There is often a single stereotyped story told of Black single mothers and their children. By reducing these mothers and their children to stereotypes of poor, uneducated, never married, and lacking resources, their humanity is limited. To move beyond this deficit framework, I use autoethnographic methods and poetics to offer counternarratives. As a Black woman who was raised by a Black single mother, I know firsthand the importance of humanizing Black single mothers and their children.
AkassK. (2013). Motherhood and the media under the microscope: The backlash against feminism and the mommy wars. Imaginations, 4(2), 47–69. doi:10.17742/IMAGE.mother. 4–2.3
3.
AquilinoW. S. (1996). The life course of children born to unmarried mothers: Childhood living arrangements and young adult outcomes. Journal of Marriage and Family, 58, 293–310. doi:10.2307/353496
4.
BochnerA. P., & EllisC. (1992). Personal narrative as a social approach to interpersonal communication. Communication Theory, 2, 165–172. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.1992.tb00036.x
5.
BoylornR. M. (2013a). Blackgirl blogs, auto/ethnography and crunk feminism. Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 9(2), 73–82.
6.
BoylornR. M. (2013b). “Sit with your legs closed!” and other sayin's from my childhood. In Holman JonesS., AdamsT. E., & EllisC. (Eds.), Handbook of autoethnography (pp. 173–185). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
7.
BoylornR. M. (2016). On being at home with myself: Blackgirl autoethnography as research praxis. International Review of Qualitative Research, 9, 44–58. doi:10.1525/irqr.2016.9.1.44
8.
BoylornR. M., & OrbeM. P. (Eds.). (2014). Critical autoethnography: Intersecting cultural identities in everyday life.Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
9.
CollinsP. H. (2011). The meaning of motherhood in Black culture and Black mother-daughter relationships. In ZinnM. B., Hondagneu-SoteloP., & MessnerM. A. (Eds.), Gender through the prism of difference (4th ed., pp. 271–281). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
10.
Combahee River Collective. (1979). A Black feminist statement. Off Our Backs, 9(6), 6–8.
11.
DowneyD. B., Ainsworth-DarnellJ. W., & DufurM. J. (1998). Sex of parent and children's well-being in single-parent households. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60, 878–893. doi:10.2307/353631
12.
DurhamA. (2003a). For Teri. Qualitative Inquiry, 9, 18–19. doi:10.1177/1077800402239336
DurhamA. (2014). Home with hip hop feminism: Performances in communication and culture.New York: NY: Peter Lang.
16.
DurhamA. (2017). On collards. International Review of Qualitative Research, 10, 22–23. doi:10.1525/irqr.2017.10.1.22
17.
EllisC. (2004). The ethnographic I: A methodological novel about autoethnography.Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
18.
EllisC., & BochnerA. P. (1992). Telling and performing personal stories: The constraints of choice in abortion. In EllisC. & FlahertyM. G. (Eds.), Investigating subjectivity: Research on lived experience (pp. 79–101). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
19.
EwingE. L. (2018). The quality of the light: Evidence, truths, and the odd practice of the poet-sociologist. In PerlowO. N., WheelerD. I., BetheaS. L., & ScottB. M. (Eds.), Black women's liberatorypedagogies: Resistance, transformation, and healing within and beyond the academy (pp. 195–209). New York, NY: Springer.
20.
HaireA. R., & McGeorgeC. R. (2012). Negative perceptions of never-married custodial single mothers and fathers: Applications of a gender analysis for family therapists. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, 24, 24–51. doi:10.1080/08952833.2012.629130
21.
HudaP. R. (2001). Singled out: A critique of the representation of single motherhood in welfare discourse. William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law, 7, 341–381.
22.
JohnsonJ. W. (2016). “All I do is win … no matter what”: Low-income, African American single mothers and their collegiate daughters’ unrelenting academic achievement. The Journal of Negro Education, 85(2), 156–171. doi:10.7709/jnegroeducation.85.2.0156
23.
KamarckE. C., & GalstonW. (1990). Putting children first: A progressive family policy for the 1990s.Washington, DC: Progressive Policy Institute.
24.
KinnearK. L. (1999). Single parents: A reference handbook.Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
25.
LordeA. (1990). Need: A chorale for black woman voices.Latham, NY: Kitchen Table Press.
26.
LordeA. (2012). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches.Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press.
27.
MoynihanD. P. (1965). The Negro family: The case for national action.Washington, DC: Office of Policy Planning and Research, U.S. Department of Labor.
28.
MurryV. M., BynumM. S., BrodyG. H., WillertA., & StephensD. (2001). African American single mothers and children in context: A review of studies on risk and resilience. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 4(2), 133–155. doi:10.1023/A:1011381114782
RobinsonQ. L., & WerblowJ. (2012). Beating the odds: How single Black mothers influence the educational success of their sons enrolled in failing schools. American Secondary Education, 40(2), 52–66.
31.
RosenthalL., & LobelM. (2016). Stereotypes of Black American women related to sexuality and motherhood. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 40, 414–427. doi:10.1177/0361684315627459
32.
RousseauN. (2013). Social rhetoric and the construction of Black motherhood. Journal of Black Studies, 44, 451–471. doi:10.1177/0021934713488786
33.
WaheedN. (2013). Salt.
34.
WilsonA., HenriksenR. C., BustamanteR., & IrbyB. (2016). Successful Black men from absent-father homes and their resilient single mothers: A phenomenological study. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 44, 189–208. doi:10.1002/jmcd.12046