I remember a time when I was very little, riding in the car on MLK day with tons of tiny braids in my hair, wondering if it was ok for me as a white kid to be wearing that hairstyle on that day.

Braids are the poor man’s method of crimping your hair, and so as a child of the ’80’s, I grew up having my hair braided and practicing on myself and my sister.

I remember having my mind blown at around age 11 when I learned how to French braid.

I’ve had short hair for most of my adult life, but once I started having curly haired kids, I started braiding again with a vengeance.

It took a while to get the hang of straight parts and pulling hair tight enough to get a nice clean braid, and I’ve still got plenty of room for improvement, but I have gained some confidence. I have three girls, so I’ve gotten a fair amount of practice.

I started feeling a little insecure again when my son grew his hair out and started asking me to braid it. He shows me a photo from the internet that he wants me to copy, then mansplains what I’m looking at, but stops himself when he realizes what he’s doing.

I know I can do it, but now that he goes to school, my handiwork will be displayed to all his classmates. If I do a bad job, he will be the one getting a hard time about it.

When I braided his hair recently – four inverted cornrows with alternating zigzag and straight parts, he mentioned to me a friend of his had asked about me braiding his hair for him. I got a kick out of that because as a dedicated Creative, I appreciate when someone digs my work.

When the kid’s mom saw my son’s braids, she asked him if I was Black or Hispanic. (No, just stubborn.) Since my son is brown skinned, he, and by extension, his family, could be anything to people who haven’t met the rest of us: Light skinned black folks, biracial, Latinx.

“Nope,” he told me the story later. “She’s white.”

I’m still working out how to navigate that reality in a family surrounded by kids who will need to face the world with a clear-eyed picture of systemic racism and the individual racism they may encounter, but without bitterness or suspicion. I want them to be problem solvers. I want them to blow up all the stereotypes people may have about what “people like them” might be like, whatever that may mean – as brown-skinned folks, as Christians, as homeschoolers, as kids who come from a big family.

I am trying to blaze a trail with my kids, and before them. I know how important hair is, how important it is to present yourself to the world with your curly hair on point, no matter how it’s styled. So I’m doing my best in spite of time constraints, and unwilling kids, in the cold Northeast where the hats and flannel sheets frizz up my hard work to keep my kids’ hair looking tight.

We’re working within cultural boundaries, but hopefully, outside of stereotypes. And I know this isn’t likely to happen all of the time, but hopefully, when someone assumes something of us, they’re assuming it for complimentary reasons.