Toni Morrison and Motherhood

A Politics of the Heart

Andrea O'Reilly

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780791485163
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: African American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Traces Morrison's theory of African American mothering as it is articulated in her novels, essays, speeches, and interviews. Mothering is a central issue for feminist theory, and motherhood is also a persistent presence in the work of Toni Morrison. Examining Morrison's novels, essays, speeches, and interviews, Andrea O'Reilly illustrates how Morrison builds upon black women's experiences of and perspectives on motherhood to develop a view of black motherhood that is, in terms of both maternal identity and role, radically different from motherhood as practiced and prescribed in the dominant culture. Motherhood, in Morrison's view, is fundamentally and profoundly an act of resistance, essential and integral to black women's fight against racism (and sexism) and their ability to achieve well-being for themselves and their culture. The power of motherhood and the empowerment of mothering are what make possible the better world we seek for ourselves and for our children. This, argues O'Reilly, is Morrison's maternal theory—a politics of the heart. "As an advocate of 'a politics of the heart, ' O'Reilly has an acute insight into discerning any threat to the preservation and continuation of traditional African American womanhood and values … Above all, Toni Morrison and Motherhood, based on Andrea O'Reilly's methodical research on Morrison's works as well as feminist critical resources, proffers a useful basis for understanding Toni Morrison's works. It certainly contributes to exploring in detail Morrison's rich and complex works notable from the perspectives of nurturing and sustaining African American maternal tradition." — African American Review "O'Reilly boldly reconfigures hegemonic western notions of motherhood while maintaining dialogues across cultural differences." — Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering "Andrea O'Reilly examines Morrison's complex presentations of, and theories about, motherhood with admirable rigor and a refusal to simplify, and the result is one of the most penetrating and insightful studies of Morrison yet to appear, a book that will prove invaluable to any scholar, teacher, or reader of Morrison." — South Atlantic Review "…it serves as a sort of annotated bibliography of nearly all the major theoretical work on motherhood and on Morrison as an author … anyone conducting serious study of either Toni Morrison or motherhood, not to mention the combination, should read [this book]... O'Reilly's exhaustive research, her facility with theories of Anglo-American and Black feminism, and her penetrating analyses of Morrison's works result in a highly useful scholarly read." — Literary Mama "By tracing both the metaphor and literal practice of mothering in Morrison's literary world, O'Reilly conveys Morrison's vision of motherhood as an act of resistance." — American Literature "Motherhood is critically important as a recurring theme in Toni Morrison's oeuvre and within black feminist and feminist scholarship. An in-depth analysis of this central concern is necessary in order to explore the complex disjunction between Morrison's interviews, which praise black mothering, and the fiction, which presents mothers in various destructive and self-destructive modes. Kudos to Andrea O'Reilly for illuminating Morrison's 'maternal standpoint' and helping readers and critics understand this difficult terrain. Toni Morrison and Motherhood is also valuable as a resource that addresses and synthesizes a huge body of secondary literature." — Nancy Gerber, author of Portrait of the Mother-Artist: Class and Creativity in Contemporary American Fiction "In addition to presenting a penetrating and original reading of Toni Morrison, O'Reilly integrates the evolving scholarship on motherhood in dominant and minority cultures in a review that is both a composite of commonalities and a clear representation of differences." — Elizabeth Bourque Johnson, University of Minnesota Andrea O'Reilly is Associate Professor in the School of Women's Studies at York University and President of the Association for Research on Mothering. She is the author and editor of several books on mothering, including (with Sharon Abbey) Mothers and Daughters: Connection, Empowerment, and Transformation and Mothers and Sons: Feminism, Masculinity, and the Struggle to Raise Our Sons.

chapter one
A Politics of the Heart

Toni Morrison’s Theory of Motherhood as a Site of Power and Motherwork as Concerned with the Empowerment of Children

MOTHERHOOD IS A CENTRAL THEME in Morrison’s fiction and is a topic she returns to time and time again in her many interviews and articles. In her reflections on motherhood, both inside and outside her fiction, Morrison articulates a fully developed theory of African American mothering that is central to her larger political and philosophical stance on black womanhood. Building upon black women’s experiences of, and perspectives on motherhood, Morrison develops a view of black motherhood that is, in terms of both maternal identity and role, radically different than the motherhood practised and prescribed in the dominant culture. Morrison defines and positions maternal identity as a site of power for black women. From this position of power black mothers engage in a maternal practice that has as its explicit goal the empowerment of children. This chapter will introduce Morrison’s theory of motherhood, what I have termed “A Politics of the Heart.” Drawing upon Patricia Hill Collins’s standpoint theory, I will detail how the traditions and practices of black mothering give rise to a distinct black maternal perspective on motherhood. The chapter will then examine how Morrison, building from this standpoint on black motherhood, defines black motherhood as a site of power for women. Next, borrowing from Sara Ruddick’s model of maternal practice, I will explore how and in which ways Morrison defines motherwork as a political enterprise that assumes as its central aim the empowerment of children. Motherwork, in Morrison, is concerned with how mothers, raising black children in a racist and sexist world, can best protect their children, instruct them in how to protect themselves, challenge racism, and, for daughters, the sexism that seeks to harm them.

