Daddy Pursues Advanced Braiding Studies

It is very important to me that I know how to do Kina’s hair. This concern dates back to July 5, 2020, when haircuts were not viable and all of us looked like Zoom neanderthals, and I got to watching lots of videos about curly hair, which Kina has in spades. From this particular pandemic research rabbit hole, I eventually came to realize that the smooth move for little kids with type-2B hair is to pull that mess together into some braids. And as a man who really, really wants to show up for the women in his life, I decided to be braid dad.

Let me tell you, other dads: This is not as easy as it sounds.

I have spent, intermittently, much of the last three years experimenting with brushing, pulling, gathering, wrapping, pinning, and—yes—braiding Kina’s hair, with very limited success. It has been humbling. Hairs out of place, loose and wobbly braids, poorly-placed ponytails—I have run the gamut of follicular abuse, and I have strived to be better. For that, I turn to my role models.

Three people in Kina’s life have done well by her curls: Ms. Jamika, from Small World; Hannah, her nanny; and Christina, her beloved stylist. Each of them has managed to make of Kina’s tangles a taut and orderly stream of hair, capped by a tight ponytail or perfect braid.

When she was still three, Kina got her first school photos taken at Small World; we sent her dressed to the nines and with what we thought was Good Hair, but when the photos came back, our daughter had two crisp side-buns and hair as smooth as silk. I realized in that moment that we did not understand Kina’s hair. It was Ms. Jamika who showed us what was possible.

I watched Hannah brush out Kina’s hair once, and it was a revelation. A wet paper towel, a firm hand, and a comb she could wield like a paintbrush was all she needed to get Kina’s head ready for dance class. From Hannah, I learned the value of water and an economy of movement in the production of a perfect ponytail. Hannah showed me the work.

(Here, I want to note that the first two women to really get Kina’s hair have been Black women, to whom Kina and I owe much.)

Finally, there is Christina—of Rockin’ Locks—who cuts Kina’s hair roughly every six weeks (with the exception of a long five-month stretch in 2020). Christina’s very first miracle was to coax two-year-old Kina through her first haircut, culminating in a single, cute braid on the side of her head. Since that first cut, as Kina’s hair has grown longer and thicker, Christina has built more and more elaborate braids into Kina’s style—some truly revelatory. Christina is my braid role model, and it is Christina whom I have very subtly petitioned for braid lessons in the last several months.

Yesterday, after four years, she hooked me up and let me do half of Kina’s braids.

I don’t know exactly how to name what Christina did to Kina’s head—nor do I believe I could achieve the same result of my own accord—but I watched her part off Kina’s hair into six perfect sections (each separated by a crisp two-millimeter line of scalp), produce a slender braid at the apex of the section between the crown of her head and the top of her right ear, then pull that braid, in turn, into a larger braid at the back right of her head. For her, this took all of four minutes.

Christina then offered to watch me do the left side of Kina’s head, which I felt totally unprepared for. It was like being invited to a master class with Andres Segovia, having only strummed an untuned ukelele a few times in your life.

She taught me to use my whole body, as I turned, to turn the hair itself; to portion out Kina’s damp tresses so that each strand of the braid had the same usable length; to allow a bit of hair to flow at the bottom of the braid; to let the hair tell me where to put each braid on her head so that no strands of hair flopped out when I was done.

I was nervous and shaky in ways that I have not been nervous and shaky for a long time, but it felt possible to me in that moment that I could forge a new bond with Kina through her hair—that I could do justice to her as we spent time together in the mornings preparing for school. I turned my body, and the hair came with me. I slowly put each braid together as Christina looked on patiently. Three strands, one braid, pulled back, braided again. At the end, the left side of Kina’s head looked reasonably similar to the right side—or at least Christina had no reason to undo my work—and while it took me twice as long to do the work, I had done the work.

I could do the work.

Those of you who have followed me here for the last few years know that I truly value making mistakes and recognize that being consciously bad at something is really important for eventually being really good at something. It’s what I have been doing with this newspaper, every day, for three years. I am really, really good at this now, and I am still pretty bad at braids. But I want to be better, and experience shows me that I can be. For me, the intention there—while insufficient as I hold up the end results of my work to Jamika’s, Hannah’s, and Christina’s—is the flame that will light the way. One twist at a time.

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