Urban African American Mothers Research Articles

Caregiver Strain, Social Support and Mental Health Service Use Among Urban African American Mothers.

Caregiver strain and social support have been identified as both facilitators and deterrents to parental mental health service use on behalf of their children. This study focused on the relationship between caregiver strain, social support, and mental health service use among African American mothers of children at-risk or meeting criteria for a disruptive behavioral disorder and living in urban communities of concentrated poverty. Mothers (n = 89), participating in a five-year NIMH funded study of school-based community mental health services, completed measures at baseline of caregiver strain and both perceived and received social support. Service use was calculated as the sum total of services (sessions) received. Associations between caregiver strain and service use were examined, and perceived and received social support were explored as potential moderators. Baseline covariates included child's age, gender, symptom severity, and maternal employment status. Findings highlighted child symptom severity as the strongest predictor of caregiver strain and perceived social support as moderating the association between caregiver strain and service use. Mothers were more likely to utilize services when experiencing relatively high levels of perceived support or high caregiver strain but not both, highlighting the importance of their interrelationship. Received support did not moderate the association between strain and service use. In addition, mothers utilized services more often for sons than daughters and when unemployed. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

The Matter of Parents’ Stories: Urban African American Mothers’ Counter-Stories About the Common Core State Standards and Quality Teaching

This article uses counter-storytelling to examine how four urban African American mothers understand and discuss the role of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in their children’s education. Counter-storytelling is used as an oppositional framework to dominant stories privileged by educational systems. Findings conclude how parents posit valid critiques about CCSS and quality teaching, but reveal the absence of spaces where their voices and perspectives can be heard without marginalization. The article concludes with implications for urban education teachers, and a call of support for parents and teachers to be informed about counter-stories represented in students’ education.

A qualitative exploration of the role of social networks in educating urban African American adolescents about sex

Objective. To explore social network members' role in educating African American adolescents about sexual health issues. Design. We conducted 21 focus groups with urban African American mothers (n=51), fathers (n=18), sons (n=20), and daughters (n=36) from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA, between December 2007 and March 2008. At least one biological parent (or legal guardian) and one adolescent aged 15–17 years from each family participated. Group conversations were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using directive content analysis and the constant comparison method. Two coders independently read each transcript to identify emergent themes. Results. A broad range of people were reportedly involved in the education process. Older siblings, extended family, and peers were most commonly cited. However, unrelated adults were also described as playing important roles. Unrelated adults included the friends of an adolescent's parents and the parents of an adolescent's friends or romantic partners. Social network members were said to address three main issues: the facts about sex and sexuality, the social aspects of sexuality (e.g., appropriate dating behaviors, choosing dating partners), and promotion of family values. When educating adolescents about sex, social network members were described as playing eight functional roles, including that of a teacher, guide, challenger, confidant, shelterer, supervisor-chaperone, role model, and provider of access to reproductive health services. These roles were not mutually exclusive, meaning that social network members often assumed different roles depending on the situation. The influence of individuals who were not an adolescent's parent was highly dependent on adolescents' relationship with their parents or on their parents' comfort dealing with sexual issues. Conclusions. African American adolescents' social networks were described by parents and adolescents as dense, complex, and routinely involved in educating adolescents about sex.

The Structure of Witnessed Community Violence amongst Urban African American Mothers: Latent Class Analysis of a Community Sample

The prevalence of witnessed community violence (WCV) amongst urban populations in the USA is striking. WCV can be harmful to one′s psychological health, and for mothers, the consequences may be more far‐reaching as their mental health affects parenting and child development. This study used telephone interviews (n = 209) to explore the patterns and covariates of WCV amongst a sample of urban, African American mothers of infants. Mothers reported whether they had witnessed 11 different forms of violence in their current neighborhoods. A latent class analysis revealed two distinct groups of mothers, those with higher versus lower‐exposure to WCV. Mothers in the higher‐exposure group were more likely to be low‐income, to have a high school education or less, and to have higher anxiety scores than those in the lower‐exposure group. Depression was not associated with higher exposure to WCV. Distinguishing between higher‐ and lower‐exposure samples can inform the development of targeted prevention and intervention strategies for metropolitan areas.

Exploring relationships among maternal BMI, family factors, and concern for child's weight.

in an effort to better understand child obesity, this study examined the association between family living location, family function, mother's body mass index (BMI), and mothers' attitudes and behaviors concerning child feeding. Recent research on obesity has shown there is limited information on family influence and parental perceptions and attitudes. a cross-sectional analysis was performed on data from 47 mothers of school-aged children. urban African-American mothers had higher BMIs and were significantly more concerned about their child's weight status than rural white mothers. Additionally, maternal BMI was associated with the total number of individuals in the household. results suggest the importance in understanding the family and community and its influence on childhood obesity. Armed with knowledge about family factors and parents' beliefs and perceptions, nurses can develop interventions that can assist families and communities to focus on healthy children feeding and weight management.

Young African American mothers' changing perceptions of their infants during the transition to parenthood.

Although theory and empirical research with middle-class, mostly White women have suggested that motherhood is an important developmental transition for women, rarely have investigations of adolescent motherhood systematically examined developmental change. This study examines one aspect of change during the transition to parenthood: the mother's emerging perception of her infant. During pregnancy and at 4 months' postpartum, 220 urban African American mothers between the ages of 13 and 21 years were asked to describe their infants. Content analysis of their responses and ratings of the affective tone of the responses suggest that there are changes from pregnancy to 4 months after the birth that parallel shifts noted in literature on women going through the transition to motherhood as adults. Between pregnancy and 4 months, there was a decreasing focus on infant health and physical appearance and an increasing focus on infant behavioral achievements and personality characteristics. Of particular importance to mothers was that their infants be "good" babies who were easy to care for and were easily accepted by the family. Mothers imagined physical similarities with their infants during pregnancy and describe aspects of their interaction and emotional bond with their infants at 4 months. Overall, mothers' descriptions of their babies were quite positive, increasingly positive over time, and offered little evidence that for these young African American women the transition to parenthood was problematic.

Maternal control and sensitivity, child gender, and maternal education in relation to children's behavioral outcomes in African American families

This study examined relationships between mother–child interactions and children's behaviors in 119 urban African American mothers and their 6–7 year old children. Interactions during a cooking task and a follow-up child clean-up task were videotaped. Principal components analyses of behaviors during the cooking task yielded two factors in mothers (Sensitivity and Control), and three in children (Task Involvement, Responsiveness, and Communicative). Children's negativity during a clean up task was coded and mothers were interviewed about their children's problem behaviors. Parenting sensitivity was associated with positive child behaviors and parenting control was associated with negative child behaviors. Maternal education was associated with greater maternal sensitivity and less control. Child gender predicted their task involvement, responsiveness, communicativeness, negativity during clean-up, and behavior problems; maternal control and sensitivity mediated some of these relations. Findings underscore heterogeneity of African American parenting and factors that promote positive parenting and children's behavioral adjustment in early childhood.

CD4 Count and Physical Symptoms Among Urban African American Mothers with HIV: An Examination of the Role of Optimism and Depressive Symptoms

The current study examined the link between immune functioning (CD4 count) and physical symptoms, as well as the moderating role of optimism and depressive symptoms, in a sample of 99 low income, inner city African American women with HIV. Although there was no main effect of CD4 count on physical symptoms, depressive symptoms moderated the association between CD4 count and physical symptoms. More compromised immune functioning (lower CD4 count) was associated with more physical symptoms under conditions of higher levels of depressive symptoms, but not lower levels of depressive symptoms. This finding was observed using both a self-report measure and a clinician-rating of women's depressive symptoms. There were no main or interactive effects for optimism. Clinical implications and future research directions are presented.

Does it pay to participate? Neighborhood-based organizations and the social development of urban adolescents

Research on the developmental gains associated with participation in youth-service organizations has not kept pace with the proliferation in funding for these kinds of programs. Advocates describe them as important venues for youth to connect to mainstream institutions and to promote social and cognitive development, especially among underserved minority youth. Using data collected from 546 urban African-American mothers and their children in Chicago, we compare the availability of youth-serving organizations in poor and non-poor neighborhoods and consider whether participation has some positive implications for youth on a number of developmental assets. A theoretical model is proposed to consider the mechanisms by which youth may be affected. The findings suggest that when available, youth participation in locally based organizations is greater in more disadvantaged neighborhoods and that participation has important and positive implications for youth's self-concept as well as their academic commitment and educational expectations. While participation may also help to connect youth to prosocial neighborhood peers, school-based peers appear to be the most important friendship networks for encouraging a normative orientation toward academic attainment. The policy implications of these findings are discussed in terms of ways to help youth develop prosocial competencies in organized social settings during after-school hours.

Exposure to violence and parenting as mediators between poverty and psychological symptoms in urban African American adolescents

The present study builds on past research that has found support for a conceptual model in which poverty is linked with adolescent psychological symptoms through economic stressors and impaired parenting. The present study examined this model in a sample of urban African American mothers and their adolescent children. In addition, an alternative hypothesis was examined: that exposure to community violence mediates the relation between poverty and psychological symptoms in urban youth. Limited support was found for a model in which poverty is linked with internalizing symptoms through exposure to community violence and with externalizing symptoms through economic stressors and inconsistent discipline. Interpretations, limitations, and directions for future research are outlined.

Parental competence among African American adolescent mothers and grandmothers

This study describes the influence of grandmothers on parental competence among urban African American adolescent mothers, using a model adapted from Belsky's (1984) Determinants of Parenting Process Model. The sample included 53 pairs of urban African American mothers (age 16.4 ± 1.2 years) and their mothers (age 39.2 ± 4.3 years). All adolescents were enrolled in school, co-resided with mothers, and had infants ages 4 to 8 months. Survey instruments measured personal resources, perception of infant temperament, and contextual sources of support and stress. The outcome measure for adolescent mothers was perceived parental competence. Multiple regression analyses indicated adolescent mothers' self-esteem and mastery explained 41% of the variance and grandmothers' self-esteem explained 42% of the variance in adolescent mothers' parental competence. A combined regression equation demonstrated that adolescent mothers' mastery and grandmothers' self-esteem accounted for 65% of the variance in adolescent mothers' parental competence. Copyright © 2001 by W.B. Saunders Company

The Value of Children, Parenting Strains, and Depression Among Urban African American Mothers

This exploratory analysis examines the relationship between two dimensions of the parenting experience—values regarding children and parenting strains—and depression in a sample of 285 urban, economically disadvantaged African American women. An examination of this relationship among economically disadvantaged African American women is important in light of the high stress exposure of these mothers, their limited opportunity to engage in rewarding employment, and in view of the centrality of motherhood in this cultural context. Our central finding is that the impact of parenting strains on depression is substantially moderated by beliefs about the costs and emotional fulfillment associated with having children. African American mothers who regard the costs of children as low and the potential of children for providing emotional fulfillment as high are significantly more depressed by high parenting strains than African American mothers who hold the opposite beliefs about the costs and benefits of children. Variation in values regarding children and parenting strains accounts for more than 40% of variation in depression. These findings suggest the importance of understanding the social–psychological factors that contribute to the quality of parenting, not only because maternal mental health is important in and of itself, but because maternal well-being has a direct impact on child well-being.

Psychometric Properties of the Parenting Stress Index in a Sample of Low-Income African-American Mothers of Infants and Toddlers

Examined the psychometric properties of the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) in 191 low-income, urban African-American mothers of infants and toddlers recruited from a primary health care facility. The subscales of the PSI had acceptable levels of internal consistency and stability over six months. Concurrent validity, examined through self-report and observational measures, revealed high convergence with mothers reporting consistent levels of stress across measures. Factor analysis suggested a 3-factor solution including parent, child, and parent–child interaction factors. In comparison with the nonnative sample, mothers reported elevated levels of stress on three of the seven parent subscales and all of the child subscales. These findings support the consistency of the psychometric properties of the PSI across samples that vary in ethnicity and socioeconomic status.