Daddy ‘Dos — And Dont’s — for Daughters’ Hair

For the most part my husband doesn’t go near my daughters’ hair. He’ll wash it and brush it as needed, but he’s not going to whip up any cute french braids any time soon. He’s barely got any hair of his own these days — so I suppose it’s not surprising that he doesn’t know what to do with a four-year-old girl’s shoulder length hair.

Now I thought this was a the typical common male response to their daughter’s hairstyling, but then on a recent visit from the grandparents my father-in-law showed himself to be pretty adept at ponytails and the like. Since he’s a retired Marine colonel who did three tours of duty in Vietnam, I guess we can’t chalk up the fact he’s good with his granddaughter’s hair to the idea that masculine avoidance of girly things has to be typical. My father-in-law is actually a pretty good visual artist and had two daughters of his own, so he must have taken it upon himself to learn a thing or two at some point.

Anyway, recently my husband came across this great series of YouTube videos aimed at teaching fathers how to style their daughters’ hair. Here’s a sample:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GwFGqN3PNE?version=3]

My husband discovered this series while browsing Reddit. Some member of the community there is a single dad and wrote in asking for advice on hairstyling and the resulting thread has lots more excellent advice for men who want help with their daughters’ hair.

And, hey, let’s face it. There are plenty of moms like myself who don’t know thing one about doing hair either. I always had a very, very short haircut growing up and I think it was so my mom could avoid doing my hair. Which means that I was taking notes while watching the braiding video above. These things are great!