Make Motherhood Diverse
Book Review: I Am Not Your Baby Mother: What it’s like to be a black British mother, Candice Braithwaite, Pub: Quercus London, 2020
I’m not sure why I picked this book up in a well-known bookstore a few days ago. I’m not a mother and I’m not Black. I’m White. But I did pick it up. I flicked through the pages and something caught my interest. And it was an easy read, a break from some of the more academic reading social workers inevitably undertake. Never understimate the ‘easy’ read.
As a mum-to-be Candice quickly recognised that there was little visibility of Black mothers in any of the British media, and what there was about motherhood in general did not reflect her life experiences. Although it was a few years later, it was this early experience of motherhood that laid the foundation to her setting up her own Instagram account as a ‘social influencer’ Make Motherhood Diverse, not just for Black mothers, but for all mothers.
Including her own experience of nearly becoming a part of the appalling mortality statistics for Black mothers and their babies, Candice lifts the lid on aspects of Black British culture, from the lived experience but taboo of discussing money and poverty, experiences of overt racism, to the risks to innocent young Black men from the burgeoning problem of knife crime. And in doing so my understanding of Black British culture has been expanded. I can see threads that link back to what I know of both African and Caribbean cultures, but even more the picture that is painted points to an ever present subconscious defence mechanism in the face of endemic racism.
The language is not academic and in that sense it is an easy read. If, like me, you enjoy reading biographies (although it is not intentionally written as a biography) it is an enjoyable read on that level. If you are White it may open your eyes to the lived experiences of many from other cultures. If you are living in a culture that is not your own (and in the UK that can include some White cultures that are pereceived as different by some) you may well be able to relate some of your own experiences to those described within these pages.
For myself there were three points in particular that tugged at me.
Candice discusses the importance and difficulties in choosing the right names for her children. I was reminded of my own mother telling me she chose my name because she wanted a name that would not sound childish when I was a teenager or adult. Unlike Candice, my own mother did not have to think about whether my name would prevent me from getting a job interview, regardless of my skills, experiences and qualifications.
The second was in the passage: “I didn’t need any DNA or provenance hunters to understand that ever since my ancesters were taken from their rightful birthplace – the land they had governed and owned – they were taught, first by force and then by trend, to assimilate. To hide in plain sight. To pull themselves in so tight to the proximity of whiteness, because it would be this and only this that saved their lives.”
I have seen this. I have felt it. I recall having to tell one Jamaican woman that in my report I was not allowed to describe her as Jamaican, as she wished, but as Afro-Caribbean, on order of my White managers. Physically she still took up the same space but I felt her become smaller in front of me. I’m sorry. I should have fought harder for your right to be identified as you wished, and not by a term which even I recognised as racist.
The third point I most valued from Candice’s book was a description that reinforced why, as a social work profession, we have rejected the practice of placing non-White children with White carers. And one that was particularly pertinent as I had very recently been discussing a potential but unsuitable long term placement of two Black African-British children with White carers. Candice writes: “As a black British woman of Caribbean descent, it was only now that I was about to have a child that I noticed that there was a lot about my culture and my heritage – outside of putting too much vinegar on my chips, my love for Ribena and my weakness for plantain – that I did not know. All of a sudden I felt like a child myself, trying to grab at anything which I could possibly pass down to my child as a rite of passage.” If Candice struggled with aspects of her culture and heritage, having been brought up surrounded by family who shared the same culture and heritage, how much harder it must be for Black children brought up by White carers who, in all honesty, cannot have or replicate the same depth of understanding of the issues they will face as they grow into their teens and young adulthood, as described by Candice throughout the book, leaving them stranded between cultural identities?
Social Work & Politics 