Mothering While Black. Dawn Marie Dow

      UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

      University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

      University of California Press

      Oakland, California

      © 2019 by Dawn Marie Dow

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Dow, Dawn Marie, author.

      Title: Mothering while black : boundaries and burdens of middle-class parenthood / Dawn Marie Dow.

      Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

      Identifiers: LCCN 2018039768 (print) | LCCN 2018042495 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520971776 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520300316 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780520300323 (paperback)

      Subjects: LCSH: African American mothers—Social conditions. | Parenting—Social aspects. | Middle class African Americans—Family relationships. | Intersectionality (Sociology)

      Classification: LCC HQ759 (ebook) | LCC HQ759 .D685 2019 (print) | DDC 306.874/30896073—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018039768

      Manufactured in the United States of America

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      To my spouse and my daughters, who bring joy to my life every day

      And to my mother and late maternal grandmother

      Contents

       List of Illustrations and Tables

       Acknowledgments

       Introduction

       PART I. CULTIVATING CONSCIOUSNESS

      1. Creating Racial Safety and Comfort

      2. Border Crossers

      3. Border Policers

      4. Border Transcenders

       PART II. BEYOND SEPARATE SPHERES AND THE CULT OF DOMESTICITY

      5. The Market-Family Matrix

      6. Racial Histories of Family and Work

      7. Alternative Configurations of Child-Rearing

       Conclusion and Implications

       Appendix: Methods

       Notes

       Bibliography

       Index

Illustrations and Tables

      FIGURES

      1. General and gender-specific parenting concerns

      2. Versions of African American middle-class identity

      3. Market-family matrix of conflict and integration

      MAP

      1. Change in African American population in the San Francisco Bay Area

      TABLES

      1. African American Middle-Class Mothering

      2. Changes in African American Population in the San Francisco Bay Area

      3. Interviewees’ Characteristics

Acknowledgments

      I did not write this book alone. An undeniable truth is that, although writing may, at times, be a solitary process, completing a project of this scope cannot be accomplished without the invisible labor of others. I sincerely appreciate the community of scholars, friends, and family who provided emotional, intellectual, and practical support throughout my research and writing. Without their assistance and belief in me, their respect for me as a scholar, and their appreciation of me as a person with non-academic demands in the larger world, this book would have been a much more difficult, if not impossible, task to complete.

      I owe a special note of gratitude to every person who participated in this research. I thank them for taking time away from their families and jobs to open up to me about parts of their lives. They carved out time after bedtime, during outings to the park with their children, and during their lunchtime to share their beliefs and experiences about work, family, and parenting. Whenever I have given presentations about this research at conferences, African American women, men, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters have approached me to tell me how these findings resonate with their personal experiences. Daughters have told me how their mothers worked to cultivate their self-esteem and self-reliance. Sons have said, “My mother tells me to do the things you describe, but I still get hassled.” Some people have approached me to explain where they think they fit into the categories that emerged in this research. African American mothers have told me how they appreciated hearing a version of motherhood that more closely matched their own experiences. I feel privileged to be the person with whom my study participants shared their perspectives and, thus, enabled the individuals I described above to see versions of themselves in sociological research. I hope other scholars continue to examine the complexity of the experiences and perspectives of African American mothers and other mothers of color from a range of socioeconomic positions and determine how they may or may not fit into existing analytical boxes. As novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie asserts, there is danger in a single story.

      Like many first-time academic book writers, I used my dissertation as the initial draft of this manuscript. At the University of California, Berkeley, Raka Ray was my dissertation chair, and from the beginning, she believed in this project. Raka encouraged me to show how my research not only diversified what we know about work, family, and parenting by giving voice to the experiences of African American middle-class mothers, but also how it challenged fundamental assumptions within family and work scholarship and demanded that we deconstruct and unmake the categories of mother and worker. Throughout this process, Raka showed me that she cared about my intellectual and professional development and my nonacademic life (knowing these parts of life can hardly be separated from each other). She also encouraged me to develop my voice as both an academic scholar and a public sociologist who shares her research with audiences outside