African American Single Mothers Research Articles

In the public sphere: Intimate partner violence against African American single mothers in child paternity disputes

In the United States, there are high levels of father absence, female-headed single-parent households, and intimate partner violence (IPV) in the African American community. While the relationship between single motherhood and father absence is yet to be showcased in studies of IPV against African American women, its relevance has been evident in the public sphere through the Maury Show (hereon Maury), a US daytime television talk show on paternity disputes. The paper draws on a sample of episodes of Maury and uses content analysis to showcase paternity disputes as a salient context within which African American single mothers can experience nonphysical IPV (i.e. psychological/emotional and economic). In the paternity disputes shown on Maury, patriarchal ideologies and stereotypes of African American women are reproduced to subject African American single mothers to psychological/emotional and economic abuse. Based on the findings, the paper is a call on stakeholders in IPV to prioritize the education of women, particularly single mothers, on the various sites (private and public), contexts and dynamics of nonphysical IPV.

Lived Experiences with Payday Loans: African American Single Mothers and Employees

Payday loans are disproportionately used by African Americans and women including single mothers. Little empirical research exists incorporating data from payday loan employees. This exploratory study used a phenomenological approach and in‐depth interviews to examine the lived experiences of two groups: African American single mothers who used payday loans and former payday loan employees who extended and collected on payday loans. The interviews resulted in four themes from the single mothers' experiences including “right decision at the time” and “it's addictive” and five themes from the former employees including “help the customer come back” and “relating to the customers.”

"People Think It's Easy Because I Smile, But It's Not Easy": The Lived Experiences of Six African American Single Mothers.

Grounded in Resilience Theory (Masten et al., 1990; Walsh, 1996; Walsh, 2002; Walsh, 2003) with a specific focus on parental resilience (Gavidia-Payne et al., 2015), this qualitative phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of low-income Female adult single parent (FASP) families. Each family had at least one adolescent aged 11 through 21 enrolled in special education classes and engaging in risk behaviors. Two central research questions were addressed. The first focused on the lived experiences of FASP and the second focused on their perspectives on how schools can enhance their support. Data were collected through face-to-face, in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Three major themes emerged: Life adjustment, The child is the priority, and Perseverance revealing their experience to be one of resilience. Participants also shared and provided insight on their perspectives regarding how schools can better support families. Findings revealed limited parent-school collaboration and highlight the need for further research with this population in the context of resilience. Suggestions for schools and communities working with such families are discussed.

“That’s Just Who I am”: African American High School Seniors and Their Mothers Perspectives on Academic Success

Much of the research on African American students tend to focus on the causes and consequences of academic failure. This fixation on negative outcomes continues to perpetuate deficit views of African American student achievement. As a consequence, far less is known about the successful academic outcomes of African American students, generally, and those from single-mother homes, specifically. Social workers can learn a lot about how to support and celebrate African American student achievement by allowing them and their families to give voice to their own lived experiences. Centering and honoring the unique taken-for-granted knowledges of African American students and their families offers social workers a more authentic understanding of students and families, insights that can inform both micro and macro level practice approaches. The purpose of this study was to explore academic success as perceived and experienced by African American high school students and their single mothers. This qualitative study utilized a narrative inquiry approach that used in-depth, semistructured interviews for data collection. The sample of seven African American high school seniors (four girls, three boys) and their single mothers were selected using purposeful sampling methods. Data analysis revealed that students’ inherent drive toward success, a deeply invested mother, and assistance from social-relational supports were key factors to academic success. Implications for social work practice are included.

Black Mothering in Action: The Racial-Class Socialization Practices of Low-Income Black Single Mothers

African Americans have long dealt with racism, discrimination, and racialized state and vigilante violence. As such, African American parents must educate their children about the realities of racism in the United States and how to cope with racism and discrimination. This practice, known as racial socialization, is a key aspect of Black parents’ parenting practices. Much of this labor tends to fall on the shoulders of Black mothers. To date, most of the scholarship on Black mothers’ racial socialization practices focuses on Black middle-class mothers. In this study, the author uses in-depth interviews with low-income African American single mothers in Virginia to examine how low-income Black single mothers racially socialize their children, what major concerns they express regarding raising Black children, and how their racial socialization practices and the concerns they express compare with those of Black middle-class mothers. Paralleling previous studies, the findings show that low-income Black single mothers generally fear for their children’s, especially their sons’, safety. They also invoke respectability politics when racially socializing their children, encouraging them not to dress or behave in ways that will reinforce stereotypes of Black boys as thugs or criminals. Diverging from previous research, however, the author argues that low-income Black single mothers’ employment of respectability politics is largely aspirational, as, unlike middle-class mothers, they are not able to assert their class status in an effort to prevent their children from experiencing discrimination.

