Your Thoughts: Are Women More Judgmental Than Tween Girls?

I always thought tween/teen girls would be much more judgmental of each other than adult women would ever dream of being toward a child. Agreed? Recent events have actually led me to believe otherwise, at least where natural hair is concerned.

The majority of girls at Syd's school with tight curls are already using chemicals to straighten their coils. That doesn't stop Syd from showing off her love of big curly hair, though. And nobody at school has ever had a single negative thing to say about it. But when an unexpected rain storm popped up and wreaked havoc on Syd's style, she and I were both nervous.

Here's what happened. Do you remember this twist out style from a couple weeks ago? Well, what I didn't tell you in that post is that it rained that morning. The weather man didn't say it was going to rain. The forecast didn't say it was going to rain. But it rained. And Syd didn't have an umbrella.

When she left the house, she looked like this:

When she came home, she looked like this:

The rain had completely ruined her twist out. And there was still some definition left over, but only in random places. Her hair was stuck somewhere between a style with defined curls and an undefined afro type of style.  Either of those styles are loved at our house, but this whole in between look? Not so beloved.

To top this off, Syd's first middle school dance was held that day after school. She said she had pulled it into a low ponytail just for an hour to get it off her neck while she danced.

When she got home, I asked her if anyone at school had said anything about her hair. Surprisingly, she said the only comments she got were POSITIVE ones. (I guess Syd isn't the only one at her school who loves big hair!) But when we went to the store later that night, her frizzy hair received more than one disapproving look from adult women. When we were walking away from the hair products aisle, I even heard one woman tell her daughter (who looked to be around Syd's age and had relaxed hair), "THAT is why you need a relaxer."

It took everything in me to keep walking instead of going back to tell that woman exactly how I felt about her attitude, Syd's hair, and people thinking they HAVE to use chemicals to make their hair look good. But I was the bigger person. Syd hadn't heard her, so even though it stung, I pretended I hadn't heard her either. 

Ever since that day, I've thought about how much more judgmental the grown women in the store were than the middle school girls that Syd was around. It was surprising that the adults seem to have more of a "mean girls" attitude than the tweens and teenagers.

What do you think? Have you ever experienced anything like this, either from kids or other adults?