Little Girl and their hair

It breakes my heart every time I see a little girl with a relaxer! It makes me think of how it might affect their self image, and how it may affect them in the future.
Yesterday I met a friend of a friend and her daughter, she's I believe West African and the father is Swedish. I was wearing my hair big, I hadn't added more leave in or sprayed it in the morning, so the curls were less defined and frizzy. But I still got a lot of compliments on it, it was a Esperanza style 'fro :)

So the woman with the daughter looked at my hair and me and asked me where my parents were from and complimented on which a beautiful mix I am. Then she said her daughter has hair like mine, but she has to put "cream" in it to be able to manage it. I was tongue tied! Of course I saw her daughter's hair was relaxed! But I didn't know what to say! 'Cause to me the choice between having relaxed hair and having my hair is obvious! And my hair is NOT hard to manage!
I really wish I would have said something. But my mind was not working, and we were in a very busy place, so I couldn't think of one good thing to say. I just wish I could save that little girl's hair!