"I Love My Hair:" A Father's Tribute To His Daughter

I know you've already seen it, but you may not know that the Sesame Street video about a little girl love for her afro has an adoption connection.

After this segment aired on the popular kids' television show in October, it popped up all over the nation -- on Facebook pages, on blogs, and in forwarded e-mails.

NPR reports on the effect this clip has had around the country, and why it might have become a sensation:

African-American bloggers wrote that it brought them to tears because of the message it sends to young black girls.

Joey Mazzarino, the head writer of Sesame Street, is also a Muppeteer who wrote the song for his daughter. Mazzarino is Italian. He and his wife adopted their 5-year-old daughter, Segi, from Ethiopia when she was a year old.

Mazzarino says he wrote the song after noticing his daughter playing with dolls.

"She wanted to have long blond hair and straight hair, and she wanted to be able to bounce it around," he tells NPR's Melissa Block.

Mazzarino says he began to get worried, but he thought it was only a problem that white parents of African-American children have. Then he realized the problem was much larger.

In writing the song, he wanted to say in song what he says to his daughter: "Your hair is great. You can put it in ponytails. You can put it in cornrows. I wish I had hair like you."

As the white mom of a newly adopted toddler (also from Ethiopia), the most frequently asked question I get is "How do you do her hair?"

I get a LOT of advice, and I've had a number of conversations with black women who fear my daughter somehow lost out when we adopted her. 

Things people have said to me:

"Why do white women always put headbands on black girls?  Don't you know how to fix it?"

"You need the stuff in the pink bottle."

"Don't use the pink bottle, it'll make her hair fall out..." 

"The way you fix her hair makes her look like a boy."

"Black girls who are adopted gain a family but lose their hairstyles."

The conversations have been frequently nice and often very touching, as strangers show interest in our family and our daughter. Sometimes, as I'm trying to run into the store, wearing sweats and wondering if my toddler needs a diaper change, I feel a little put out by the unsolicited advice from people who think I'm somehow betraying my daughter's heritage.

Nevetheless, hair is a big deal.  And this Sesame Street video goes a little way towards addressing it.  (Next, Mr. Mazzarino, how about "I Love The Way My Mom Does My Haaair!")