The Accidental Toxicity of Black Mothers

Random pic of my kid, because shes cute.

Today, as I perused the wall of my facebook page, I came across a video on the Cocoa Butter facebook page titled “24 things every black mom has said”, and it deeply disturbed me. Some of the quotes that stuck out to me were:

· I brought you into this world, I’ll take you out

· When we go into the store- don’t ask me for nothing and don’t touch nothing

· You’d better shut up before I give you something to cry about

· Don’t make me get my belt

· Stay out of grown folks business

· You’d better fix your face before I fix it for you

· You think I’m playing with you?

· Keep talking and I’ll knock the taste out of your mouth

· I am the mama, you are the child.

There were other, harmless, life advice and boundaries setting quotes as well about being home at an appropriate time, denying the child something they want in a way that isn’t abusive or demeaning, but the above quotes stuck out to me because they forced me to pose the following question: Why are we ok with this being the acceptable standard for black motherhood?

I am sure that some people reading this are wondering: What are the issues with the above quotes? I am going to itemize each quote I’ve honed in on and explain exactly what’s wrong with them because I understand how intergenerational cycles of abuse and internalization/ normalization of this abuse works.

“I brought you into this world, I’ll take you out”, “You’d better fix your face before I fix it for you”, “Don’t make me get my belt” ‘You think I’m playing with you?”, “Keep talking and I’ll knock the taste out of your mouth”, You think I’m playing with you?” Each of these quotes bothers me for the same reason. They are threats of violence and tantamount to verbal and mental abuse with a threat (and most time follow-up of) physical violence. This is not normal. This is not ok. As a community, we have normalized these behaviors and physical violence as “good parenting” but decades of empirical international research, across economic lines, racial lines, and borders all have the same conclusion: hitting children as a form of discipline is an ineffective parenting method…