Dad & Me Workshops: Empowering Fathers with Hair Styling Skills

Quick Smiles:

• Creative mother, Sarah Eaton, is empowering fathers to style their daughters’ hair through her innovative workshops.
• The Dad & Me workshops are gaining popularity, aiding fathers in gaining confidence in managing their daughters’ hair.
• These workshops are challenging stereotypes and demonstrating that hair styling isn’t exclusively a female task.

Sarah Eaton, a mother and hairstylist from West Lothian, Scotland, has pioneered a unique method to encourage dads to participate more in their daughters’ daily routines. She has initiated hair care workshops specifically tailored to instruct dads on how to manage and style their daughters’ hair.

The concept was ignited when Sarah was already offering lessons for mothers on how to craft intricate plaits and braids. She noticed that many of the women expressed a wish for their male partners to acquire these skills as well.

“The look of admiration on their face after each session is amazing,” Sarah says about the fathers who participate in her workshops. These hour-long Dad & Me sessions take place at her local community center and cover the fundamentals of hair care, including how to detangle long hair, secure it in ponytails, and style it into simple braids, bunches, and buns for ballet class.

Sarah’s journey into teaching hair care commenced in 2022 when she attempted to prepare her two daughters for Halloween with red synthetic wigs. She intended to braid the wigs but found the task more challenging than she had expected. After discussing this with other mothers in her town of Armadale, she discovered that many of them were keen on learning how to do Dutch and French braids.

“It went really well, and then a few mothers started telling me how their husbands wanted to learn how to do it, so I decided to set one up for them,” Sarah remembers.

Since then, she has conducted three sessions for fathers, and the popularity of these workshops continues to grow. One of the most entertaining activities in the workshop is when the fathers learn how to do the high bun. “We get the children to stand up and the fathers hold the hair up high while the girls spin around. The children are so happy because dad can do a bun for their ballet,” Sarah explains.

Sarah’s workshops, which she organizes on an “ad hoc basis” with a maximum of eight fathers per session, are not just about imparting hair styling skills. They also challenge and dispel the misconception that doing hair is a female task.

“It just goes to show how valuable it is to break down stigmas,” she said. “Fathers should feel just as capable of doing their daughters hair in the morning before school.”

Sarah’s inventive idea is a shining example of how we can challenge traditional gender roles and foster more involvement from fathers in their daughters’ lives.

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