President Barack Obama and a young Malia
Six guests recently had the opportunity to share a private dinner with Barack and Michelle Obama, as part of the Obama campaign’s President’s dinner contest. During dinner discussion Mr. Obama spoke of the time when it was up to him to style older daughter Malia’s curls;
My favorite story out of this is Malia, when she was 4, she had a little dance thing. Well, Michelle was gone that weekend so I’m taking her to ballet. And I get her in her little leotard and her little stuff. I did her hair, put it in a little bun.
We get to the dance studio and one of the mothers there right away comes up to Malia – she thinks she’s out of earshot of me and she says, ‘Sweetie, do you want me to redo your hair?’ And Malia who she’s 4 says, ‘Yes please, this is a disaster’ you know, she didn’t want to hurt daddy’s feelings.
So adorable!! Ladies, has your dad ever had to tackle your kinks and curls? How did it turn out?
The Daddy-doing-hair memories I have are all of him combing one or another of my brothers’ hair (I have five of them) when it was at that last minute right before we had to leave for church and they hadn’t done it to his satisfaction, if they’d even done it at all. He would always grab the victim by the head with one hand, pull out a black, small-toothed comb with the other hand, and rake it thoroughly through their very tiny, very tightly balled-up curls. It sounded like popcorn going off on their heads, and it hurt. They dared not scream, squirm, or put up a fight. My fifth-born brother recalled this vivid family memory over Christmas a few months ago, and Mama reminded him how she had already repeatedly warned them to comb it themselves before Daddy saw their hair nappy: “Now boys, y’all need to coomb y’all’s head fo’e yuh daddy see yuh, cuz y’all know if he see it, he gon’ coomb it hisself, an’ yuh know yuh don’ waunt him to do it!”
When I was 8yrs.old my mom was in the hospital having my little brother.My dad kept popping the rubber bands so he put clothes pins on my & my sisters hair the old wood kind.It was hilarious & a fool!!OMG I’m still ROTFLOL!!!
Now that is freaking hilarious. I couldn’t imagine coming home from the hospital and seeing my babies with clothes pins in their hair. Lol.
When I was about 7, my dad took me to Canada while my mom stayed at home with my toddler sister. It was our first trip without mom and we went to stay with family friends, an interracial couple. I had super-thick hair that was also pretty long and difficult to manage. The wife of the couple was white and she did not have much experience with our type of hair and so my dad chose to help. My father is from Monserrat, a small Caribbean island, and in order to inspire confidence in his potential as a coiffeur, he told me that when he was a little boy he used to plait grass mats, so my hair would be a breeze. Needless to say that experience converted to horizontal pigtails a la pippi longstocking and me in tears. In despair he took me and my naturals to a hairdresser and put me on the creamy crack much to the dismay of my Mom when I returned home. ahh the memories.
Not the creamy crack. My best friend is from Monserrat. All her kid pictures have big fat plaits.
@ Zina de Bermuda My mom is from Montserrat as well as my Grandmother on my fathers side. It’s so small its always nice to hear other people from there.
And I’m loling over President Obama’s story about Malia @ 4yrs old throwing shade over his lack of hair styling abilities!
It makes me remember a story of when I was a little girl and my mom gave my dad a hard time for NOT combing my hair and sending me to school…imagine her shock and horror when he told her he HAD combed my hair! After that whenever she had to do a double shift at the hospital, she would ask my neighbor to make sure my hair was combed and looked alright before we left for school! Poor Daddy…he never lived that down.
Thank you so much for this! This is one of my all time favorite childhood memories. My dad had off for work one day while my mom went to work.I was in first or second grade. As typical I had huge, thick long-ish hair as a child. My dad thought just blow drying it “out” would do something. So he yanked and pulled with the blow dryer and evil comb attachment. It looked half way decent for about 20 minutes. By then I was at school. I remember at recess that day a white girl asked me why my hair was so big. One of the first days I realized I was “different” than the others. As I got older he learned to just take me to the salon. Please repost this on Father’s Day! My dad has since passed away and this post is bringing tears to my eyes.
When I was a kid my mom worked third shift at the town nursing home so she wasn’t always able to help me get ready for school. Occasionally, my dad would try to help me, and it would usually end up with us running late, and him roughly towel drying my hair. Sometimes when my mom wasn’t home he would give me haircuts, and once he tried to give me a rat tail and my mom FREAKED OUT! It was so hilarious, and I had to try to tell my dad that I liked it when he was cutting it off, because I didn’t want him to feel bad.
I remember my dad doing my hair once when my mom was on vacation and people complimenting him on doing a good job on my braids :) Love my daddy!
