Source: Reddit
The title sounds really iffy, so to preface, my husband (M32) is ok with it.
I (F33) am Hindu, and it is a custom in my religion for babies to go through a right of passage by shaving their head when they’re typically 1-3 years old. It’s extremely common in India since both Hindu and Muslim communities follow this practice (with different traditions albeit).
My Husband is from the US, we’ve been married 4 years. We’re in India and visiting my family. 2 days ago, we were on facetime with his parents and mentioned while we’re here we will have a ceremony, ‘Mundan’ for our daughter (3F) while we’re here. They were excited and MIL even asked me to send photos. Everything was ok until my husband joked “You’ll finally know what Maya looks like as a baby!” (Maya was born with a full head of hair). MIL was confused but when she learned about the shaving, she was furious.
This was not even for religion since she knows my daughter is being raised Hindu (Husband’s family are devout Christians, My husband left the religion years ago). She has never expressed anger towards this in particular, so it was not the reason for her outburst.
She went on a tirade how I was trying to ‘un-black’ my daughter. (My husband’s black) and how I don’t like my daughter’s hair. She said I don’t love her natural hair and have consistently tried to make it like mine, which is frankly not true. She also mentioned I’ll start bleaching her skin soon since it’s common with ‘my people’. This is completely baseless. Not only are we darker than her entire family, but also this was completely out of the blue.
I’ve done my best in my search for my daughter’s hair care. I’ve visited many black owned salons with my SILs and found the perfect one for my daughter. My husband researched hair care products for babies and Maya’s hair is very healthy and I’ve heard no complaints from anyone. I even have a hair oiling tradition with her. My mother and grandmother followed this and it was a great bonding time for us, I wanted to share this with my daughter too. I can’t even say anything about skin bleaching stuff.
The only conversation MIL and I had before about Maya’s hair was when she mentioned she wanted to get cornrows done and asked if Maya would go to get hers done too. She was 2 at the time so I said no.
I completely blew up at her after this. My Husband was mad at his mom, but said we should just have the ceremony on the down low (with my immediate family and not post anything about the ceremony) since her hair would grow when we go back, but I want her to have a big ceremony and she’s quite excited about it too.
I’m also pretty hurt about MIL’s outburst as I’ve had a good relationship with her. FIL has been quiet since this happened and SILs are 19 so they can’t say much. My family was in the next room while this happened and they heard MIL (she was THAT loud) and were mad at my husband. Idk, this was supposed to be a fun trip back home and it just spiraled into this. Am I Wrong?
Here are a few comments on the story where it was originally posted:
