‘You need to do love’: autoethnographic mother-writing in applying ParentCrit

Racist Babies? Resisting Whiteness in Parenting

“…Recently, a white 1 mother of a white, 3 year old son told me she was planning to talk to her son soon about race and so, given my scholarship in race and parenting [1], she'd want to have a conversation with me before she brought it up because she did not know what to say. She went on to note that her son's best friend was Black, and she was so glad that her son had not brought up the race of his friend because "he just doesn't notice race."…”

“…In this critical theoretical essay, I discuss literature related to white parenting and racialization as well as draw on autoethnographic mother writing [1][2][3], to show how whiteness is passed down intergenerationally particularly in the United States.…”

“…Autoethnographic mother writing is a methodology that draws on motherscholars' experiences and observations rooted in their roles as both mother and having been mothered [1,2]. Although autoethnographic mother writing is radically specific [3], it is rich with lived experience and sense-making.…”

“…This essay also falls within a larger body of scholarly work known as Critical Race Parenting or ParentCrit [1,[4][5][6][7][8][9]. ParentCrit falls within Critical Race Theory work as it applies to parenting children within racial realism and to be critically conscious.…”

“…For Parents of Color and/or white parents of Children of Color, ParentCrit often focuses on parenting to teach self-love and how to combat racism in parenting Children of Color [4,5,7,8]. For white parents, it often involves reflection on and combating whiteness in oneself and in one's white or white-presenting children [1,6,9]. Yet, one of the tenets of ParentCrit is the continued learning and growing toward social justice in both parent and child [10], as well the way that this growth happens in relationship with parent and child [1].…”