Food Insecurity and Maternal Mental Health among African American Single Mothers Living with HIV/AIDS in the Alabama Black Belt.

Little is known about the relationship between food insecurity and depression among African American low-income single mothers living with HIV/AIDS in rural Alabama. Food insecurity is a neglected variable in bioethics, biomedical, behavioral, and health disparities research. Regression analyses of data from a survey of African American single mothers living with HIV/AIDS in Alabama's Black Belt were used to evaluate the association between food insecurity and depression. As determined by the USDA food insecurity scale, about 53% of the sample was classified as food insecure. In the bivariate regression model, food insecurity was associated with depression. After controlling for sociodemographic variables, food insecurity remained positively associated with depression in this sample. Food insecurity places low-income African American women at risk of depression. Given widespread poverty among HIV-positive individuals in the Black Belt, access to food should be considered in HIV-related prescriptions and in health disparities research.

The Impact of Parental Stress and Social Support on Behavioral Outcomes of Children in African American Single-Mother Households

The purpose of current study was to assess the relationship between parental stress, social support, and child behavior outcomes among single African American mothers. Mean differences and standard multiple regression analyses were employed to test the associations among parental stress, social support, and child behavior. Results indicated that parental stress and social support are related to internalized and externalized behaviors for African American children. Additionally, social support was found to moderate the relationship between parental stress and child behaviors. These results have implications for future research and interventions with single African American mothers and their children.

Filters of influence: The help-seeking process of African American single mothers living in poverty seeking mental health services for their children

ABSTRACTThere are a disproportionate number of African American children living in poverty who are in need of mental health services. African American children who live in poverty tend to underutilize mental health treatment due to the barriers their caregivers face; however, far less research has been conducted on the percentage of children who do access mental health treatment and the experiences of their caregivers in maneuvering through the barriers in their environments. This grounded theory study systematically generated a help-seeking theory that was constructed through the experiences of single African American mothers living in poverty who accessed mental health treatment for their children.

Applying Structural Family Therapy in the Changing Context of the Modern African American Single Mother

Structural Family Therapy (SFT) was developed by Salvador Minuchin in the 1960s, informed by the impact of the social and economic climate on his clients. While much has changed, racial minorities in the United States still face sociopolitical disadvantages. The authors of this article examine the applicability of SFT as a culturally competent modality for working with African American single mothers in this contemporary social context. The authors trace the context in which SFT was developed, discuss the current social climate, provide case examples to illustrate SFT’s efficacy across time, and discuss the role of empowerment and black feminism in contemporary SFT.

<em>“All I Do is Win . . . No Matter What”: Low-Income, African American Single Mothers and their Collegiate Daughters’ Unrelenting Academic Achievement</em>

