This post is going to be a tad short, but not that sweet. A little tart instead, but staying away from bitter and sour. I think. It will be short because I have to head down to a farm, Edible Earthscapes in Pittsboro, to chaperon our 9th grade class while they finish out of week of farming and camping. As chaperoning these types of field trips is an unexpected but wholly fun and pleasurable part of my job, I am looking forward to it.

But back to the not-so-sweet: on October 9  Newsweek magazine published a rather long diatribe disguised as an essay entitled "Zahara Jolie-Pitt and the Politics of Uncombed Hair. " Since celebrities with babies/children is one of my many secret and guilty pleasures, I just had to read. I mean, what on earth did the title even mean?? Well, the author basically charges Angelina Jolie, Zahara's mother, with neglecting her child's hair, which requires special treatment because she is black, because "Having well-managed hair is not just about style, it’s about pride, dignity, and self-respect. Keeping your daughter’s hair neat is an unspoken rule of parental duties that everyone in the community recognizes and respects."  An unspoken rule?

Is this true? Does Allison Samuels (the author) really think that the child of internationally famous, multi-milionaires and philanthropists is going to suffer because someone else doesn't like her hair? And that Angelina (and only Angelina) is to blame? Apparently so. But it wasn't just this assertion that irked me so much, it was this: nowhere in her entire article did she once mention Zahara's father, or hold him to the same standards of responsibility and care she holds her mother. Now, I get People magazine, folks. And let me tell you, nary an issue goes by without a picture or two or 5 of these impossibly photogenic parents with their children, and they are ALWAYS with the kids. Carrying them to and fro, shepherding them from one gorgeous corner of the globe to the other. They are almost always together; Angelina hasn't been a single mother for a long, long time. So why doesn't Brad, the very same guy once photographed carrying Zahara with a bottle in his back pocket, come under the same judgemental eye for neglecting his daughter's hair and letting her appear unkempt? Granted, I am willing to bet that the vast majority of us mothers out there take care of the grooming and the cleaning and the brushing and the braiding, but still!! It is 2009, Ms. Samuels. Give some dads out there some credit, and at lease ASSUME that once in a blue moon it is Brad that is taking the kids to school, or caring for them while she is in Darfur or making another movie. Now, I'm off to chaperon some 14 year-olds, all of whom, thankfully, take care of their OWN hair.

Leigh appears Fridays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Leigh on her blog Flipper and Me.