Put Your Mask on First: Intensive Black Mothering in Personal and Professional Spaces

• In Event: The Dora Milaje of Black Children in Schools: Black Mother Educators in Pre-K–12 Contexts

Abstract

We have all heard the obligatory warning during aircraft pre-departure to place the oxygen mask on ourselves first if we are responsible for the care of another individual in the event of an emergency. Many of us would agree that living while Black and female constitutes a rather consistent state of emergency; adding motherhood to that state heightens the risks; yet, we are typically the last to get the oxygen. Often existing in a frenzied state attempting to save the children – those from our wombs and those from our communities – we forget that we must take care of ourselves in order to optimally function as mothers. The personal function of mother is also layered for most Black women with the professional function of mother and are regularly burdened by a pervading expectation to perform the role of mammy in predominantly White teaching and learning environments (McElya, 2007; Whitaker, 2013). Resisting these deeply rooted perceptions of the Black female performance, highly educated Black women experience extreme dissonance functioning in this state described by Downing (2019) as “identity category violation” where an individual’s “personal actions are at odds with the perceived normative characteristics of the group to which they are ascribed” (p. 1). She continued that women violating their identity category, protective Black female mothers in this case, are labelled selfish and according to her research, it is a goal to be pursued – endorsement for women to put their masks on first.

Identity category violation can conversely be understood as intersectionality, the Reuleaux triangle of a Venn diagram where Black mother educators juggle the demands of their multiple identities to maximize their power. This requires the cultivation of capacities that are exclusive to successful Black women educators (Acosta, 2019; Dixson & Dingus, 2008; Jackson & Flowers, 2019; Noblit, 1993); yet, the culmination of these characteristics come at a cost. According to theoretical constructs around the strong, Black woman archetype, the complex social conditions under which Black women function create a self-destructive model of motherhood that heavily taxes the physical and emotional health of Black women (Elliott, Powell, & Brenton, 2015; Nichols, Gringle, & Pulliam, 2015; Romagnoli & Wall, 2012). The mythical Black woman who conquers every adversity without owning a white flag of surrender supports the notion of selfless service to others despite the need to seek self-care in order to provide quality care to those who need her support (Scott, 2017).

This paper explores auto-ethnographic narratives to analyze the protective strategies employed in the author’s personal and professional spaces as a middle-class Black mother educator. Background influences contextualize the author’s development and presence as an educator and mother, while auto-ethnographic narrative data about her two adult daughters is explored to examine the gendered and racialized schooling experiences she encountered along the trajectory of nurturing and educating middle-class Black daughters from pre-school to graduate school. A curriculum of Black motherhood to sustain and bolster the community and the culture of Black people is offered in conclusion.

Author

• Rhonda Jeffries, University of South Carolina