"Real Men Can Braid" teaches dads to style daughters' hair

If you search for dads styling their daughter's hair on YouTube, you'll likely find some inventive ways of getting the job done. But other dads are stepping into the salon to learn how to style their daughters' hair in a more polished fashion, reports CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano.

At Cozy's Cuts For Kids in New York City, dads are getting their first lesson in the art of the ponytail and learning the patience needed to work with their wary models. Some dads come to learn how to help during the morning rush and braid over breakfast.

For stay-at-home dad Travis McArthur, it's a daily dilemma. After McArthur lost his job, he swapped hair care responsibilities with his wife. For him, the worst part of getting his daughter out the door for school is the hair.

"That's where the most frustration sets in," McArthur said.

Cozy Friedman created the "Real Men Can Braid" class in July.

"The attendance has been great," Friedman said, laughing."We had to turn people away from the first class, and we've been booked ever since."

Friedman hopes to give each dad the tools and the confidence to face some of their biggest fears.

"We gripped it, we pulled it, we ripped it, we tied it, we banded it. There's no blood. We're good!" Ryann's dad Jerry Mastellon said.

"This is my first time ever," another father and attendee Jonathan Steiner said.

Many of the dads said that as they share more duties with their spouses, hair styling was the final frontier.

"Love it. Went from not knowing anything to now I can do a ponytail," he said.

Once the dads mastered the ponytail they graduated to hair-braiding and buns.

Friedman thought she'd mostly get wives signing up their husbands for the class, but she's been surprised by all of the phone calls and emails she's been getting from dads.

"I think that parents and dads and moms, everyone is just so much more in-tune to the needs of children, to the family ... of being together," Friedman said.

"I like to share, you know, responsibilities," McArthur said. "I don't feel like my wife should have to do a certain task just because society says that's what women have always done."

It's not just a mom thing, he said, but a "parent thing."

When CBS News met with McArthur a week after the class, he told us he's feeling more confident heading into the start of another school year.

"I think it looks really cute," McArthur told his daughter, Jena, as they looked into the mirror.

Friedman has taught in Minneapolis and New York City and will soon be teaching classes in San Francisco and Chicago. A Denver salon also has styling classes for fathers.