Redheads

Alrighty, since I have red hair (at least what hasn't turned white yet), my husband has reddish hair and three of our four children have red hair, I decided to do a search and see what the world wide web has to say about us. Gee whiz! It certainly wasn't all good... but it was amusing. So read on with a grain of salt.

Before you read the nonsense below, please read my favorite quote:

"Once in his life, every man many is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead." ~Lucille Ball [AMEN!]

1. Red hair is seen on the heads of only four percent of people. Supposedly, most of these people exist in the U.K., the Republic of Ireland, and Australia.
2. The highest percentage of natural redheads in the world is in Scotland (13%), followed closely by Ireland with 10%. In the US, about 2% of the population are natural redheads.
3. Red hair is a genetic mutation. [Huh?! My children's beauty is a genetic mutation?]
4. There is a belief that redheads are prone to industrial deafness.
5. Red headedness is, genetically speaking, a recessive trait. It may skip several generations and both parents must carry the gene to have redheaded offspring.
6. Redheads don't turn grey. Red hair turns sandy, then white. They are also found to loose their color later in life than people carrying other hair colors. [Bummer for me -- it isn't later in my life when I am losing the color!]
7. A 2002 study found that redhead are harder to sedate than any other people requiring twenty percent more anesthesia. Inadequate doses have caused people to wake up during surgery. (Eek!!!)
8. Redheads are three times more sensitive than other people to drugs.
9. In the late 16th century, the fat of a redheaded man was an essential ingredient for poison.
10. The Egyptians regarded the color as so unlucky that they had a ceremony in which they burned red-headed maidens alive to wipe out the tint.
11. An Irish judge in 2001 fined a man for disorderly conduct stating "I am a firm believer that hair coloring has an effect on temper and your coloring suggests you have a temper."
12. Redheads have historically been thought untrustworthy. Judas is most always depicted as a redhead -- displaying the prejudice against red hair.
13. Adolph Hitler reportedly banned the marriages of two redheads as he feared their children would be "deviant offspring".
14. Red haired children have been historically branded as offspring of "unclean" sex. (Ahem! I have three redheaded children and I think this one is absurd!)
15. Bees are thought to sting redheads more than others.
16. In Denmark it is an honor to have a redheaded child.
17. In Poland, if you pass three red-heads you'll win the state lottery. (I am moving to Poland, lining my kids up on the street, and winning the lottery!)
18. In Greek mythology, redheads turn into Vampires when they die.
19. During the Spanish Inquisition flame colored hair was evidence that its owner had stolen the fire of hell and had to be burned as a witch.
20. Russian tradition declares that red hair is both a sign that a person holds a fiery temper and craziness. (Definitely true in my case.)
21. Aristotle was known to believe that redheads were emotionally unhousebroken.
22. A French Proverb states that "redheaded women are either violent or false, and usually are both."
23. Twenty U.S. presidents have been redheads, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses Grant and Calvin Coolidge.

Wikipedia's take on red hair: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair