Black Single Mothers Research Articles

Validation of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale in black single mothers.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factor structure of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale in a community sample of Black single mothers and to evaluate the scale's construct validity. Principal components and exploratory factor analysis were used. The participants responded to the CES-D scale and Spielberger's State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory. The final sample consisted of 208 Black single mothers aged 18-45 years. A 2-factor structure was accepted. Construct validity was confirmed via significant correlations with the anger scales. A method artifact for the 2-factor solution was ruled out. The CES-D scale is valid for use with Black single mothers. Additional psychometric evidence for the CES-D for Black single mothers is warranted.

Self-Perceptions of Black Single Mothers Attending College

Abstract The present study examined the self-perceptions of 28 Black single mothers enrolled in a four-year college program in the U.S. Participants (M age = 30 yr., SD = 6.1) described their experiences and self-narratives as Black single mothers who are studying and working in addition to their child-raising duties. A structured interview format was utilized to collect the data, which were analyzed qualitatively. The findings indicated that these mothers successfully navigated their various roles. Six themes emerged from the interviews: these mothers focused on family cohesiveness, education, spirituality, support networks (family and government), motivation for a better life in addition to teaching their children to respect others. Implications for practice are offered for enhancing the parenting success of single Black mothers.

The Power of a Single Mother: The Influence of Black Women on Their Sons' Academic Performance

This study examines the ways single Black mothers contribute to the educational success of their 11th-grade sons, despite the fact that their sons are enrolled in “failing schools.” Data from five interviews and one focus group reveal common characteristics of how single-Black mothers help their sons beat the odds.

Being a Good Mom

The tenacity of the intensive mothering ideology—the notion that good mothers should invest vast amounts of time, money, energy, and emotional labor in mothering—is well documented, particularly among affluent White mothers. Drawing on 16 interviews with low-income, Black single mothers, we analyze how gender, race, class, and the ideology of intensive mothering intersect to shape these mothers’ parenting. Mothers repeatedly emphasized the importance of sacrifice, self-reliance, and protection. In short, good mothers sacrifice for their children; they are self-reliant and teach their children to be this way too; and they protect their children. We argue that low-income mothers embrace and perform intensive mothering in the absence of larger social supports for their children’s upbringing and at a cost to their own emotional and physical well-being.

Somebody’s Children: The Politics of Transracial and Transnational Adoption

Somebody’s Children: The Politics of Transracial and Transnational Adoption

Black Mothers' Perceptions about Urban Neighborhood Safety and Outdoor Play for their Preadolescent Daughters

Using narratives of single low-income Black mothers with preadolescent children in a high-crime neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey, this study aims (1) to understand if and how neighborhood safety influences mothers' decisions about allowing their daughters to play outdoors and (2) to identify what neighborhood changes would need to occur to alter their perceptions about safety. Mothers reported that unpredictable violence, related to drug and gang activity of neighbors, and the absence of safe play areas in their neighborhood led them to sequester their daughters indoors. Hostile neighborhood conditions contributed to children's physical inactivity and put girls at risk for obesity.

Single Mothers, Nonresident Fathers, and Preschoolers’ Socioemotional Development: Social Support, Psychological Well-Being, and Parenting Quality

ABSTRACT Using data from two waves of a short-term longitudinal study, the influences of mothers’ social support with respect to parenting from nonresident fathers and significant others on behavioral outcomes among poor and near-poor preschool-aged Black children were examined. The sample consisted of 99 single Black mothers—each with a preschool-aged child (ages 3 and 5 years old, respectively, at Time 1 and Time 2)—who were current and former welfare recipients. Results revealed protective effects of nonresident fathers’ presence in the context of mothers’ parenting stress and depressive symptoms at Time 1 that appeared to operate through decreases in the negative influences of these variables on the children's development of behavior problems 1.5 to 2 years later. Greater availability of instrumental support from significant others, including nonresident fathers, was associated with more adequate parenting at Time 1, and through the latter, with fewer child behavior problems at Time 2. Implications of these findings for program and policy interventions are discussed. Nonresident fathers are described in the Appendix.

