doing black people's hair for forty years, and what you have done to that girl's hair is horrible!" Colleen replied, "Oh, maybe you should have adopted her!"

When Colleen told me how this woman had humilated her in front of Sara and all of the waiting parents, I wanted her to go immediately and file a compaint. But Colleen is the type who will mull it over for hours and hours, and then ACT!

Personally I think Sara looks great with her hair done "naturally," as in the photo above. In our home, we actually believe there are more important attributes than what someone's hair looks like. We want Sara to believe in herself, to be proud of who she is, to be honest, kind, and trustworthy. We want her to enjoy life, and be courageous and brave. We want her to play well with others, and to be respectful of others. We want her to take responsibility for her actions. We want her to see herself as a "can do" person, not a victim, who thereby feels entitled to victimize others.

UPDATE: Sara told Colleen tonight that "At Sunday School my teacher told me that my hair looked ugly and stupid!" We don't know whether or not the woman really said that to Sara, but Sara sure got the point somehow, either being told that directly by the "teacher," or by listening to the teacher say it to Colleen.