{"id":265448,"date":"2025-11-01T18:35:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T18:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/265448\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T18:35:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T18:35:13","slug":"head-lice-have-an-upside-trust-me-on-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/265448\/","title":{"rendered":"Head lice have an upside. Trust me on this."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for the Slatest<\/a> to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.<\/p>\n

At 2:07 a.m., after three hours of combing through my hair, I found the culprit behind my itchy scalp. I zoomed in with my phone camera and, swallowing a gag, confirmed what I\u2019d feared: At 25 years old, I had a case of head lice.<\/p>\n

The children I babysit gave it to me as an anniversary gift this January, a celebration of 20 years since my first encounter with the bugs. I\u2019d dealt with infestations at ages 5, 8, 12, 17, and now 25\u2014so I knew my next steps. But I didn\u2019t know why this kept happening to me.<\/p>\n

I caught one of my early infections after a slumber party where we girls huddled shoulder to shoulder watching Amanda Bynes confess her love in What A Girl Wants. Later they crawled over while I shared a pillow with my heartbroken high school best friend. We cursed her ex-boyfriend, and the lice wanted to help. In college, I narrowly escaped the infestation that ravaged my freshman dorm. Our floor spent countless nights piling onto twin beds, sharing snacks and classroom drama, making this new space feel like home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is why that thing always happens to you guys,\u201d my friend\u2019s mom once commented on a photo of us lying head-to-head at the beach. And it is! Thinking it over while the lice technician zapped my hair with bug-killing heat, I came to a conclusion: Lice are my ultimate testament to girlhood.<\/p>\n

Of course, girls aren\u2019t the only ones who get lice. Plenty of people of all genders, especially those with longer hair, come face-to-face (or face-to-head) with the pests. For me though, these bugs have become a symbol of the close-knit communities that have shaped my life as a girl.<\/p>\n

\u201cLice were here before us, and they\u2019ll outlive us all,\u201d my mom says every time I break the itchy news to her. And these tiny, resilient, blood-sucking insects will. According to Lice Clinics of America, the species developed 1.68 million years before homo sapiens. Today, the Centers for Disease Control<\/a> estimates head lice infect 6 to 12 million people per year, traveling from scalp to scalp and laying eggs along the way. And as time goes on, they\u2019ve only evolved to survive lice-killing innovations. \u201cMother Nature has a better laboratory than we do,\u201d says Harvard entomologist Richard Pollack. \u201cSo this is a problem we\u2019re always going to have to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n

But over all those years, their means of infection hasn\u2019t changed. Head lice have always traveled exclusively through head-to-head contact\u2014it\u2019s community that keeps them alive. According to the CDC,<\/a> some studies suggest that young girls are the group most likely to contract the critters. Part of that reasoning comes down to the obvious. The vast, dark, and warm environment of many girls\u2019 long hair makes an ideal home for lice. But there\u2019s also a more sociological explanation. Women and girls are socialized as community builders who connect through physical and emotional intimacy.<\/p>\n

So, while the bugs inhabit children\u2019s hair more often, Pollack promises me that head lice can be par for the course for an adult with close-knit, caring relationships, \u201cBut in addition to emotional support, you run the risk of contracting some viruses,\u201d he says. As he talks, a montage plays: The 2-year-old I nanny wails into my neck after a scooter topple, my head nods off on a pal\u2019s shoulder during our road trip to the Women\u2019s March, and my eight besties squeeze on a bed, reassuring our friend she\u2019s much better than that scumbag from English class. (This whole thing is set to Willie Nelson\u2019s \u201cSeven Year Itch.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen want interdependence and to nurture their friends,\u201d friendship expert Anna Goldfarb says. Studies show women engage in \u201cface to face<\/a>\u201d friendships, meaning that women often spend time with their girlfriends just connecting, not necessarily doing an activity. Researchers<\/a> found that women tend to express more physical affection in friendships, and psychologists<\/a> found their friendships tend to be more \u201cintense, exclusive and emotionally close.\u201d I feel that closeness reflected in my friendships every day. During the uncertainty of the pandemic, watching 23 (yes, 23) seasons of Survivor on the couch with my college roommates offered rare joy and stability. When I grieved a family member while living in Australia, my girlfriends made me food, bought me flowers, and kept me afloat 9,237 miles away from home.<\/p>\n