TRAPPED IN LEGAL DISCOURSE: TRANSRACIAL ADOPTION IN THE UNITED STATES AND ENGLAND

“Making the NABSW the villain of the story, making that group responsible for why black children were disproportionately in the child welfare system, misses that organization’s real and substantial contribution to this debate: it tried to call attention to the ways black single mothers are targeted by the child protection systems, and tried to defend those mothers”.There are large numbers of ethnic minority children in state child care that are awaiting adoptive families. For many, these adoptive families never materialise. This is true in the United States as well as in England. Some argue that the solution is to promote transracial adoption—for white adoptive families to adopt ethnic minority children. The idea of transracial adoption is a highly emotive one, bringing together issues of race and adoption, both of which on their own can bring forth strong visceral reactions

Single Black Mothers’ Role Strain and Adaptation across the Life Course

This study examines how Black single mothers maintain resiliency, despite having family provider role strain (e.g., low income, joblessness, and underemployment). Guided by a strengths-based role strain and adaptation approach that addresses how ethnic-specific strengths facilitate resiliency across the life course, we extend Bowman and Sanders (Journal of Comparative Family Studies 29:39–56, 1998) work on Black unmarried fathers. We focus on the role of strong religious beliefs and extended family closeness in protecting psychological functioning, despite having family provider role difficulties. Multivariate analyses were conducted on a sub-sample of 617 single Black mothers using the National Survey of Black Americans, a national probability sample survey which includes data from 2,107 face-to-face interviews. The early postindustrial era of the late 1970s and 1980s created critical and unprecedented provider role challenges because both Black men and women faced the highest levels of joblessness and economic marginality since the Great Depression of the 1930s. As hypothesized, strong religious beliefs and extended family closeness operated as significant protective factors promoting more resilient outcomes—a sense of personal efficacy, self-esteem, and life satisfaction. These theory-driven findings can also guide future policy-relevant research on more complex provider role strain–adaptation processes among Black mothers facing chronic poverty during the 2007 Great Recession and beyond.

Black Adolescent Mothers’ Perspectives on Sex and Parenting in Nonmarital Relationships with the Biological Fathers of Their Children

To understand single Black adolescent mothers' perspectives on the sexual and parenting-related aspects of their relationships with the biological fathers of their children. The study was a qualitative description of perspectives from a convenience sample of Black single (nonmarried) adolescent mothers. Data were generated through focus groups and interviews. Participants were recruited using self-referral and health provider referrals. The study was conducted in a county public health department sexually transmitted diseases clinic in Rochester, New York. Single mothers (N=31) ages 15 to 19 participated in the study. The mean age of participants was 17.5 years (SD = 1.4). Four themes were identified that reflected the major characteristics of the relationships between the mothers and the biological fathers of their children: (a) You will always care about your "baby daddy" because of your child, (b) Negative behavior is tolerated to keep the family together, (c) The "baby daddy" can get sex as long as we are not on bad terms, and (d) He will always be part of our lives. Black adolescent mothers have complex relationships with the biological fathers of their children that may include ongoing sexual activity. The intersection of coparenting and sexual health needs among adolescent mothers highlights the importance of integrating sexually transmitted infections prevention with perinatal health programs. It is important to consider this unique coparenting relationship when providing risk-reduction counseling to young mothers.

Single Parenting and Child Behavior Problems in Kindergarten

Two waves of data from a sample of 89 poor and near-poor single black mothers and their preschool children were used to study the influences of parenting stress, physical discipline practices, and nonresident fathers’ relations with their children on behavior problems in kindergarten. The results indicate that higher levels of parent stress, more frequent spanking, and less frequent father–child contact at time 1 were associated with increased teacher-reported behavior problems at time 2. In addition, more frequent contact between nonresident biological fathers and their children moderated the negative effect of harsh discipline by mothers on subsequent child behavior problems. Specifically, when contact with the father was low, maternal spanking resulted in elevated levels of behavior problems; with average contact, this negative effect of spanking was muted; and with high contact, spanking was not associated with increased behavior problems in kindergarten. The implications of these findings for future research and policy are discussed.

Poor Single Mothers with Young Children: Mastery, Relations with Nonresident Fathers, and Child Outcomes

Using data from two waves of a short-term longitudinal study, the authors examined the impact of maternal socioeconomic conditions (education, employment, and income) and family processes (quality of mother-father relations, frequency of nonresident fathers' contacts with their children, and mothers' parenting stress) at time (T) 1 on maternal parenting adequacy and children's behavior problems and adaptive language skills, 1 1/2 to two years later, at T2. The sample consisted of 86 single mothers--each with a preschool child (ages 3 and 5, respectively, at T1 and T2)--who were employed and unemployed current and former welfare recipients. As predicted, the influences of mothers' socioeconomic conditions and family processes were largely indirect and mediated by mothers' perceived self-efficacy (mastery).The quality of the mother-father relationship was related positively to the frequency of nonresident fathers' contacts with their children. More nonresident father involvement and less maternal parenting stress at T1 were associated with better child outcomes in kindergarten--that is, fewer behavior problems and better adaptive language skills. These findings suggest that there might be enduring effects on poor children's adjustment in early school of mothers' efficacy beliefs and nonresident fathers' involvement. Implications for social welfare policies and practice are discussed. KEY WORDS: mastery beliefs; mother-father relations; parenting; preschool children's development; single mothers ********** For some poor children, the transition to school is imperiled. A large body of research has documented associations among economic disadvantage, unstable and conflicted family relations, deprived cognitive environments at home, and behavior problems and reduced verbal ability early in school (Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 1994; Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997; McLoyd, 1998). Behavior and learning problems early in school tend to persist for children from economically disadvantaged families (Ackerman, Brown, & Izard, 2003). Researchers also have observed that children develop more optimally when there is both a primary caregiver who is committed to the well-being of the child (typically the mother) and another adult (frequently the father) who gives support to the primary caregiver (see, for example, Bronfenbrenner, 1986; Jackson & Scheines, 2005). Jackson and Scheines (2005) pointed out that little is known about how single black mothers and nonresident black fathers coparent in poor and near-poor black families. In a sample of current and former single-mother welfare recipients in New York City, they investigated the determinative impact on preschool black children's subsequent behavioral and cognitive development of mothers' perceived self-efficacy (mastery), parenting practices involving the relationship between the mothers and the nonresident fathers, and the level of contact between those fathers and their children. They found that more contact between nonresident fathers and their children predicted more adequate maternal parenting, which in turn was associated directly with the children's subsequent behavioral and cognitive functioning in early elementary school. In this longitudinal study, we adopted ecological and social cognitive theoretical perspectives in examining predictors of child behavior problems and language skills in kindergarten in a sample of single black mothers with a three- or four-year-old child who were employed and unemployed current and former welfare recipients in Pittsburgh in 2004 at time (T) 1. We focused on factors that distinguish children with lower levels of behavior problems and better language skills 1 1/2 to two years later at T2. Because of the paucity of research on within-group differences among poor and near-poor single black mothers and their young children, little is known about individual differences in this population. The current study aimed to reduce this deficit in the empirical literature on parenting and child outcomes. …

Parenting Efficacy and the Early School Adjustment of Poor and Near-Poor Black Children

This short-term longitudinal study investigated whether maternal educational attainment, maternal employment status, and family income affect African-American children's behavioral and cognitive functioning over time through their impacts on mothers' psychological functioning and parenting efficacy in a sample of 100 poor and near-poor single black mothers and their 3- and 4-year-old focal children. Results indicate that education, working status, and earnings display statistically significant, negative, indirect relations with behavior problems and, with the exception of earnings, statistically significant, positive, indirect relationships with teacher-rated adaptive language skills over time. Findings suggest further that parenting efficacy may mediate the link between poor and near-poor single black mothers' depressive symptoms and their preschoolers' subsequent school adjustment. Implications of these findings for policy and program interventions are discussed.

Inner-City Single Black Mothers’ Gender-Related Childrearing Expectations and Goals

Semi-structured interviews with nine U.S. Midwestern inner-city single Black mothers of young children were analyzed using inductive qualitative methods to determine similarities and differences in their expectations and goals for sons versus daughters. Drawing on critical race feminism, we developed links between these ideas, mothers’ personal experiences with men, and prevailing Black gender ideologies. Mothers valued independence and strength in daughters and hoped to prevent early sexual activity. Mothers with sons couched their aspirations in terms of counter-examples but were fatalistic. Childrearing goals reflected fears based on personal experiences.

The Impact of Having A Young Child with Disabilities on Maternal Labor Supply by Race and Marital Status

Data from the National Maternal and Infant Health Survey (NMIHS) with the three-year follow-up survey data were used to assess the impact of having a young child with disabilities on maternal labor supply. The oversampling of low birth-weight and African-American births in NMIHS provides a larger proportion of disabled children and a bigger sample of black mothers than available in data used in prior studies. The empirical analyses examined the impact of child disability on maternal employment participation and conditional intensity by race and marital status using alternative measures of disability based on occurrence of specific health conditions as well as activity performance and general development. Exogeneity of activity-based disability measures was tested using health conditions as instruments and instrumental variable models were used to estimate their impacts on maternal labor supply. The results indicated that activity-based measures are endogenous for black single and white married mothers. Model results suggested large reductions in likelihood of employment participation of black single as well as white single and married mothers. Work intensity of employed black single mothers was also substantially reduced by child disability. Overall, no consistent effects of child disability were observed for black married mothers.

Examining the impact of welfare reform, labor market conditions, and the Earned Income Tax Credit on the employment of black and white single mothers

Using the Annual Demographic Files of the March Current Population Survey, we estimate the effects of welfare policies, labor market conditions, and the Earned Income Tax Credit on the probability of employment for black and white single mothers, and we investigate the extent to which changes in these macro-level factors account for racial differences in employment growth over this period. Compared to white single mothers, black single mothers are more likely to be high school dropouts, never married, and central city residents, and our results show that policy and labor market changes had a more profound effect on the employment of these groups. However, these compositional differences and interaction effects were not substantial enough to produce dissimilar explanations for the changes in employment by race. During the period of economic expansion, increases in the EITC were the most important factor, accounting for approximately 25% of the increase in employment for both black and white single mothers. Declines in the unemployment rate and welfare reform were less important, together accounting for an additional 25% of the increase.

Moving Towards Work

SUMMARY The present study sought to investigate the effects of employment on low-income single black mothers and their preschool children. The sample included 90 mothers from New York City communities who were welfare recipients in 1996, and followed two years later. At follow-up, 53 of the 90 mothers were employed. The findings indicated that lower levels of depressive affect or financial strain were not predictive of entry into the work force. However, once employed, mothers reported less depressive symptoms than those not working. Attaining more education predicted better outcomes for mothers and their children, and provided more of an opportunity to be successful in the job market. For example, having more education was associated with gaining employment, exiting welfare, having stable employment, earning higher wages, and better reading abilities in children. Maternal employment was beneficial to children, as mothers who entered the work force had children who performed better in math achievement at follow-up, after controlling for maternal socioeconomic characteristics and school readiness at baseline. Implications of the findings will be discussed.

The Secret Epidemic: The Story of AIDS and Black America (review)

