Black Single Mothers Research Articles

BLACKNESS AND DIS/ABILITY IN THE AFROFUTURIST CHRISTMAS NOVELLA SYNCHRONICITY (2015) BY SHARON DODUA OTOO*

ABSTRACTCharlie, the main character in Sharon Dodua Otoo's Afrofuturist Christmas novella Synchronicity, is a Black single mother of Ghanaian heritage working as a graphic designer in Berlin who has spent her whole life feeling the constraints of her ancestral traditions. When one day she starts losing her ability to see colours, she cannot disclose that family‐specific dis/ability since it would have professional and material consequences. Charlie embarks on a journey of self‐reflection, in the course of which she will realise that something that at first seemed to be a loss could, in fact, be a blessing in disguise. My essay analyses the intersection of Blackness and dis/ability in Synchronicity through the lens of DisCrit: a theoretical approach associating Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory, and argues that Otoo's novella manages to effectively depict the intersections regarding the onset of an invisible dis/abilty as well as Blackness and diasporic experiences, while an Afrofuturist reading of the novella allows us to consider it as a story based on hope, self‐acceptance and the need for community.

Sisters in the “Hostile Environment”: A Womanist Theological Analysis of Brexit

ABSTRACT This article builds upon Anthony Reddie's Theologising Brexit by offering a womanist perspective in response to his postcolonial and liberationist critique. In keeping with the framing of Reddie's argument I begin with history, by drawing on feminist historians which demonstrate that British enslavement, colonialism and mission should be understood as gendered as well as racialised forms of oppression in Africa and the Caribbean. In the second section, I critique Britain's “hostile environment” policies and Brexit as continuations of Britain's White supremacist and masculinist colonial past by centring the experiences of the “Zambrano carers”: predominantly single Black mothers left destitute by the UK government, and Black and Brown Muslim women who have borne the brunt of Islamophobic violence. In the final section I look to Hagar in Delores Williams's Sisters in the Wilderness to theologise Brexit with these women who are marginalised and dehumanised in contemporary British society.

Black Mothers in Racially Segregated Neighborhoods Embodying Structural Violence: PTSD and Depressive Symptoms on the South Side of Chicago.

This study employs multi-level and mixed-methods approaches to examine how structural violence affects the health of low-income, single Black mothers. We use multilevel regression models to examine how feeling "trapped" in racially segregated neighborhoods with high levels of violence on the South Side of Chicago affects mothers' (N = 69) reports of posttraumatic stress disorder and depressive symptoms. The relationship between feeling "trapped" and variations in expression of mRNA for the glucocorticoid receptor gene NR3C1 using microarray assays was also examined. The regression models revealed that feeling "trapped" significantly predicted increased mental distress in the form of PTSD, depressive symptoms, and glucocorticoid receptor gene regulation. The mothers' voices revealed a nuanced understanding about how a lack of financial resources to move out of the neighborhood creates feelings of being "trapped" in dangerous situations.

Contributing Factors to the Housing Cost Burden of Female-Headed Households

While the United States housing cost burden has reached historically high levels for all households in recent years, female-headed households with children tend to bear a significant portion this burden. This study uses data from the 2015 and 2019 American Housing Survey to explore the disparities in housing cost burdens among female-headed households. In general, the results from the fixed effect model reveal that housing assistance significantly decreases the female-headed household's housing cost burden, while renting tends to increase the female householders’ housing burden compared to owning. The fixed effect parameters suggest that single Black mothers experienced a high housing cost burden in 2015 and 2019, more than any other category of Black female-headed households for both years. Likewise, single Hispanic mothers also face large housing cost burdens, which increased from 2015 to 2019. This finding should guide inquiries into the impact of changes in federal policies on the immigrant status on the rising housing cost burden of the Hispanic female cohort. The study's findings suggest an increase in public housing and rental assistance programs that benefit single black mothers with children and other vulnerable households.

Guaranteed income: experiences of African American mothers in the Magnolia Mother’s Trust Project

ABSTRACT The Magnolia Mother’s Trust Project seeks to spotlight the impact of consumer sovereignty inherent in cash transfers to low-income single mothers. The project offered a guaranteed income benefit of $12,000 for one year to 110 Black single mothers in Jackson, Mississippi. Participants were within 200% of the poverty threshold. The aim of this investigation is to describe the project and report preliminary findings of outcomes related to community connectedness, health, and family wellness for Magnolia Mother’s Trust participants. This report highlights the differences in preliminary outcomes between Magnolia Mothers and similarly situated women who did not receive the cash supplement. Implications for policy and further investigation are discussed in the conclusion.

The myth of Black father absenteeism—exploring attachment theory, gendered racism, and the "breakdown of family"

I explore the myth of Black father absence and its deleterious effects, by critically reflecting on attachment theory, gendered racism, and the idea of family breakdown. This myth makes sense within a culture that emphasises the exclusive importance of biological mothers and fathers. Building on intersectionality theory, multidimensionality theorists argue that Black men are also discriminated against by virtue of being Black and male. Gendered racism therefore pathologises Black men, Black women, and the Black family as a whole. In particu- lar, as part of the "family breakdown" narrative, "single Black mothers" whose children "do not have a father present in their lives", are a problem to be resolved and a set of problems waiting to happen. Such narratives uphold the political peddling that encourages us to focus on individual behaviour, and not on social context. In contrast, I argue for the importance of an attachment to the world, not just one caregiver, and explore the ways that racism posi- tions some people as belonging, whilst others have their secure base or "epistemic home" (Kinouani, 2021) constantly undermined. Alternatively, developing more social awareness would lead to an appreciation of Black men, Black women, and the Black community as an attachment network.

Improving Black adolescent daughter-single mother relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.: A brief exploration of participant experiences.

PurposeUnderstand whether and how Black adolescent daughters’ relationships with their single mothers could be strengthened through an intervention to address adverse experiences and stress during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsFive Black adolescent daughters of single mothers and five Black single mothers with adolescent daughters were interviewed during the pandemic who participated in a program designed to improve Black adolescent daughter-single mother relationships.ResultsChanges in work and school requirements impacted the daughter-mother relationship, with most respondents suggesting their relationships improved during COVID-19 due to involvement in this program.ConclusionsDespite the stress and strain of COVID-19, involvement in similar programs can strengthen daughter-mother relationships.

An Evaluation of Building Our Nation's Daughters (BOND): Improving Black Single Mother-Daughter Relationships and Well-Being.

Although single mothers report being most concerned about financial costs, the needs of these mothers and their children are more extensive. The current study evaluated a program for Black single mothers with adolescent daughters that emphasized the mother-daughter relationship and coping skills to promote well-being. The program is Building Our Nation’s Daughters (BOND). Individual interviews were conducted with five mothers and five daughters who had participated in BOND. Interviews were conducted online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed to allow for coding and analysis of qualitative data. Mothers and daughters also verbally provided numeric outcome ratings specific to select outcomes. Mother and daughter well-being improved based both on self-report and report of the other member of the dyad (i.e., mother for daughter, daughter for mother). Results suggest programs like BOND have the capacity to improve mood and strengthen the mother-daughter relationship through development of coping skills and conflict resolution skills. The evaluated program improved mother and daughter well-being in part through skills building, but importantly through improvement in the mother-daughter relationship, as well. BOND could be used as a template for similarly situated families. For example, the program could be modified to address the needs of single father households and single caregiver households with adolescent boys.