I just discovered this post…however I have a story. My parents divorced when i was very young, but I always spent every other weekend at my dad’s house. One time, my mom went to a conference…so i had to stay with my dad for a week. Since I decided that I wanted to not tie my hair up before going to bed, my dad was stuck styling my poor 6 year old hair. Daddy didn’t know how to work the ponytail holders so he used the thick rubberbands that you used to secure mail and some speaker wire…and put an old sweatband on my head and off to school I went. Thankfully, my teacher was one of my mother’s sorors and saw my hair that morning and knew what happened…she re-styled my hair and managed to snag some ponytail holders and barrettes from the lost and found hair accessory drawer she kept in her classroom.
My mom was away at a pharmacy directors meeting, so my dad had to do it…
Rubber Band, knotted hair, and a comb full of hair.
You get my point!
The whole chee-bang!
LOL! This is so cute! I’m loving all of these stories.
Yes, my dad did attempt to do my hair, but it was a one time only type thing. I was about six or seven and my mother had to go to work early, and she asked my dad to wash my hair for her. That night he did, but after wards he didn’t know how to braid and was not very sure how I was supposed to have my hair dried. So he just grabbed a towel and tied it over my hair. The next morning, my mother was shocked at the sight of my hair and let me tell ya: I never hated the comb more than that morning.
I love you dad, but hair just isn’t your thing, lol.
These are such cute stories! Wow!
So Daddy has never tried to fix my hair, but even to today, he remains a bonafide back-seat stylist. Always commenting, always with his tips on how I should style my hair. He does so in jest, of course, but I love it when he go, “Cee, now if it was ya daddy doing your hair, I would style this side up…” and etc, etc. It’s always cute. The last time, he jokingly offered to go with me to salon and give the stylist tips… you know, since he is such a professional.
Dad’s cool like that :)
my dad used a razor blade to cut out my hair bows. Luckily for me i had long thick hair, so it was no big deal
Nice can he now fashion Shakira’s hair?
He blasted her with his drone attacks
I am so veery very sorry BUT she is still BEAUTIFUL !!!!
I really enjoyed reading all of the post. I don’t have any daddy-hair-stories like yours. I was raised by my mother who was raised by her father. So I got the bad-daddy-coiffeur by proxy.
My childhood was spent rocking the three doo-doo plaits and permanent crooked parts.
Aww these Daddy hair combing stories great.
my Mom was working on her masters in Memphis when I was 6. So daddy, the former bruising college football player had to do my hair. All I remember is being amazed that it didn’t hurt when he combed my hair.!! Not only that, but I could turn my head to talk to him, lay down I. His lap Nd reach down to pick up a toy without hearing, “Hold your head up!” “Quit moving around!” I thought “This is great” … Then I saw my fuzzy headed, one sides braided one side Afro puff with a crooked part and I understood why.
My head was a mess.. But this is a perfect memory
My dad did my hair sometimes when my mom had to work late at night or when she wasn’t there in the morning. Those were the best times because he would give me bangs or some asymmetrical ponytails that made me stand out and all my friends comment on how my hair was so fly. Then my mom would see it and put it straight again. My dad died, but I always remember this when I see dads combing their daughters hair.
My Daddy hair stories are just the opposite. My dad had this really long, very straight, very fine hair. like a whip. lol…..he never did my hair because, of course, I had my mama’s hair, but we (my two sisters and I) did his hair whenever he napped. So he had three little girls, ranging from 2 to 6 years old putting all kinds of pins and everything on his hair. he would wake up and boy, was my dad a sight!! barrettes all over his head. I think it was calming to him. :)
My mom tells me this story all the time. She worked nights and I had sand in my braids from the playground. I cried and begged for my dad to wash my hair because it itched so badly. He called my mom at work and she told him to just wash it and braid it. Easy right…nope. That man washed my hair with a bar of Dove soap! So there I am 6 years old looking like I’d been caught in a dusty tornado. My mom had more than enough to deal with when she saw my head the next morning.
These stories are so funny, I guess because my story is nothing like them. I grew up with my dad being a single father, and when I started school every morning I sat at our dining table and he would do my hair himself and he continued to until I was about 8 or so and by that time I had salon type hairstyles that I could manage myself. Thankfully my hair never looked a mess, my parts were straight, and my hair was moisturized. Love my dad
I have a very vivid memory of how my Daddy managed the hair of myself and two sisters. Mommy was in the hospital. So, he took us to the barber shop! I was in grade 5, I believe. That was my very first ‘twa’. There was a biracial boy in my class. He complimented me on my new hairstyle. I’ve never forgotten him for that. He made me feel beautiful.