Mom Can’t Find A School For Her Son Because His Hair “Breaks All The Rules”
Should a hairstyle or haircut dictate whether or not a child is able to go to school? We, as parents, would like to think it wouldn’t. We’ve learned that many children have strong ideas about how they want their hair to look, and many times, there are much more important matters where a parent needs to put their foot down, but how a child wants to wear his or her hair is often not that big of a deal, that is, until the school is the one making the decision.
Farouk James is an 8-year-old boy living in London. His is mixed race. His mother, Bonnie Miller, is Caucasian, and his father is from Ghana. According, to Miller, it is part of the culture in Ghana not to cut a boy’s hair until he is at least 3 years old. She told Good Morning America, “His father’s from Ghana so culturally, his family told me not to cut it until he was three. Well, that was part of the cultural thing, so I agreed to not cut his hair until he’s three. But obviously we didn’t expect it would grow as much as it did and it just kept on growing.”
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James currently has very long, natural hair. He describes his hair as “unique,” and he never wants to get it cut. Miller is perfectly fine with that. She doesn’t think her son should have to cut his hair. Unfortunately, some schools near her home in London disagree.
Miller has been looking into schools for her son, Christian schools where many of her son’s friends will attend. Unfortunately, several of these schools have strict rules about what is acceptable when it comes to a boy’s hairstyle.
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One of the schools Miller would like to be able to send James to is called Fulham Boys School. The policy for hairstyles explains that dreadlocks, braids and other “extreme” haircuts are not allows. In addition, “The maximum hair length is above the collar and the minimum hair length is a number 2 cut.”
Another school where Miller would like to be able to enroll James is called St. Thomas More Language College. One thing that infuriates Miller about this school’s hair policy is that girls can have long hair as long as it is pulled back, but boys have to have short hair.
Watch the video below to learn more about Miller’s struggle to enroll her son in school due to his hair.
