Parenting in Precarity: Experiences of Black Mothers Impacted by Child Protective Services

The Institute for Research on Poverty hosts seminars on the UW-Madison campus most Thursdays during the academic year. These presentations are free and open to the public. Room 8417.

media release: Lecture by Darcey Merritt, professor, University of  Chicago, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice

Black families are overrepresented in Child Protection Services and are more likely to have insufficient housing, income, generational wealth, and concrete support, resulting in an increased likelihood of CPS exposure. Collapsing notions of good parenting with CPS decision-making about poverty-related neglect further codifies structurally racist discourses about Black motherhood into harmful policies, negatively impacts mothers’ self-perception and self-esteem, and diminishes parental autonomy. This presentation will examine ways in which systemic racism and the lack of concrete support constrain parenting decisions among CPS-impacted Black mothers in the United States. Identified themes included system oversight and lack of resources constraining parenting choices (inaccessible child care, insufficient employment, CPS unresponsive or uninclined to understand the context of poverty and impacts on parenting choices), being fearful of CPS and traumatized by CPS exposure, and exercising hypervigilance in documenting parenting behaviors and choices in fear of system oversight. What is termed neglectful parenting by CPS are really choices being made due to poverty, lack of access to concrete supports, and community-level risk factors beyond their control.