About a decade ago, the first classes for dads who wanted to learn to braid their daughters’ hair began to pop up in the mainstream. Traditionally, in many households, moms have been the default hair-doers. After all, they’re the experts with a lifetime of experience styling and braiding their own hair or practicing on their friends.
But this setup was problematic for a few reasons. For starters, as the modern generation of dads began wanting to get more hands-on with childcare responsibilities, many of them found they were hopelessly lost when it came to the morning hair routine. Classes began to pop up all over the country offering practical training for dads who wanted to learn the basic rope braid or French braid.
Over the years, these courses have only grown more popular. Now, the movement is about so much more than the physical task of styling hair, or even rebelling against old-fashioned, restrictive ideas of masculinity.
One group of dads recently experienced this firsthand after attending a “Pints and Ponytails” event.
Mathew Carter and Lawrence Price, who run the popular podcast Secret Life of Dads, set up the event with instructors from Braid Maidens. They filled out the guest list with their network of fellow dads and supplied beers and mannequins for all.
The guys had a terrific time. They quickly mastered the practical skills they needed to dive headfirst into the morning and nighttime routines with their daughters. In an Instagram post sharing the experience, Carter and Price wrote that in the course of just a few hours they went from “barely being able to do a ponytail to [perfecting] the Elsa by the end of the class.”
Elsa, of Frozen fame, is legendary for her signature Dutch braid that many little girls want to emulate.
After the dads went home and began implementing their newfound skills, they realized that the event was so much more than a “cute” dismissal of old-fashioned masculinity.
For starters, dads getting involved in doing girls’ hair takes an enormous load off mom’s shoulders. In households with multiple girls, a mom can spend hours getting everyone’s hair just so. Often, kids demand specific styles, but moms also know that sending their girls off to school with messy bedhead will (unfairly) reflect poorly on them socially. There’s a lot of pressure tied to this daily task. Having a tag-team partner to pitch in is incredibly valuable.
One attendee wrote that it was “wonderful to meet so many fellow girl dads who wanted to share more of the unpaid emotional labour at home.”
Even more importantly, the dads say that after the event, doing their daughters’ hair revealed incredible moments they never even knew they were missing out on.
“What’s going on in that room is something much deeper,” Carter and Price wrote in a follow-up post over footage of the men practicing on mannequins. “Learning to braid my daughter’s hair changed what is often seen as just a task … into a moment of connection. That’s when she gets to tell me about her day. That’s when she shares with me things that are happening in her life. And it’s a time that happens at the beginning of each day that I just get to be with her and listen and ask questions and connect. And that has opened the aperture of love between me and my daughter.”
Even modern, hands-on, engaged, and well-meaning fathers sometimes have difficulty connecting with their daughters as they get older.
There are many reasons for this phenomenon. It’s well-studied and was recently documented in The Atlantic article, “The Father-Daughter Divide.”
Meanwhile, Kimberley Benton of Oak City Psychology wrote, “Many men have difficulty connecting with their children on an emotional level because their dads didn’t know how. It’s no ones fault, we just aren’t very good at teaching men about connecting with others.”
Providing, supporting, and being physically present in our kids’ lives is only part of the equation. Being emotionally present requires carving out quiet one-on-one time where discussion can flow freely and honestly. Kids need to feel they have the time and space to open up—something that only gets more difficult for them as they become teenagers.
Many dads never realize that those crucial minutes spent sitting together and styling hair are the perfect opportunity to connect. If you can get good enough to make your daughter look just like Elsa, that’s gravy.
