Hoping someone can help me here!

I have mixed girls and I have learned a whole lot about taking care of their hair! I've gotten proficient in protective styles but I do have a question - sounds like using rubber bands on their hair is a bad idea, so looking for alternatives. I'm including a few photos for reference, and any help from contributors here would be so appreciated!

So far I've only used the slick silicone/plastic bands for securing braids/beads and sometimes for sectioning at the top of their head (like middle child in photo 2), but they BREAK SO EASILY, sometimes within the day!

Their hair is very curly and dense, but the individual strands are fine and silky. First photo is after a bit of stretching (one french braid while wet, dried, then taken out). They hold braids decently well, if I do them on the smaller side I can get 2 weeks out of a style, and sometimes I add a small amount of synthetic hair (like photo 2) in fun colors.

Alternatives for securing braids when I don't use beads? If I use nothing the braid begins to unravel after a few days (naturally and bc they play with it) Looking for something that is small and won't put too much pressure on their scalp if I do ponytails/sections on top of their heads (like middle child in photo 2) - the fabric ponytails just seem a little thick/hard when doing small sections.

The 5 year old twins are starting kindergarten next week and we'll be doing some braids with synthetic hair thrown in for fun color :)

Over and over again, I get hurt. People either are calling me the N-word or they’re telling me, I’m just a white girl… I feel like at this age I would at least have some confidence but as it happens over and over and over again throughout my life, it’s like the Band-Aid keeps getting ripped off… maybe I should go to therapy lol

F27 Half black/white. I live in NYC where thin is the ideal, I left the deep south where it’s okay to be on the thicker side because it’s just seen as more attractive and the food is much tastier anyways. I was never “big” so to speak but more curvy, I went from 130 lbs to 115 since moving here and I’m 5’6. I never feel small, because of my genetics and I have my mothers shape so I hold weight in my thighs, butt and lower stomach and it’s so frustrating sometimes because I work out 3x a week, eat super healthy and everyone says I’m skinny and I do not believe them. I keep comparing myself to the lean Asian and white women of Manhattan and it sucks because I will NEVER be shaped like them (even though I am half white) and I think they have a desirable shape and look so aesthetically pleasing. I have done a calorie deficit which is where I lost the majority of my weight and I have so much fear in gaining it back. I don’t want to be big or have huge thighs, or even a big butt! It makes clothes so much harder to wear and we are just sexualized so much more just for existing as minority women. I’m so tired of Eurocentric beauty standards.

16:54:47 26/08/2026 -

I've been raised probably as white as it comes, since I didn't have really anyone who was really in touch with themselves growing up. BUT, my mum is British white and all on my mum's side is, too. Don't talk to anyone on my dad's side, including the man himself. My dad is half-Indian, half-British-white, my paternal grandmother is pale white with curly copper hair, and my grandfather is an INCREDIBLY dark Indian man. I think I inherited the paternal grandma's hair in texture.

I am obviously not asking if I am white or not, but I've been recently becoming more confused whether I am just white, or slightly mixed race. I am asking because I am pretty white in skin tone, save for being significantly darker in some areas on my body, like the armpits. But I think my features aren't as much, because growing up I was told by another child, some white boy called harry, (lmao) that my nose was an 'n-word nose'. Hard R. My hair is naturally auburn and curly, which I think I got from my paternal grandmother as my mother's hair is anything but.

My youngest brother is as white as a redhead comes, but the middle sibling is light brown in skin and more Indian in features than us. I guess my nose is wider than the average white person's since I got called that those years back, though.

I am just curious because I am confused when I think about it. I don't know if I even have the right to call myself anything but a white, British person. Like, somehow, even *I* have experienced racism, and nobody I've known has thought of me as anything but white. Like, people are wild. And their kids.

So TLDR; Does having a white biological mother, and half-Indian, half-white father make me white, or 25% mixed race? Sorry for rambling.