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Says Austin, raising a
child you’re somehow related to, or taking in a kid whose
family you know is common in the black community. Adoption
is not, which is why she had to deflect negative comments
when she announced her plans to adopt a black baby.
The process took time:
Austin attended classes to become a certified foster mother
first, with the end goal of adoption. She’d decided on the
gender of the child she wanted and was offered the chance to
foster other boys; she declined, waiting for the right baby.
Her son, August, arrived
in late summer, 2008.
Eager to be the best
mother possible, Austin scoured the local library for books
on mothering for black women, and found nothing. Everything
seemed written by and for white women, who didn’t have to
tell their sons about DWB, who didn’t have to tolerate
strangers that assumed single motherhood and welfare went
hand-in-hand, and who wouldn’t have to explain racism to a
preschooler. While “there is nothing more universal than a
mother’s love for her child,” black mothers have different
issues to deal with.
And so, this book came
in-part from Austin’s frustration.
The most curious thing,
though, is that hers may become a reader’s frustration, too.
As a memoir, this book is
very good: author Nefertiti Austin writes about how she
overcame a life that nearly made her a statistic, with the
help of two loving grandparents who raised her as if they
were her birth parents. Austin goes on to tell why she cast
aside cultural norms in order to forge the path she knew was
best for her, and to become the mother she should have had
herself.
Again, it’s very good –
but it’s also of little help to a reader who is looking for
solid advice on dealing with her own unique journey to
motherhood as a woman of color. There’s so much more that
could have been in this book, but wasn’t, and some of it
might have helped educate those of whom Austin is critical.
Still, there’s a certain
undeniable comfort in her story, and that could be valuable
to the right reader. For her only, add Motherhood So
White to the scant list of parenting books for women of
color, and memoir + advice could make a good package.
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