Reviewed by: The Secret Epidemic: The Story of AIDS and Black America Kimyona A. Roberts (bio) The Secret Epidemic: The Story of AIDS and Black America, by Jacob Levenson. New York: Pantheon Books, 307 pages. Reviewed by Kimyona A. Roberts, MSPH. In his recent book, The Secret Epidemic: The Story of AIDS and Black America, Jacob Levenson adopts an unusual style (with some debt to new journalism) to explore the history and ethnography of HIV/AIDS in Black America. With a foundation of scholarly research underlying his work (the book includes references), Levenson uses narrative to trace history and explore race relations as they bear on the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The approach ranges from anthropological to journalistic as Levenson [End Page 158] uses the stories of everyday people with HIV/AIDS (names changed to protect privacy) and prominent researchers, activists and politicians to recount in a forceful and memorable way how this epidemic has reached such grave proportions, with facts growing grimmer everyday. Beginning with its powerfully oxymoronic title, The Secret Epidemic: The Story of AIDS and Black America is not only useful and meaningful for scholarly individuals, it is a must-read for all, especially those under the misconception that we have tamed the beast of HIV/AIDS in our country. Spanning six decades, from 1942–2002, Levenson's book tells the story of the evolution of AIDS into an epidemic that is ravaging Black America, both infecting and affecting individuals, families, communities across the country, and, ultimately, the nation as a whole. The third person narrator explores the personal experiences of several real people whose lives have been changed by HIV/AIDS. Through personal histories, it situates individual stories in a rich, if unresolved, exploration of race relations in America. The book begins in 1996, over ten years after the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, with the initial shock of Sarah Jackson. She's Black, she's sixteen, she's HIV-positive. She is one of many such cases in rural Alabama. She copes with her illness and her shame through denial, withholding her status from her family and mostly everyone else for fear of rejection and ridicule. David, a social worker assigned to blanket the poorest Black rural counties in Alabama, reflects on the hopelessness endemic to poverty, to which his work as one of five caseworkers assigned to over 800 clients is a testament. Recognizing the potential devastation that HIV/AIDS could cause in rural Alabama, with its small towns and stable social networks, David immerses himself in the lives of his clients in an effort to prevent its spread. These are two of many diverse, fleshed-out portraits that Levenson draws. Counted among them are single Black mothers, researchers, drug users, politicians, and homosexuals, categories that are not always mutually exclusive from selected hotbeds of the Black epidemic (California, New York, and the South). Their experiences provide an intimate illustration of modes of transmission of HIV/AIDS, of the reactions of those affected as well as of the larger society, academia, and the government. The author does a wonderful job of making the people he describes engaging and familiar, interesting the reader in their development and the outcomes of their individual situations. In some cases, the characters eventually experience a revelation of faith, a sense of renewed purpose, or political mobilization. Some individuals try to effect change while others just try to deal with the virus invading their lives. Various societal factors emerge as themes as the author takes a quasi-anthropological approach to elucidating the underlying causes that allow the spread of HIV/AIDS in the Black community to go largely unnoticed, a veritable elephant in America's living room. By 1995, the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS in America tipped: from that point on, HIV/AIDS has disproportionately affected Black people in America. An epidemic that had long been viewed and treated as limited to gay, White men or injection drug users (IDUs) changed its face and the author describes how the public health community and general public scrambled to adjust. Though prevention efforts (referred to as the neglected arm of public health) among gay, White men and IDUs [End Page 159] calling for...

New Haven's Trade Union Plaza: "By Working People for Working People"

Blocks from Yale University, nine buildings formerly known as Trade Union Plaza (TUP) will soon be called University Village. As a housing cooperative for working class families—mostly single black mothers—TUP has provided an alternative to conventional “public housing” since the first families moved there in 1969. While public housing was designed around presumed pathologies of an “underclass,” labor-sponsored nonprofit cooperatives like TUP embraced and valued working culture and were structured around the fundamental connections between work, home, and community. Today, TUP's union roots reemerge as a new labor-grown community organization and a handful of the original tenants (also seasoned union organizers) fight the new owner's attempts to quietly transform this black working class community into luxury apartments for students, scientists, and professors. This article explores the extent to which the present crisis in affordable housing has its roots in both racist real estate practices and the destruction of what historian Lawrence Goodwyn calls “movement culture.” It argues that the solution to this problem, like the origins of TUP itself, can be found in labor–community alliances. The narrative is bracketed by two Labor Day marches, one in 1961 and the other in 2003, in between was the imagining, groundbreaking, flourishing, maintaining, and then persevering of what TUP's official slogan called “a community by working people for working people.”

Tax-Transfer Policy and Labor-Market Outcomes

The Earned Income Tax Credit provides nearly $40 billion to low-income families with children. A potential unintended consequence of the credit is lower pretax wages, in which case only part of the subsidy would accrue to workers. We examine the extent to which EITC expansions lower the pretax wages of working parents. Our findings are inconclusive. The gross hourly wages of less-skilled single women are found not to vary by the number of children, as does the EITC. In addition, the wages of black single mothers track the minimum wage for nearly the entire time period.