Uncovering Social Stratification: Intersectional Inequalities in Work and Family Life Courses by Gender and Race

Abstract Enduring and accumulated advantages and disadvantages in work and family lives remain invisible in studies focusing on single outcomes. Further, single outcome studies tend to conflate labor market inequalities related to gender, race, and family situation. We combine an intersectional and quantitative life course perspective to analyze parallel work and family lives for Black and White men and women aged 22–44. Results using sequence analysis and data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) show that White men enjoy privileged opportunities to combine work and family life and elicit specific gendered and racialized constraints for Black men and women and White women. Black women experience the strongest interdependence between work and family life: events in their work lives constrain and condition their family lives and vice versa. For Black men, stable partnerships and career success mutually support and sustain each other over the life course. In contrast, for Black women, occupational success goes along with the absence of stable partnerships. Precarious and unstable employment is associated with early single parenthood for all groups supporting instability spillovers between life domains that are most prevalent among Black women, followed by Black men. The findings highlight a sizeable group of resourceful Black single mothers who hold stable middle-class jobs and have often gone unnoticed in previous research. We conclude that economic interventions to equalize opportunities in education, employment, and earnings, particularly early in life, are more promising for reducing intersectional inequalities in work-family life courses than attempting to intervene in family lives.

Singled out no longer: The changing narratives and types of single‐parent families

AbstractSingle parenthood has risen dramatically in the United States over the last 50 years, along with social science research on these families. Some of this early research centered on causes as well as the consequences of single parenthood, especially on children, the latter of which many scholars argue reifies differences as problematic in single‐parent families by comparing them against the “normative” framework of heterosexual, married‐parent families. More recently, however, there has been much growth in social science research that examines the lived experiences of single parents and their children. In this review, I focus on this expanding field of inquiry and present research that highlights the diversity and complexity of single‐parent families. In particular, I summarize the classed, raced, and gendered media and public discourse on single parents, the changing demographics of single parenthood in the United States, and the ways that poor, Black single mothers are shifting the narrative on these families. I also discuss three types of single‐parent families that have received increasing scholarly attention: single parents in multigenerational homes, single fathers, and single parents “by choice.” These subtypes further nuance discussion of single parenthood by highlighting the growing diversity of these families. New developments and future directions for research on single parenthood are also discussed.

It’s All About the Poise: Meghan Markle, Doria Ragland, and Black Motherhood(s)

This article considers the celebrity persona of Doria Ragland, the mother of Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex. In the run-up to Markle’s marriage to Prince Harry in May 2018, there was significant press speculation about the roles Markle’s family might play in the wedding ceremony. At the event, the only member of Markle’s family who was present was Ragland. She thus embodies a figure, the Black single mother, who is stigmatized in white popular culture and politics and in discourses of Black respectability. This article performs a close reading of three key images of Ragland that have circulated widely. These are a photograph of her from her daughter’s wedding, an Instagram photo of her with her grandson, and an photo of her meeting survivors of the fire at Grenfell Tower. These images work to offer an image of Ragland as dignified, calm, and poised. While this may seem to celebrate a progressive vision of Black single motherhood, emphasis on her poise betrays how Ragland is assessed through the extent of her rigid conformity to highly racialized and gendered norms.

Study urges researchers to take into account the effect of intersectional “identities”, such as black single-mothers, Native American women, or gay fathers

PurposeThe existing work-life literature is full of studies that consider the influence of a single social identity, which is “an individual’s self-concept derived from membership in a social group.” There are many values and emotions attached to a social identity, but in the modern world, individuals often belong to more than one social grouping. Therefore, the authors wanted to discuss the effect of belonging to “multiply stigmatised groups.”Design/methodology/approachThe authors began their study with a review of the literature in the work-life space on multiply stigmatized identities. They included ProQuest searches of 104 databases using key words such as “religion”, “ethnicity”, “race”, “disability”, “sexual orientation”, “religion” and “intersectionality.” They found 31 papers that focused on the intersection of two, or more, identities.FindingsThe study provides a framework for future research into the impact of multiple identities on issues of power and privilege. If intersectionality is not considered, the authors say, there will be “unidentified needs, ignored values, unresolved conflicts and unhelpful advice.”Originality/valueThe authors said they had written the paper in response to the criticism that work-life research tends to focuses on the experiences of middle, or upper-class, younger, white, western and heterosexual women.

