“We Do This Too”: Alternative Futures of Black Motherhood

Abstract

In this paper, I draw on black mothers’ engagements with attachment parenting to meditate on this moment of crisis in black reproduction and black mothering. Using Jennifer Nash's critique of this crisis framing and its consequences for black feminism, I argue that attending to the “ordinary” in black mothers’ experiences may yield alternative visions of black motherhood that depict them as neither dupes nor revolutionaries. The paper is based on a wider sociological project that involves interviews with 19 black mothers living in the UK and Canada. The project's focus on attachment parenting, a popular but controversial parenting philosophy that rests on both historical and contemporary racialized ideals of good mothering, provides a unique opportunity to generate new perspectives made possible by the diversity of responses the philosophy elicits.