In 1965 Daniel Moynihan, on behalf of United States, declared single-mothered home the source of most of aberrant, inadequate, or anti-social behavior that . . . serves to perpetuate cycle of poverty and deprivation (p. 30) among African Americans. Damning family a matriarchy, Moynihan (1965) fueled charred minds of national constituents concerned with Negro woman's familial position and alleged dominance. Fifty years later, scholars extoll single-mothers as stalwart household leaders (Jones et al., 2007) fostering independence (Mandara, Varner, & Richman, 2010), resilience (Billingsley, 1974; Brodsky, 2000), and strength (Hill, 1999; Turnage, 2004), particularly among their daughters (J. W. Scott, 1993; K. Scott, 2003; Shook et al., 2010).While research exists unmasking African American single mothers, their likely trials, as well as their rearing 51% of African American children (U.S. Census Bureau, 2013), little research explains how these mothers instill academic excellence in their collegiate daughters. Without such an analysis we remain subject to superficial education policies and mis-educating African American children, which fosters a cyclical breeding ground for ineffective teaching practices, misunderstanding, and inequity. This article seeks to support recent research by exploring heretofore hidden affair between single-mothers' parenting acts and their daughter's unrelenting academic achievement. Essentially, this inquiry ascertains collegeenrolled daughters' interpretations of their African American single mother's parenting acts, and how they win despite confounding circumstances.BLACK FEMINIST THOUGHTHistorically, society has suppressed Black woman's notion of truth due to its lacking an association with a conceptually validated epistemological premise. Black Feminist Thought (Hill Collins, 1989) validates Black woman's lived experiences as unique, distinct, and knowledge-based, despite their incongruence with mainstream White masculine thought. Furthermore, Black Feminist Thought seeks to discredit dominant group metanarrative by rearticulating and validating view and interpretations of world through Black woman's culture and traditions. Theories are based on interests and cultural perceptions of its creator (Hill Collins, 1989); therefore, need for Black female scholars to research and interpret experiences of Black women. Such is framework from which this inquiry is based.THE LITERATUREAfrican American Single-MotherhoodAfrican American families encompass an estimated 9,808,000 households across nation, 37% of which are led by single mothers raising their own children (U. S. Census Bureau, 2013). Between 2010-2011 single African American women gave birth at rates twice as high as their married peers (U. S. Census, 2012), resulting in over 51% of these 11,086,000 children residing in single-mothered households (U. S. Census Bureau, 2013). These mothers, averaging 38.4 years of age (U. S. Census Bureau, 2013), unquestionably bear brunt of raising African American progeny.More than 49% of African American daughters are raised by their single mother (U. S. Census Bureau, 2013). Scholars declare mother-daughter relationship is one of strongest, closest, and most impactful in human relationships-greatly influencing daughter's self-esteem, autonomy, abstention from illicit substances and sex, family loyalty, and marriage among other factors (De La Rosa et al., 2010; Gilford & Reynolds, 2011; Merten & Henry, 2011; Morris, 2007; Townsend, 2008). Single African American mothers are noted for differentially socializing their sons and daughters, resulting in varying degrees of maturity. While sons are encouraged to exemplify egalitarianism, and permitted to embrace their household freedom, daughters assume increased household responsibilities, hold higher educational expectations, and endure abridged freedom (Mandara, Varner, & Richman, 2010). …

Socializing Positive Emotion: A Qualitative Study of African American Single Mothers and Their Adolescent Youth

This study addressed limitations of emotion socialization (ES) research and is the first to explore socialization of positive emotion (PE) in 20 single African American (AA) mothers and their adolescents. Considering the dearth of research on ES with AA adolescents, an inductive, qualitative approach was warranted. A portion of mothers reported elevated depressive symptoms, which is important given their prevalence in AA women and that very few studies of ES have considered parental mental health. Although PE is gaining warranted attention in the scientific community based on recent data linking it to mental and physical health, PE has traditionally been a cornerstone of AA interactional style. The results suggest that AA mothers use complementary and contradictory responses to youth PE, often sharing and expanding, other times diminishing or teaching lessons. The findings emphasize the importance of racial and cultural considerations in ES practices and highlight the potential impact of elevated maternal depressive symptoms.

Socioeconomic status, parenting, and externalizing problems in African American single-mother homes: A person-oriented approach.

African American youth, particularly those from single-mother homes, are overrepresented in statistics on externalizing problems. The family is a central context in which to understand externalizing problems; however, reliance on variable-oriented approaches to the study of parenting, which originate from work with intact, middle-income, European American families, may obscure important information regarding variability in parenting styles among African American single mothers, and in turn, variability in youth outcomes as well. The current study demonstrated that within African American single-mother families: (a) a person-, rather than variable-, oriented approach to measuring parenting style may further elucidate variability; (b) socioeconomic status may provide 1 context within which to understanding variability in parenting style; and (c) 1 marker of socioeconomic status, income, and parenting style may each explain variability in youth externalizing problems; however, the interaction between income and parenting style was not significant. Findings have potential implications for better understanding the specific contexts in which externalizing problems may be most likely to occur within this at-risk and underserved group.

Coparenting experiences in African American families: an examination of single mothers and their nonmarital coparents.

