Motherhood So White
A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
The story every mother in America needs to read. As featured on NPR and the TODAY Show. All moms have to deal with choosing baby names, potty training, finding your village, and answering your kid's tough questions, but if you are raising a Black child, you have to deal with a lot more than that. Especially if you're a single Black mom… and adopting.
Nefertiti Austin shares her story of starting a family through adoption as a single Black woman. In this unflinching account of her parenting journey, Nefertiti examines the history of adoption in the African American community, faces off against stereotypes of single Black moms, and confronts the reality of what it looks like to raise children of color and answer their questions about racism in modern-day America.
Honest, vulnerable, and uplifting, Motherhood So White is a fantastic book for mothers who have read White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi, Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum, or other books about racism and want to see how these social issues play out in a very personal way for a single mom and her Black son.
This great book club read explores social and cultural bias, gives a new perspective on a familiar experience, and sparks meaningful conversations about what it looks like for Black families in white America today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this timely, insightful memoir, novelist Austin (Eternity) examines adoption and child-rearing as a single black woman confronting gender and racial bias. At age nine, Austin was taken in by her maternal grandparents, who provided a life that "mirrored white middle class America: a secure household, church, piano lessons" yet lacked legal recognition; it was an informal black adoption, "the practice of raising nieces, nephews, cousins, and grandchildren" that "followed an established cultural tradition." At 36, eager to become a mother, she trained as a foster parent and learned that "Black boys were least likely to be adopted." The notion "awakened my Black Power roots. Adopting a baby boy would allow me to lift as I climbed." Matched with a six-month-old in 2007, she renamed him August and legally adopted him in 2009. Throughout, Austin pegs her son's daily life to such events as Obama's election (Obama "was the manifestation of my hopes and dreams for my son") and the murder of Trayvon Martin (black boys "will be perceived as hypermasculine" and therefore a threat). Juxtaposing tender mother-child moments with the dangers facing African-American boys, Austin captures both the love and fear of her parenting experience in this powerful, spirited narrative.
Customer Reviews
Motherhood so White
Excellent guidance for mothers. I only wished I had read before I had my children
Motherhood So White
What a joy to read such an insightful and positive book about Black Parenting, single parenting, and especially Adoption. So necessary .