ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues

In their new book, Keepin' On: The Everyday Stuggles of Young Families and Poverty (Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2006; www.brookespublishing.com), Jean Ispa, Kathy Thornburg, and Mark Fine report on the results of a project which, for five years, closely observed the lives of nine young African American mothers facing issues related to single parenthood and poverty. In discussing the importance for service providers to understand the child-rearing beliefs and practices, they provide the following implications for practice:

“First…it is essential that individuals do not interpret occasions when mothers complain about their children, or discipline them in a manner that, although not abusive, seems harsh by European American, middle-class standards, as meaning that they do not love their children or do not derive purpose or happiness from having them.

“Second, it is clear that parenting feelings, beliefs, and practices are rooted in intricate relations among standards, opportunities, and constraints of the larger society, the proximal culture, community conditions, and family involvements. If they are to be successful, parenting programs must link with family and other community members, adapting their strategies to the local context and bringing those partners on board through respectful give and take.

“A third major set of points flows from the fact that African American families live in a bicultural world in which they must learn to apply European American as well as African American standards and perspectives…. [T]hose in low status positions must learn the ways of those with more power as well as the ways of their group…. Understanding the various worlds that African American mothers living in poverty must negotiate should help professionals become sensitive listeners and careful interventionists…..”

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