Exploring Spatially Varying Relationships Between Preterm Birth and Socioeconomic, Demographic, and Behavioral Factors in Georgia, USA Using Geographically Weighted Logistic Regression

Preterm birth (PTB) is an important cause of infant morbidity and mortality around the world. A good understanding of its associations with relevant factors is essential for an effective reduction in PTB risk. This study explores the spatially varying relationships between PTB and demographic, socioeconomic, and behavioral factors in the state of Georgia, USA using Geographically Weighted Logistic Regression (GWLR). The results show the relationships between PTB and factors vary over space, and the spatial patterns in the varying relationships are related to the socioeconomic and urbanization characteristics of the communities where the births were located. For example, PTB has significant positive relationships with black mothers and single mothers, and significant negative relationships with maternal education in the majority of Georgia, but such relationships are insignificant in small portions of rural Georgia with low socioeconomic status (SES). PTB has significant positive relationships with maternal age and parity, and significant negative relationships with female births in small portions of Georgia, particularly in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area, while in larger portions of rural Georgia with overall low SES, those relationships are not significant. Thus, health prevention and intervention policies should be tailored to address the locally important factors to reduce PTB risk.

Factors Affecting the Decision of Postnatal Mothers to Donate Milk at a Government Satellite Human Milk Bank Site, in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.

The need for donor human milk has accelerated both locally and globally. To remain sustainable, human milk banks need to maintain effective recruitment including frequent donations of adequate volumes. To determine (1) which factors influenced mothers' willingness to give or receive donor human milk, and the influence of (2) socio-demographics, (3) pregnancy, (4) breastfeeding history, (5) prior knowledge of human milk banks, and (6) general factors on milk donations. This was a cross-sectional, prospective, descriptive study. Interviewer administered questionnaires were used (N = 148). Independent sample t-tests and one-sample t-tests were used to determining differences in variables. The sample population consisted of mainly single (n = 104, 70.3%) Black African mothers (n = 127, 85.8%) who identified as Christian (n = 97, 65.6%) with a mean age of 24.8 (SD = 5.63) years. The majority (n = 120, 81.1%) had no prior knowledge of human milk banks; however, most (n = 78, 52.7%) were significantly likely to donate. The main factors that influenced the participants' willingness to donate were altruism (n = 99, 66.9%), information provided by staff at hospitals/clinics (n = 92, 62.2%), amount of milk produced (n = 69, 46.4%), fear of not having enough milk for their own infant (n = 68, 45.9%), and support from family/friends/partner (n = 67, 45.3%). There is a strong need to increase visibility and information sharing with potential donor mothers to ensure a sustainable supply and system of human milk banks.

Narratives of single, black mothers using cultural capital to access autism interventions in schools

Lack of access to autism treatment has deepened the disparities for Black children with ASD. Limited resources and lack of advocacy skills in Black families are reasons given for these service gaps but a need to identify mechanisms that support Black families access to treatment for their children have yet to be investigated. This paper explores the forms of cultural capital single Black mothers use to advocate for their children with autism in schools in the US. Using a Thematic Analysis, interviews were coded for several domains of cultural capital found in the literature, including aspirational, familial, social, linguistic, resistant, navigational, motherhood and black cultural capital. Mothers in the study predominately provided examples of resistant and navigational capital. Additionally, mothers were more likely to use their capital to impact services for their child, when schools engaged in family-centered practice.

