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.

Bill Cosby Was Right!

Dr. Cosby was correct. And, later for those who were hit by the rocks. We have the power to change things and all of the tools needed right now. Take education for example.

We don't have to wait for more funding or even an overhaul of our public school system to begin to reverse the damage that we've done to ourselves. I love that our new POTUS has his eye on an overhaul of the public school system and the No Child Left Behind Act. But, no amount of money funneled into the schools is going to sufficiently circumvent the effects of the lack of support for education in the home. If a mother doesn't value education, then rare is the child who will. (there are some children who are independently motivated from birth...and they are the exception, not the rule.)

Sure, many suburban and private schools are well-funded with state of the art science labs, techonologically advanced classrooms and a laptop at every desk.....BOOKS for every child. :) I submit there are some things you cannot do without - up to date books being vital. However, when a child doesn't have a person in the home consistently taking an active interest in her schoolwork, her homework, her attendance and her participation in class and extracurricular activities, she is less likely to excel in school. Any school.

If you are an eighth grade boy more interested in basketball and girls and looking cool in front of your peers, and your mother doesn't even confirm whether you have homework or not, let alone confirm that you've completed it, or, moreso - checked your work for you, then no amount of school funding is going to change it.

Parents take their child's word for it when he says, "I don't have homework." They allow them to turn in substandard work done at the very last minute instead of keeping ahead of the child's requirements in all of his classes. Helping the child then build a habit of procrastination when it comes to the most important life activities.

There is no effort to teach our children at home how to produce quality work and how to maintain that standard. Junior doesn't have to worry about mama vetoing his essay because it's sloppy and has grammatical errors. He knows she won't even read it. Let alone require him to rewrite it. At the most...she will look at the page full of writing to confirm he did something and turn her attention elsewhere.Mama is not requiring that her children read for recreation and independent education in the home.

I'm not blaming mother but I am blaming mother. (and father) On one hand, her mother didn't instill stronger educational values in her. She never grew up around books and, therefore, there are no books in her home today. However, at some point, as adults and parents, it is time to stand up and begin to seek an internal solution to whatever ails us.

If your child is consistently bringing home D's and missing school and is sure to drop out...search within for the solution. It's not necessarily a government shortcoming. How have you contributed to your child's mismanagement of her own education? When your child dreams of switching to the GED program from 8am-12noon daily rather than regular schooling....and you throw her a party for earning her GED...oh, no ma'am....we reinforce underachievement religiously and it has to stop. (yes, people celebrate them for kids now - feel free to comment and tell me why I should not be so hard on us)

Needless to say, if your mother and grandmother didn't go to college, then they may not necessarily have the awareness to guide you in the application process. They don't perceive higher education as applicable to your family. It's not even an option. This drastically differs from homes where college is a foregone conclusion...and many where even graduate schooling is automatic.

It's not money that the black community needs most in schools but parents. The best proof is in the examples of how we functioned prior to Brown vs Board of Education and desegregation. Prior to that, we never took education for granted and we refused to become victims of circumstance. As a result, people were driven and directed...even in the face of egregiously substandard school facilities....we used what we had and parents supplemented at home and filled in the balance.

Cosby was correct. We are to blame for the low graduation rates of our own childen and the even lower college graduation rates. There is so much we can do at home immediately that could significantly increase the success rates of our children. It's up to us.