Raising Biracial Children

[Debra L. Martin]

>
>
>
>Join authors Marion Kilson and Florence Ladd
>as they talk about their book:
>
>IS THAT
>YOUR
>CHILD?
>
>MOTHERS TALK ABOUT
>REARING BIRACIAL
>CHILDREN
>
>Thursday January 22
>4:00-5:30pm
>W11 Main Dining Room
>
>Co-sponsored by the Chaplain to the Institute and The MIT
>Center for Work, Family & Personal Life
>
>
>
>"Is that your child?" is a question that countless mothers of 
>biracial children in the United States encounter, whether they are 
>African Americans or European Americans, rearing children today or a 
>generation ago, living in the city or in the suburbs, are 
>upper-middle-class or middle-class. In this book we probe mothers' 
>responses to this query as well as their accounts of other 
>challenges and rewards of parenting biracial children.
>
>The authors began their conversations about parenting biracial 
>children by recounting their own experiences. Anthropologist Marion 
>Kilson, a European American, and psychologist Florence Ladd, an 
>African American, became parents of biracial children in the 1960s 
>and 1970s, respectively.
>
>Curious about the commonalities and differences between their 
>experiences and those of other black and white women with biracial 
>children, they interviewed black mothers whose children's fathers 
>were white men and white mothers whose children's fathers were black 
>men. Some of these women were members of their generation; others 
>were younger. Some women's child rearing days were well behind them; 
>others were rearing young children or adolescents when interviewed. 
>They talked to women whom they already knew and to others whom they 
>first met during our interviews. All are middle-class or 
>upper-middle-class in socioeconomic status, living today in the 
>Greater Boston area. All were generously candid with their 
>revelations and reflections.
>
>They found that there were parenting issues that transcended 
>generations and some that were characteristic of only one 
>generation. They discovered that mothers differed in their levels of 
>race awareness as parents as well as in the importance that they 
>gave to racial considerations in parenting their children.
>
>IS THAT YOUR CHILD? MOTHERS TALK ABOUT REARING BIRACIAL CHILDREN 
>serves as a general guide for understanding the situation of parents 
>with biracial children and that of the children themselves. It 
>addresses situations that confront parents, teachers, social 
>workers, health professionals, and the clergy. This book also fills 
>an enormous gap in social science literature and will provide an 
>excellent text for classes on race relations, parenting, and child 
>rearing.
>
>


-- 
*****************************************
Debra L. Martin, Programs Manager
MIT
Vice President for Research Office, Rm 11-268
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA  02139
617-258-0310, 617-252-1003 (fax)
debra at mit.edu
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