Member-only story
Rocking a Baldie With Pride Isn’t Just About MJ — It’s About My Mother
As a kid, I helped take out her braids; years later, she joined me in baldness
In the late ’80s, I was 13 years old, and puberty was not kind. With pimples sprouting all over my face and gangling arms and legs flailing everywhere, I looked like a human grasshopper, scrutinizing my acne in front of the bathroom mirror while figuring out my identity.
When I wasn’t in there picking and primping, I could find my mother there fixing her hair. Momma kept her hair braided for most of my adolescence. She would spend an entire day at a makeshift hair salon — usually the living room of a woman’s house — getting it plaited. My dad was a fierce enough proponent of natural hair that he only approved of an Afro; he wasn’t shy about voicing his disapproval of the time (or money) my mom spent on her hair. He told her it was nonsense, a useless exercise in vanity.
Momma would often defer to my father in most matters, but not when it came to her look. Getting her hair done by a professional hairdresser was an essential component of her happiness. And despite my dad’s protests, they only lasted a couple of days; I think he understood.
Momma’s braids were intricate and fine, perhaps an eighth of an inch in width, and…