African American youth from single-mother homes continue to be overrepresented in statistics on risk behavior and delinquency, a trend that many be attributed to father-absence, socioeconomic disadvantage, and compromises in parenting more typical of single than two-parent families. Yet, this risk-focused perspective ignores a long-standing strength of the African American community, the involvement and potential protective impact of extended family members in childrearing. This study describes the experiences of 95 African American single mothers and their nonmarital coparents who participated in a study of African American single-mother families with an 11-16-year-old child. Specifically, the study examines: (a) the extent to which nonmarital coparents are involved in childrearing; (b) the relative levels of risk (i.e., depression, mother-coparent conflict) and protective (i.e., parenting) associated with maternal and coparent involvement; and (c) how similarly and/or differently coparent and mother variables operate with regard to youth externalizing problems. Findings reveal that a range of family members and other adults actively participate in childrearing in African American single-mother families, coparents do not differ from mothers on certain study variables (i.e., depression and mother-coparent conflict) but do for others (parenting), and coparent involvement is associated with youth adjustment in ways that are similar to our more established understanding of maternal involvement. The potential clinical implications of the findings are discussed and future research directions are highlighted.

Parent-Child Communication about Sex in African American Mother-Son Dyads

Background: Parent-child sexual health communication is a well-documented protective factor against early sexual debut and other sexual risk behaviors. Yet, little is known about communication between single, African American mother-early adolescent son dyads. To address this, a mixed method, qualitative dominant, study design was used to explore the dynamics of sexual health communication between single African-American mothers and their early adolescent sons aged 11-14 years old. Methods: Mothers and sons, recruited from community health fairs and after-school programs, participated in separate in-depth semi-structured interviews to explore mother-son sexual health communication and sons completed a brief survey about sexual activity. Results: Mothers and sons expressed both comforts and discomforts with communication. Most mothers and sons reported high connectedness and felt comfortable talking with their sons about sex. Most sons agreed with the content of the sexual health message reported by their mothers, identified their mothers as approachable, and some sons reported that they would talk with their mothers before they started having sex. Mothers report providing a twoprong message to delay sexual debut and use condoms when sexually active and a strong desire to have their son disclose his intentions to sexually debut in order to facilitate sexual health decision-making and provide access to condoms. Findings from this study provide preliminary descriptive data that can be used by providers to facilitate parent-child sexual health communication during early adolescence and prior to a child's sexual debut.

Youth Functioning in the Coparenting Context: A Mixed Methods Study of African American Single Mother Families

African American youth from single mother families are at an elevated risk for externalizing difficulties, and yet are under-studied in terms of culturally-relevant health promoting influences on their adjustment or positive indices of adjustment. The current study utilized a mixed methods research design (quantitative data: n = 185; qualitative data n = 20) to examine associations between two parenting behaviors displayed by one health promoting influence, nonmarital coparents (i.e., adults identified as significantly involved in child-rearing), and indicators of both adjustment (self-esteem) and maladjustment (externalizing difficulties) among African American early adolescents from single mother homes. Quantitative findings provided support for a differential specificity parenting hypothesis involving coparent parenting behaviors. Coparent monitoring was significantly associated with youth externalizing symptoms but not self-esteem, and its association with externalizing symptoms was marginally stronger than its association with self-esteem. Coparent warmth was associated with both youth externalizing difficulties and self-esteem and significantly more strongly associated with self-esteem compared to externalizing symptoms. Qualitative findings from interviews with adolescent participants suggested that coparents were engaged in close, multi-faceted relationships with them, and, overall, those relationships involved a mixture of functions typically performed by both parental figures and mentors. Findings initially suggest that service providers may want to emphasize the benefits of coparents providing to youth from single mother families consistent social support and monitoring/re-direction, with the latter perhaps being most helpful in the context of a very close relationship between youth and coparents.

