A 35-year-old dad who was doing his best to take care of his three daughters found himself in an unexpected predicament and turned to Reddit for help. After his wife passed away in 2017, he had been raising his three daughters, who were then 5, 6, and 8.
With the assistance of his in-laws, the man handled everything nicely up until Covid-19 caused devastation over the planet. The father of three admitted that he was white and his deceased wife was black before talking about his issue.
Because of this, their daughters were mixed-race and possessed their mother’s hair. The girls’ hair was easier to manage because the man’s sister-in-law always took them to salons that catered to the needs of black women before the pandemic.
Because of this, their daughters were mixed-race and possessed their mother’s hair. The girls’ hair was easier to manage because the man’s sister-in-law always took them to salons that catered to the needs of black women before the pandemic.
The man never discovered how black ladies took care of their hair because his sister-in-law assisted the girls with hair maintenance. He had no idea that learning about it would save him from later encountering difficulty.
The man’s sister-in-law, who is employed in the healthcare industry, relocated four hours away from their home as the situation deteriorated as a result of Covid-19. “Furthermore, the salons have been periodically closing and reopening, and it is hard for me to get appointments,” the man added.
Aside from these problems, the father’s office employment kept him busy throughout the first few months of the pandemic because part of his job description included teaching everyone how to work online. He couldn’t focus on his girls’ hair as a result.
“I was not keeping up with things. I admit,” The father explained in his Reddit post that the hair of two of his daughters got matted and unruly to the point of being mattified.
When trying to solve the issue, the dad recognized there was nothing else he could do to untangle his daughters’ hair and that it would be preferable to simply cut their hair. Furthermore, he reasoned that since his girls weren’t in school at the time, they wouldn’t be embarrassed by their short hair.
“I cut it really short, but it did not look too bad as I was following a youtube video,” the man explained.
A few months later, when his daughter, age 8, saw her short hair, she became distraught. She longed for her long hair to grow back, but all she could do was wait. Up until the brother-in-law of the man’s return, everything was going smoothly.
What Happened When the Man’s Sister-in-Law Saw the Girls’ Short Hair?
The man’s sister-in-law visited him one day, and she questioned his eldest daughter about why they had their hair cut so short. The young girl explained to her aunt that their father had decided to shorten their hair since it had grown too long and was becoming difficult.
When she discovered what had transpired while she was away, the man’s sister-in-law became irate. The man mentioned “My SIL (sister-in-law) was angry and implied in front of my daughters that because I was white, I couldn’t understand them.”
After hearing this, the man became enraged and yelled at the woman because he didn’t want his children to believe that their father made assumptions about them based on their skin tone. He has consistently spoken out against racism and didn’t want his daughters to think that his love was conditional on how they looked.
After apologizing to each other, the man’s sister-in-law still believed he was to blame for chopping the girls’ hair, he said in the end of his Reddit post. The user enquired of other users if that was true.
In the post’s comments section, other Reddit users discussed the story. The guy was accused by many of not giving his daughters enough attention. Reddit users once questioned, “You could use YouTube to figure out how to cut it, but not how to care for it?”
Another Redditor commented, “Seriously OP, you’ve had eight years. Four of them on your own. And you couldn’t be arsed to figure anything out besides ‘make wife, SIL, or a salon handle it’ until the pandemic made you?”
A third person said, “He stripped his daughters of part of themselves because he just didn’t feel like learning about how to take care of them. He’s had years to figure it out and did nothing.”
In the comments part of his post, many Redditors attacked the man while supporting his sister-in-law. They thought he could have taken more care of his girls.