Motherhood: the issues between black daughters and their mothers

I have written the past, about how I am convinced black girls are being starved of the necessary motherly worldly wisdom that would enable them to grow to navigate the world with success, essentially improving theirs and the social situation of successive generations.

I believe the key factor here is that many of these mothers really don’t have the necessary knowledge themselves to be able to guide themselves let alone their daughters. Many don’t know how this society we live in runs. In the UK for instance daughters of first generation immigrants are now fully established in the work force. But their parents where not very successful in establishing themselves in the middle class (racism being the key factor however many overlooked or ignored opportunities to improve their own situation like owning property when it was well within their reach and even establishing businesses so as to not be too dependent on government jobs). The result is that their children are having to find their feet in a society and social order without any guidance and direction from those who have gone before.

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Even without the immigration factor, considering that far too many black girls give birth when they are to all intents and purposes children themselves, it is not a real surprise that they are not effectively instructing their daughters.

I am also increasingly coming across black women who have tortuous and fractured relationships with their mothers, coming across women who talk about how their mothers didn’t support them as women growing into their womanhood and how they didn’t or couldn’t assist them navigate the major issues that beset them as black women living in a majority white culture. In all fairness I think many of these mothers where themselves confronted with a situation that stumped them too, many didn’t know what hit them when they set foot in the West from the Caribbean and Africa! They probably had the very same issues around black womanhood in a majority white culture, as did their daughters and didn’t know who to turn to, and definitely didn’t even take up fully the role that should fall to them of guiding and directing their daughters. I believe many withdrew or became depressed at a time of life when as adults they would normally have been in a stable and knowledgeable position to offer guidance to their daughters. I think the tendency of black mothers especially in the UK to bury themselves in all things black and not venture beyond the black social milieu (and not seem to realise there is life beyond the black borders) has something to do with the cold shock and maybe inability to come up with a successful plan of integration. Real fearful experiences may have made them simply poke their heads back into the comfort zone of black spaces and never attempt to come out again. Unfortunately the legacy is that their daughters who have to integrate white spaces in order to make it in today's society, are braving it all alone which has resulted in hard feelings from some daughters towards their mothers.

In terms of fragmented and complicated relationships between black mothers and their daughters, this issue was really illuminated for me when I watched a program about survivors of violent crime last summer.

Among the people interviewed was a young black lady who lost her sister and her cousin in a drive by shooting - one of the first of its kind in the UK in which there were multiple female victims. I remember what struck me most about her case was how when asked, her mother admitted that she had never really sat down and put her arms round her daughter and had a heart to heart about their loss. It was clear that ten years on, her daughter had not healed to any extent; her demeanour and posture and the fact that she couldn’t even lift her face to the camera said it clearly. When the mother was pressed as to why she had not ever sat down to talk about the loss with her daughter, she said something that really shocked me. She said that she didn’t want her daughter to 'lean' on her in her grief! I was stunned. In other words her daughter had to take care of herself even though she was a teenager when her sister was killed. This I guess speaks to the many discussions we have had on how black women are seen as little soldiers (even from and early age), issues of strong and hard wearing black womanhood, the lack of compassion for black women and girls displayed even by immediate family, and black women being expected to get on with life without care and nurture even as they come across life-crushing experiences.

I was blown away by that one. Even though she no doubt had her own grief to bear, I couldn’t understand how a mother couldn’t find it in herself to reach out to her only surviving daughter to comfort her. A mother resenting that she would have to console her daughter, now that was a shocker to me.

As an aside, I clearly saw that contributing to this young ladies damage was the fact that she remained immersed in the black community and the dysfunctional response to the incident (as you can well imagine within the black community), was not helping matters for her. Indeed not only was the crime carried out by young black lads also she and her family were being gossiped about and blamed for the incarceration of the criminals (as I said dysfunctional response).

I cant say I don't see and come across black women who are in some way damaged and very resentful for being left to fend for themselves when they were vulnerable especially when they know their mothers should have been there for them. A lot of black women however do not realize they have issues of resentment with their mothers, and the cult of veneration of motherhood and nothing but the utmost respect for elders is possibly preventing them from both recognising and resolving the issue through admitting their disappointment, and justified anger.

Well add race to the mix here and we could indeed write reams about the fractures that occur between mixed race daughters and their white mothers.

In all this we can ask, where are the fathers?

I do focus on mothers because I think there is a specific sort of training that mothers will need to give their daughters so they can be successful in the area of relationships and child rearing. I look at how Jewish mothers put a lot of effort into enabling their daughters make their way successfully In society. I find many black mothers don’t even take the time to prepare their daughters to be well behaved and to show and emphasize how necessary it is to be personable and win friends,mentors, champions and allies as they go out into the world. Black daughters are on their own and by trail and error they finally put together some working plan on how to get on in society but this is often not without bad falls and resulting scars including brushes with the law, failure at relationships or failure to have relationships, teenage unplanned pregnancy etc etc.

My advice to anyone who feels that they have not had much of necessary motherly guidance in specific areas, is to identify the area and get a mentor, get an instruction book or sign up for a course. As I always say, you must spend on the areas of your deficiency and build this area up with focus and effort.

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