Grandmothering While Black: A Twenty-First-Century Story of Love, Coercion, and SurvivalIn Grandmothering While Black, sociologist LaShawnDa L. Pittman explores the complex lives of Black grandmothers raising their grandchildren in skipped-generation households (consisting only of grandparents and grandchildren). She prioritizes the voices of Black grandmothers through in-depth interviews and ethnographic research at various sites—doctor's visits, welfare offices, school and day care center appointments, caseworker meetings, and more. Through careful examination, she explores the various forces that compel, constrain, and support Black grandmothers' caregiving. Pittman showcases a fundamental change in the relationship between grandmother and grandchild as grandmothers confront the paradox of fulfilling the social and legal functions of motherhood without the legal rights of the role. Grandmothering While Black illuminates the strategies used by grandmothers to manage their legal marginalization vis-à-vis parents and the state across a range of caregiving arrangements. In doing so, it reveals the overwhelming and painful decisions Black grandmothers must make to ensure the safety and well-being of the next generation. |
Contents
Mothering While Black | 39 |
Role Expectations | 71 |
How Grandmothers Experience and Respond | 102 |
Coerced Mothering within Formal Kinship Care | 133 |
He Dont Get Enough Money to Do All That | 167 |
Managing the Burden and the Blessing | 201 |
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Common terms and phrases
abuse addiction African Americans Black families Black grandmothers Black mothers Black women caregiving arrangements caseworkers Casey Foundation Chicago chil child maltreatment child welfare system child-rearing childcare Children and Family coerced mothering custody daughter DCFS Department of Children dren drug Eloise experience Family Services foster parents gonna grand grandchild granddaughter Grandfamilies grandmother role grandmotherhood grandparent caregiving grandparent-headed households Grandparenthood Grandparents Raising Illinois Department income increased interviewed involvement kids kinship care kinship diversion kinship foster Latino legal guardian legal guardianship legal rights Lena Bell licensed lives needed neighborhoods nonrelative foster opioid percent poverty private kinship programs public assistance public housing racial raising grandchildren raising their grandchildren receive relationship relatives Research resources and services role expectations safety plan Shanice skipped-generation households SNAP Changed strategies subsidized guardianship subsidized housing surrogate parenting TANF child-only Unlicensed kinship Vivica wanna wanted