Can’t Just Send Our Children Out: Intensive Motherwork and Experiences of Black Motherhood

Abstract Race and racism play an integral role in shaping mothering practices. Specifically, motherwork examines how Black mothers use strategies and practices to shield children from, as well as help them navigate through, experiences of racism. The necessity of these mothering practices may be fundamental in how motherhood is experienced for Black women. This study used qualitative in-depth semi-structured interviews with 35 predominantly middle-class Black mothers of children in adolescence and young/emerging adulthood. A grounded theoretical and Black feminist approach was taken to analyze data. Black mothers take on numerous laborious and exhaustive strategies to shield their children from racism through what I theorize as the concept of intensive motherwork. I define intensive motherwork as the exhaustive efforts and effects of Black mothers protecting and empowering their children and themselves in the face of anti-Black racism. Intensive motherwork can be seen in three broad themes: (1) protective mothering, (2) resistance mothering, and (3) encumbered mothering. This work expands current discourse on Black families by highlighting the overlap between the intensive nature of Black women’s mothering, the laborious practices that are deployed, and the role of race and racism on Black women’s mothering experience.