Motherhood so White: A Memoir of Race, Gender and Parenting in America by Nefertiti Austin


Motherhood so White: A Memoir of Race, Gender and Parenting in America by Nefertiti Austin




I remember what it was like being pregnant with my son, flipping through the pages of What To Expect When You’re Expecting and preparing my house for a newborn. I was overwhelmed and excited. Motherhood hadn’t been a dream of mine, but with my husband I wanted an addition to my family. I didn’t gravitate towards books about motherhood having helped raise my two nephews and being around younger children throughout my life. It’s now after being a mother for eleven years, after knowing what it’s like to raise a Black child that I’ve gravitated towards stories of other Black mothers. This is a memoir outside of my realm. I don’t know what it’s like to adopt a child and what that experience entails. But the more Austin wrote about raising her Black son, who is only a year older than my own child, I felt a kinship. Nothing about being a mother is easy and raising a Black child adds a certain amount of stress that you wouldn’t understand unless you talked to their parents.

I learned so much while reading this book and I am so glad that Austin was willing and able to put in to words her experience with adopting a child as a single Black woman. It’s an experience I don’t see in the mainstream anywhere. Austin, within the pages of this memoir, discusses her upbringing and how for various reasons her grandparents stepped in and unofficially adopted her and her younger brother. She expresses the loss she felt not having her parents in the home and the struggle to connect to her mother. She discusses the moment that she wanted to do adopt a child. And one of the most important things that she discusses is the reaction by her community to adopt a child not of her own family relation or kin. We don’t discuss enough how the political language used to describe Black mothers as “welfare queens” and their children as “crack babies” still lingers and affects the way people view adopting Black children, which results in so many Black children being left in foster care. It’s been years since I’ve watched “Losing Isaiah” and though I appreciate the performance of Halle Berry, Samuel L. Jackson and Jessica Lange, I’ll never be able to watch it again. It promotes too many negative stereotypes about Black women and uplifts white saviorism in a way that I can’t and won’t tolerate. Austin does her best to dispel those myths and discuss what it was really like to adopt. These notions have got to be dismantled if we want these children to have good homes. Learning from Austin how to navigate this system and successfully foster/adopt Black children will help so many people in similar situations.

The honest truth is that motherhood has centered white women for far too long and it’s beyond time for that to change. Books like this will force that change to happen. We live in a time when Black women are lifting their voices and telling their stories. Austin’s addition to those voices helps promote further change. It’s important to read outside of your experience and the experiences only being promoted in the mainstream. I’ll happily recommend this book. Austin is a great writer who in these pages was able to express succinctly her life and journey to motherhood. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

Thank you Netgalley for this book in exchange for an honest review

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