At multiple points over the course of my life my mother has worked more than one job in an effort to keep the two of us and my younger brother safe, healthy, and economically stable. When I was in middle school, my mother supported her income from her primary job as a postal worker by delivering newspapers in our city. She was fortunate enough to be placed on a route that served our neighborhood and the surrounding, so she could be close to home. She would get up around two in the morning and head out for a few hours before returning home to sleep on the couch for an hour and then immediately heading to her day job at the post office. My brother and I were alone in the house for those few hours and got ourselves ready for school in the morning. If anything happened, my mother was less than ten minutes away.

We were told to keep this a secret from our father. We didn’t live with him at that point. While I didn’t know it then, I now know that my mother was trying to protect herself and us from his disapproval and backlash. This was proven to be a valid fear. When my father eventually found out—I don’t even remember how—he exploded into rage and screamed at me and my brother until his voice went hoarse. He accused my mother of being a neglectful parent, of being selfish and irresponsible for leaving us in the house alone while we slept, of being lazy for not trying to find a better job. He threatened legal action against her to take us away and she said was a bad mother.

He did not think about the fact that he was not giving substantial financial support to ensure that my mother did not have to work that job. He did not think about the fact that there was no other possible time of the day to work because her primary job had her getting home at 9pm. He did not think about her poor pay being at odds with the rising costs of rent, utilities, and raising two kids. He did not think the fact that the court-mandated child support was not enough to assuage the threat of eviction. My mother was not afforded that grace.

My mother delivered newspapers for two and a half years. For two and a half years, her body slowly deteriorated from extreme lack of sleep and 16 hours of manual labor each day. Eventually, she was able to quit as things at the post office got better.

My brother and I were never placed into a dangerous situation because of my mother’s job. We were never in harm's way because of it. Even if we had been, I know I could never call it my mother’s fault. She did the best she could with the resources available to her and because of her, my brother and I had food on the table. Who could fault her for that?

In some ways, this is a mild example compared to the ways in which parents with marginalized identities, especially those who are single mothers, are blamed, villainized, and punished for the way they deal with systemic obstacles to safe and sustainable parenting. My mother did not have her kids taken away from her. My brother and I never faced danger as a result of being home alone at an early hour. Others have not had as fortunate outcomes.

In 2011, Raquel Nelson was crossing the street with her two kids where there was not a posted crosswalk. Her 4 year old son A.J. broke free from her grasp and while she was chasing him down, he was struck and killed by a drunk driver. The driver had two prior drunk driving and hit-and-run convictions on his record. The solicitor general charged Nelson with jaywalking and vehicular manslaughter. An all-white jury later found Nelson guilty and she faced a possible three year prison sentence. This led to a pour of public outcry and national support which eventually led to the judge giving community service instead of jail time. He also offered Nelson a retrial, which she accepted. Nelson now walks away with a $200 fine for a guilty plea on jaywalking, and enormous grief over the loss of her son. The drunk driver received six months in jail for his crime.

Nelson was able to avoid jail time but regardless, was subjected to structural racism within her city’s infrastructure and from the legal system. All she wanted was to get her kids home, and when tragedy struck she was blamed and charged for vehicular manslaughter despite not even owning a car. The system that allowed this to happen is the same system that  punishes marginalized parents for a “failure to parent” and frames this solely as an individual responsibility.  Nelson’s son died because of a drunk driver, but also because of the lack of crosswalks on her street and the neglect to consider pedestrian families (perhaps, people who don’t own and cannot afford a car). Nelson was found guilty of vehicular manslaughter and given a three year sentence by an all-white jury because of the American impulse to shame single mothers, especially single Black mothers, for doing what they can with limited resources to support the wellbeing of their families.

This impulse comes from harmful stereotypes created by government and media officials to villainize marginalized parents, especially women of color, one being the welfare queen. Ronald Reagan was the first to introduce the welfare queen into the public eye. It paints single Black mothers as mass perpetrators of welfare fraud and drug use, who only have babies to collect welfare checks and spend them on personal desires. Dorothy Roberts from Northwestern University identifies in a Colorlines article states: “The thread that joins them is the idea of total sexual immorality and irresponsible reproductive responsibility on the part of Black women, who become a burden on the state and also have no maternal bond with their own children.”

The welfare queen is an example of how dominant culture and social structure will villainize marginalized people in order to justify systemic mistreatment and quell their success. As the same Colorlines article says, “...it’s far easier to blame individuals than it is to indict the policies and culture that have structured poor people’s lives.” As a result of the welfare queen trope and so many others, Black women’s kids are taken away from them at disproportionate rates.

The American Bar Association released information in 2022 that “Over 50 percent of Black children in the U.S. will experience a child welfare investigation before their eighteenth birthday (nearly double the rate of white children). Nearly 10 percent of Black children will be removed from their parents and placed into foster care (double the rate of white children).”

What can we make of this statistic? Black children are removed from their homes at alarming rates. But it is not just Black children. There is a deep history of forced assimilation of Native children–taking them from their families and placing them in residential schools to “civilize” them. Native children are still removed from their homes today and are often placed with white families or families not in their tribe at disproportionate rates. Familial displacement stifles and ruptures marginalized communities. It is violent and prevents parents from raising their children safely and sustainably.

Reproductive justice does and must continue to include the right to parent safely and sustainably. This means without violence, without poverty, without hunger, without brutality and abuse by the state. This means not just surviving, but thriving. The ability to have a good life–more than just getting by. The ability to preserve your own mental and physical health while preserving that of your children. The proper resources to do so. The ability to better your community and ensure its continuation. This is vital.

For Further Reading and Learning: