Racial Differences in Mother-Child Coresidence in the Past

Abstract

authors argue that racial differences in contemporary family patterns in the United States reflect substantial cultural and historical continuity of African and Western European family patterns. Discussion focuses on the coresidence of mothers and young children. Using data from the Public Use Samples of the 1910 Census, the authors show that African American mothers were much more likely than European American, native-born mothers to have young children who were not coresidents. authors argue that sending children to live elsewhere is a violation of Western norms. These norms were violated more frequently by European Americans and by African Americans in crisis situations. Nevertheless, racial differences remain strong. African American mothers, compared with European Americans, were especially likely to have young children not living with them when the mothers were enumerated in spouse-present situations. This finding suggests that mother-child coresidence norms were weaker for African Americans than for native-born European Americans. Key Words: African Americans, family, racial differences. Do racial differences in contemporary family patterns in the United States reflect substantial cultural and historical continuity of West African and Western European family patterns? We make the general case for such continuity in motherchild coresidence. We provide a test of these ideas by using data from the 1910 U.S. Census. Substantial numbers of African Americans and European Americans violated the norms of Western European mother-child coresidence when in crisis situations, but African American mothers did this most often and were more likely than European Americans to have young children who did not live with them when the mothers were enumerated in noncrisis situations. This suggests that the norms of mother-child coresidence were weaker for African Americans than for nativeborn European Americans. Racial differences in the past that mirror contemporary U.S. and West African patterns lend credibility to our broad theoretical argument. CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONTINUITY IN FAMILY PATTERNS Could there be historical continuity between African and African American families? Many have assumed that the migratory experience of Africans and their enslavement destroyed any African connection. Note Park's (1919) statement: The Negro, when he landed in the United States, left behind him almost everything but his dark complexion and his tropical temperament (p. 116). In contrast, note that most scholars assume that the migratory experience of European-derived populations may have changed, but could not have eliminated, their European origins. U.S. was settled by Europeans, mainly west Europeans, who brought with them the culture and history of Europe, which they applied, with adaptation, to new conditions. Caldwell and Ruzicka (1978) have noted the extraordinary similarity of family formation and marriage patterns in European-derived, English-speaking populations of Britain, New Zealand, Canada, and the U.S. Few would argue that European Americans are Europeans, yet fewer would deny the common cultural origins of Western Europeans and European Americans. African family patterns are fundamentally different from Western European patterns (Radcliffe-Brown, 1950; Sudakarsa, 1981). Radcliffe-Brown was among the first to note that the strongest ties in African families are consanguineal rather than conjugal. Extended residence, early marriage, polygyny, and child fosterage are central features that distinguish African and European family life. However, many researchers have not recognized the significance of these differences for family structure in the U.S. Previously, only the negative aspects of enslavement were viewed as relevant to the historiography of African American family structure, thereby reducing this history to a simple reaction to European oppression (McDaniel, 1990). To demonstrate a link between Africa and the African diaspora is a huge research agenda, but an existing literature links African and African American family structure (Billingsley, 1992; McDaniel, 1990, 1994; Morgan, McDaniel, Miller, & Preston, 1993; Nobles, 1978; Sudarkasa, 1975, 1981). …