Birthing Knowledge Production as Resistance

ABSTRACT
 How does risk of mortality during childbirth become internalized and embodied in Black communities? While mainstream news articles aim to bring attention to inadequacies in Black maternal healthcare, few ethnographies elucidate the effect that these risk factors have on Black women’s psychosocial health and the support networks they turn to in order to mitigate risk.
 My ethnography analyzes the effects of institutional racism on maternal mortality risk factors, specifically toxic stress and grounds Black maternal health in the context of a burgeoning doula movement in Mississippi. Through tracing the psychosocial and emotional support networks of single Black mothers on WIC and working Black mothers, I elucidate several inadequacies in healthcare models of maternal care. I identify the framework of medicalization in pregnancy care that arose in Mississippi in 1920, as a way to dismantle existing Black birth work communities, mitigate infant mortality risk, and subsequently stratified birthing knowledge production. Through an analysis of midwifery and doula work in Mississippi, this article traces the displacement of Black midwives and other nonmedical Black birth workers in Mississippi and the distrust these communities harbor towards hospitals in the present-day.
 My article primarily aims to bring equity to Black birth workers modes of knowledge production. It explores intergenerational distrust and fear in the context of Black maternal health in Mississippi. First, I trace the unequal landscape of birthing care for Black women in Mississippi from the development of public health in 1920 to the current locales of clinical care. Next, I emphasize intergenerational trauma as contributing to stress for Black expectant mothers and the need for psychosocial support. Finally, I present findings that recommend integration and standardization of doulas in the healthcare system and centering maternal psychosocial support in communities.

Evictions & Inequality in North Minneapolis: Centering Community in the Creation of Public Policy

Single Black mothers face the highest risk of eviction in the United States. In North Minneapolis, a community manufactured to contain undesirable populations through housing discrimination, decades of urban disinvestment, and unfair lending practices, the situation has become further exacerbated by the rise in distressed-property investment and disproportionate rates of eviction. This community-engaged action research project engages with tenants and landlords to illuminate how and why evictions occur in North Minneapolis, MN. The approach disrupts the power imbalance that exists between researchers, local power brokers, and community-based organizations to produce research findings that both value people’s lived experiences and utilize those experiences to produce community-centered public policy solutions. Community-centered policy solutions include lengthening the formal eviction process, creating a more human-centered process for financial support, and disrupting a cycle of dependency that is often reinforced by the state.

Black mothers’ recreational choices for their children: a critical race theory story

ABSTRACT Using critical race theory (CRT), this paper examined how race influenced Black mothers’ recreational choices for their children. In presenting the findings, this paper used storytelling inspired by interviews conducted with single Black mothers living in a small midwestern U. S. town. Black mothers hoped to prepare their children to successfully navigate society through recreation opportunities, but often found limited community-based recreational opportunities in their neighbourhood. Mothers felt the need to protect their children from programs that perpetuated racist stereotypes, tokenism, and discrimination against their children and/or Blacks in general. Some mothers felt that stereotypes and discrimination were embedded in programmatic offerings, and tokenism was used in recreational programs where many of the staff and children were White. In telling the story of single Black mothers’ efforts to find appropriate programs for their children, this paper highlights the structural racism still embedded in today’s community-based recreational offerings.

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.

Effects of gentrification on health status after Hurricane Katrina.

Despite substantial debate about the impacts of gentrification on cities, neighborhoods, and their residents, there is limited evidence to demonstrate the implications of gentrification for health. We examine the impacts of gentrification on several health measures using a unique individual-level longitudinal data set. We employ data from the Resilience in Survivors of Hurricane Katrina (RISK) project, a study of low-income parents, predominantly non-Hispanic Black single mothers, who participated in a New Orleans-based study before and after Hurricane Katrina. After Katrina, all participants were displaced, at least temporarily, from New Orleans, and had little or no control over neighborhood placement immediately following the storm. This near-random displacement after Katrina created a natural experiment. We employ a quasi-experimental intent to treat design to assess the causal effects of gentrification on health in the RISK population. We do not find evidence of significant main effects of being displaced to a gentrified neighborhood on BMI, self-rated health, or psychological distress. The analysis employs a quasi-experimental design and has several additional unique features--homogeneous population, limited selection bias, and longitudinal data collection-- that improve our ability to draw causal conclusions about the relationship between gentrification and health. However, the unique context of displacement by natural disaster may limit the generalizability of our findings to other circumstances or residents experiencing gentrification.