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.
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