Why Do We Always Blame Mama?

Someone asked me why I had written a piece regarding the failure of parents (read: "mothers") to step up and take a more active role in their child's education with only a cursory mention of the role of the father. Here was my response:

"The Black father has given up his position of leadership in the household and the family. It doesn't matter what the reason. It doesn't matter whether it was the legacy of slavery, institutionalized racism, the Vietnam war and heroin. It doesn't really matter the cause. The bottomline is, it's the truth.

Black women, still being the very last bastion of loyalty, patience and unconditional love for the black man, have held out far beyond every logical indication that they are gone, to still love, adore and await their return. And, that's all very romantic and flowers and bluebirds and butterflies. Really, it is. However, our children have gone by the wayside in the interim and that has led to today's statistics which is NOT romantic in the least.

As a black woman, I don't believe I could begin to sufficiently explain to you, the degree to which black women have obsessed over WHY bm felt bw weren't "good enough" to stick around to commit to our families and our communities. But, to give you an example, it looks something like this: The sister walking down the street with blonde weave down to her tail, colored contacts and pancake makeup 2 shades too light. OR, it's the sister dressed like a hip hop video hooker, twerking with her children in the room at a family cookout. OR, it's the black single mom who has had 4 boyfriends over the course of 5 years around her two children. In and out of their home. In and out of her bedroom for her children to both witness and experience him staying and his leaving. The bw has been holding out hope against hope that the black man would come back home for good.

With that said...black children have been left to fend for and rear themselves to some degree. Their father was never around or just left one day and their mother's guidance has been frustrated by her own inability to rise above abiding pain and disappointment. Which was why I directed comments mainly towards her. Because, generally, most black single parent households are run by mothers. And, many of these mothers are distracted by either denial or by longing for a black man's absence or his return. Meanwhile, our children are missing out.

So, sisters, really need a paradigm shift. While the brothers SHOULD be fathers....we've had 25 years or so of preaching how that SHOULD happen and guess what? Many have not been moved by that concept. Even though THEY grew up without a dad, they have no problem with commiting the same crime against their own. A huge majority STILL disappear! Even men who were MARRIED to their children's mother, today use their own distance as an instrument to punish the exWife at the expense of the children. They just aren't around and it's time to stop lamenting over it and focus in on filling in the gaps for the child.

Yes, brothers are responsible for their offspring and should be present...but in the meantime, while we are waiting on BM to "get it", we cannot waste one more nanosecond waiting on the front stoop for brother to come back home while our children's futures are compromised due to lack of proper guidance and education.I took too long here to simply say this....sure, we expect and would LOVE to see FATHERS back where they need to be....but the child is already here. So, in the interim, single moms bear ALL the responsibility for how the child turns out. Period."

Do we want Black fathers back? Absolutely. But, can we afford to sit around on the front stoop waiting while our babies fall through the cracks....Absolutely not.