PUBLIC TALES WAG THE DOG

AbstractThis essay examines the case of Kelley Williams-Bolar—an African American single mother from Akron, Ohio—who in 2011 was arrested, charged with a felony, and jailed for sending her two daughters to a predominantly White suburban public school in Copley Township without meeting the township's residency requirements. This essay closely examines the case with particular attention paid to the important but often unacknowledged intersections of race, gender, economic privilege, spatial containment, and racialized criminalization that shaped the case. The Williams-Bolar case became a public site of contesting narratives, some obscuring these intersections, others acknowledging them. Those who supported Copley Township's prosecution of Williams-Bolar relied on a law and order mandate and fiscal responsibility that supported the dominant racial narrative while appearing to be race, gender, and class neutral. But many were critical of Williams-Bolar's arrest and the story used to justify it. Their response was a massive and heated online challenge that inspired existing and newly outraged parents and educational activists from a wide range of backgrounds, triggering petitions signed by hundreds of thousands of people requesting that the Governor of Ohio pardon Williams-Bolar.This essay places the case in the context of what I call the “invisible intersections of colorblind racism,” the racial privileges of housing and educational resource hoarding via private property taxes for suburban upper-middle-class Whites and the expanded application of the criminalization of the Black poor to Black mothers who receive state assistance by the judicial system, in political discourse and mass media narrative. Williams-Bolar's supporters used the power of social media to build community activism and to generate alternative narratives that countered the discursive and structural forces that were at work. Finally, this article considers the value and impact of alternative narratives about Williams-Bolar and her actions as generated by supporters.

“I'm Right By Doing What My Mother Says...”: A Pilot Study Chronicling African American Single Mothers'' Influence on Their Daughter''s Romantic Heterosexual Relationships

Recent research avows African American daughters learn to love and exercise resilience through direct and vicarious interactions with their mother. While little research thoroughly elucidates the African American mother-daughter relationship, even fewer studies explore the African American single mother's influence on her daughter's perception of men and romantic heterosexual relationships. For the purpose of this qualitative pilot study, Social Learning Theory and Black Feminist Thought were selected as theoretical paradigms, and Narrative Analysis as an applicable method for analyzing the data. Findings revealed, consistent with previous research, African American daughters revere their mother. Moreover, these daughters unconsciously replicate their mother's romantic relationships, comply with their mother's lessons on men and relationships, imitate their mother's demeanor, and select mates whose affect and behavior parallel their father's. Preliminary conclusions indicate the mother-daughter relationship is essentially the barometer by which the daughters gauged their own romantic relationships.

Work Socialization and Adolescents' Work-Related Values in Single-Mother African American Families

This study examined African American mothers' work socialization messages in relation to adolescents' work-related values. Moderation effects of mother–adolescent relation quality on the linkage between maternal socialization messages and adolescents' outcomes were also examined. Participants were 245 single African American mothers and their seventh- and eighth-grade children. Results showed that for boys, greater frequency of conventional messages (e.g., importance of discipline, hard work, and skills for job success) was associated with stronger endorsement of hard work for success, whereas for girls, this association was found only for those who perceived positive relations with their mothers. Race-related messages (e.g., the notion that African Americans have to work harder than Anglo Americans to get ahead) predicted girls' effort in schoolwork, but only among those who had less positive relations with their mothers. The importance of mother–child relations in the transmission of mothers' socialization messages to children is discussed.

Fathers' involvement and child behavior problems in poor African American single-mother families

The present study examined the effects of nonresident fathers' involvement–measured by the frequency of fathers' contact with their children and the quality of fathers' parenting–on their children's behavior problems. Using data from a subsample of African American single and non-cohabiting mothers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, results indicate that more frequent contact between fathers and their child and fathers' more adequate parenting were associated indirectly with fewer child behavior problems transmitted through more adequate parenting by mothers. The quality of mothers' parenting was associated positively with the quality of the mother–father relationship and with both the quality and the frequency of the fathers' contacts with their child. Policy and practice implications are discussed.

Contextualizing Single Parent–Preadolescent Drug Use Talks

This article aims to examine parent–child drug talks specific to African American single mothers and their preadolescent children who live in a inner city neighborhood. Thirty-two single mothers participated in 1-hr individual interviews describing how they communicated with their preadolescent (8–12 years old) about drug use. Three areas were addressed: why drug talks occur, how drug talks take place, and the content of these talks. The interviews revealed that parent–child drug talks were culturally and communally driven, taking place out of necessity, incorporating real life situations as evidence of drug use outcomes, and occurring quite frequently with open communication regarding drug use. The implications are discussed related to the design of parent–child communication strategies in preadolescent drug use prevention.