Photo: Stephanie Hollifield
A blogger and mother of five is expressing her gratitude after a woman came to her rescue following a plea she made on Facebook surrounding her black daughter’s haircare.
“Dear Black Friends ofSocial Media/ This clueless white momma is humbly coming to you to ask your help with Haley’s hair,” Stephanie Hollifield wrote on Facebook Nov. 9,sharing a snapshot ofher adorable 2-year-old painting aThanksgivingturkey picture.
“I have asked my friends. I have asked strangers in Publix with kids with cute hair, and I’m still not getting it,” she continued, describing her several-step routine that still led to “trauma” in Haley’s “daily hair combing” sessions despite her best efforts. “I desperately want to get this right!”
“She came to my home a couple of days later with a basket full of supplies, products and combs,” Hollifield wrote ina November poston her blog,Momstrosity. “My daughter immediately took to Monica, and sat right in her lap as she fixed her hair.”
“She gave me headbands, products and combs,” she remarked. “She wouldn’t accept my money in return. I was inawe of her grace and her kindness. She took time away from her family to help me, when she had nothing to gain.”
And the results were astonishing. “Haley’s hair looked adorable, and she kept looking in the mirror while touching her new puffs saying, ‘So pretty!’ ” Hollifield wrote. “She kept hugging me and then hugging her new friend, Mrs. Monica. I don’t think I had ever seen Haley smile so big.”
Hunter, a mother of three, toldNowThisof her visit with Hollifield, “We’re a lot more alike than we are different. And if we can come together and help each other, that’s what we all should be doing. … I’m a black mom with black children and I still have to ask questions on how to deal with their natural hair.”
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“As moms, we get it, that we don’t have the answers to everything, so it takes a lot of vulnerability to do it,” she added in the joint interview.
Telling Hunter onNowThisthat her “openness meant the world” to her, Hollifield added in her blog that the pair “chatted about hair, marriage, friendship, parenting, education and race issues” and that she “got so much more than advice andconfidence in fixing my daughter’s hair” — namely, Hunter’s friendship and a crucial realization.
“For a minute, I couldn’t understand why Monica’s act of generosity was so shocking to people,” she wrote. “Then, it clicked. It is newsworthy because this is so uncommon. So inspirational. In our country, where everything seems so divisive, this quiet act of kindness spoke loudly to people from all walks of life.”
“This is newsworthy because Monicasaw a need that she could meetand shedid something about it. As simple and as complex and honorable as that. This is rare. This is what we need more of,” mused Hollifield, who also runsFacebookandInstagramaccounts for Momstrosity. “There are many opportunities to make someone’s day brighter in our everyday lives. When we tune out the hate and the divisiveness that seems so loud, we remember that we are all people who need each other.”
source: people.com
