Mothering While Black: Boundaries and Burdens of Middle-Class Parenthood

By Dawn Marie Dow

Book Overview

Mothering While Black examines the complex lives of the African American middle class--in particular, black mothers and the strategies they use to raise their children to maintain class status while simultaneously defining and protecting their children's "authentically black" identities. Sociologist Dawn Marie Dow shows how the frameworks typically used to research middle-class families focus on white mothers' experiences, inadequately capturing the experiences of African American middle- and upper-middle-class mothers. These limitations become apparent when she considers how these mothers apply different parenting strategies for black boys and for black girls, and navigate different expectations about breadwinning and childrearing from the African American community. At the intersection of race, ethnicity, gender, work and family, and culture and structure, Mothering While Black sheds light on African American middle-class mothers' exclusion from the dominant cultural experience of middle-class motherhood. In doing so, it reveals the painful truth of the decisions that black mothers must make to ensure the safety, well being, and future prospects of their children.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520300327
• ISBN13: 9780520300323
• Release Date: March 2019
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"