Although getting lice tends to be a grimy consequence, often inconvenience is the price we pay to reap the benefits of community<\/a>. \u201cFrankly, there\u2019s nothing my daughter loves more than having a gang of kids over, mushing up on the bed and watching movies,\u201d says pest-management entomologist Dawn Gouge. \u201cYou don\u2019t ever want kids to stop having those lovely memories, you just have to manage the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, many of these physicality discrepancies have been studied only on a gender binary and relate to social factors discouraging physical affection among men. Anthropologist Alma Gottlieb notes that caretakers hold girl newborns more tenderly and for longer, and handle boys more vigorously and for less time. \u201cThat\u2019s really striking when you\u2019re talking about a creature just out of the womb,\u201d Gottlieb says. Sarah Hedgecock, a Tulane University postdoctoral fellow who studies girlhood, says she was called \u201cstrange for a girl\u201d growing up not wanting to hug her friends. When she\u2019s out with her husband, she notices he\u2019ll get a handshake and she\u2019ll get a hug. \u201cTouching is feminized,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

While I wouldn\u2019t trade my intimate relationships for a lice-free scalp, \u201cgirlhood\u201d also contributes to the gnarly stigma that getting lice carries. For a social group held to the standard of beauty and cleanliness, many girls don\u2019t want association with an allegedly \u201cdirty\u201d infliction.<\/p>\n

During my fourth bout of lice, as a high schooler in 2015, I went to a party flaunting my brand-new pale-pink tank and freshly flat-ironed hair. I\u2019d spent my ice-cream-scooping money to look this good in the hopes that my crush would pop the question: \u201cDo you want to hang out?\u201d I felt so cute all night, and then I felt \u2026 an itch. I panicked. Not out of fear of bugs potentially crawling around my scalp, but more that my crush would never talk to me again if that tickle turned out to be those all-too-familiar guests.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n

I wish that 16-year-old boy could have known the truth: Having lice doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m dirty. \u201cHuman lice don\u2019t care how often the hair is cleaned, washed, combed, or brushed,\u201d Pollack says. \u201cI\u2019ve seen them as often on hair that has never been attended to as on hair that gets shampooed multiple times a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

What really matters to lice is that you have hair, Pollack says. And, according to Gauge, the shape of that hair makes a difference. A \u201cround hair shaft\u201d\u2014flat, straight, or thin hair\u2014hosts lice more easily. Lice struggle to grip an \u201celliptical hair shaft\u201d\u2014tightly coiled, curly hair. However, if elliptical hair is tightly braided next to the head, then lice can thrive, she says. \u201cAll they need is that ability to cling on close to the scalp.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For all the joy that having lice represents to me, I still want to get rid of the buggers. If you find a critter, first confirm that it\u2019s a louse, not a garden insect, Pollack says. Then, you can treat it yourself with a fine-toothed lice comb and approved gel, or hire a professional. Some companies use heat treatments and some use manual removal to de-critter hair.<\/p>\n

As someone who\u2019s tried every removal method, is it wild to say I even treasure the community-building memories within the delousing process? My best friend and I would jump on her backyard trampoline with olive oil\u2013soaked hair, thrilled to skip school while our moms (less thrilled) poured wine and waited for the \u201clice detectives\u201d to arrive. We laughed, flipped, and selfied, feeling connected by being partners-in-bug.<\/p>\n

Yes, bugs in your hair are gross. But so is sitting on the ground of a bar with your college friends, spit pacts with summer-camp bunkmates, and weekends of pizza-filled Twilight binges with your roommates. That\u2019s girlhood\u2014messy, close, unfiltered, and worth every inconvenience.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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