PATRICIA HILL COLLINS’S STANDPOINT THEORY

In Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, Patricia Hill Collins writes, “[E]very culture has a worldview that it uses to order and evaluate its own experiences” (10). Black women, Collins goes on to explain,

fashioned an independent standpoint about the meaning of Black womanhood. These self definitions enabled Black women to use African-derived conceptions of self and community to resist negative evaluations of Black womanhood advanced by dominant groups. In all, Black women’s grounding in traditional African-American culture fostered the development of a distinctive African American women’s culture.(11)

The black female standpoint develops in opposition to and in resistance against the dominant view or what Collins calls the controlling images of black womanhood. Collins argues that “the dominant ideology of the slave era fostered the creation of four interrelated, socially constructed controlling images of Black womanhood, each reflecting the dominant group’s interest in maintaining Black women’s subordination” (71). The four controlling images that Collins examines include the mammy, the matriarch, the welfare mother, and the Jezebel. By way of controlling images, as Collins explains, “certain assumed qualities are attached to Black women and [then] used to justify [that] oppression” (7). “From the mammies, Jezebels, and breeder women of slavery,” Collins writes, “to the smiling Aunt Jemimas on pancake mix boxes, ubiquitous Black prostitutes, and ever-present welfare mothers of contemporary popular culture, the nexus of negative stereotypical images applied to African-American women has been fundamental to Black women’s oppression” (7). Black women, according to Collins, may resist these derogatory stereotypes through the creation of a distinct black female standpoint that is based on black women’s own experiences and meanings of womanhood.

The black female standpoint, Collins argues, develops through an interplay between two discourses of knowledge: “the commonplace taken-for granted knowledge” and the “everyday ideas” of black women that are clarified and rearticulated by black women intellectuals or theorists to form a specialized black feminist thought. In turn, as Collins explains, “the consciousness of Black women may be transformed by [this] thought” (20). She elaborates:

Through the process of rearticulation, Black women intellectuals offer African-American women a different view of themselves and their world from that forwarded by the dominant group. . . . By taking the core themes of a Black women’s standpoint and infusing them with new meaning, Black women intellectuals can stimulate a new consciousness that utilizes Black’s women’s everyday, taken-for granted knowledge. Rather than raising consciousness, Black feminist thought affirms and rearticulates a consciousness that already exists. More, important, this rearticulated consciousness empowers African-American women and stimulates resistance. (31–32)

In other words, the black female standpoint, emerging from black women’s everyday experiences and clarified by black feminist theory, not only provides a distinct “angle of vision on self, community and society” but also, in so doing, enables black women to counter and interrupt the dominant discourse of black womanhood.

The formation and articulation of a self-defined standpoint, Collins emphasizes, “is [thus] key to Black women’s survival” (26). As Audre Lorde argues, “[I]t is axiomatic that if we do not define ourselves for ourselves, we will be defined by others—for their use and to our detriment” (as quoted in Collins, 21, 1991). However, as Collins emphasizes the importance of self-definition, she recognizes that black women, as an oppressed group, inevitably must struggle to convey this self-definition, positioned as they are at the periphery of the dominant white, male culture. Collins writes: “An oppressed group’s experiences may put its members in a position to see things differently, but their lack of control over ideological apparatuses of society makes expressing a self-defined standpoint more difficult” (26). The black female standpoint is thus, in Collins’s words, “an independent, viable, yet subjugated knowledge” (13).

Collins’s standpoint thesis provides a useful conceptual framework for viewing Morrison as a maternal theorist. To borrow from Collins’s paradigm: Morrison is an intellectual who takes the core themes of black motherhood and develops from them a new consciousness of black motherhood that empowers African American women and engenders resistance. Furthermore, Morrison’s standpoint on black motherhood challenges, and enables black women to challenge the controlling images of black motherhood, which Collins has defined as the mammy, the matriarch, Jezebel, and the welfare mother. Morrison’s standpoint on black motherhood enables black women to resist these negative evaluations of black motherhood by rearticulating the power that is inherent in black women’s everyday experiences of motherhood. This rearticulation centers upon a reaffirmation of the traditional roles and beliefs of black motherhood that gives rise to Morrison’s theory of motherhood as a site of power for black women and her theory of motherwork as an enterprise concerned with the empowerment of children. The following section will explore “the commonplace taken-for granted knowledge” and “everyday ideas” of black motherhood from which Morrison develops her theory of motherhood as a “politics of the heart.”

AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMANIST THOUGHT ON MOTHERHOOD

“During the early stages of contemporary women’s liberation movement,” bell hooks writes, “feminist analyses of motherhood reflected the race and class biases of participants” (1984: 133). “Some white, middle class, college educated women argued,” hooks continues, that motherhood was:

the locus of women’s oppression. Had black women voiced their views on motherhood, it would not have been named a serious obstacle to our freedom as women. Racism, availability of jobs, lack of skills or education . . . would have been at the top of the list—but not motherhood. (1984: 133)

Feminist theory on motherhood, as hooks identifies, is racially codified. Drawing upon contemporary womanist¹ thought on black motherhood, I will argue that there exists a distinct African American tradition of motherhood. Two interrelated themes or perspectives distinguish the African American tradition of motherhood. First, mothers and motherhood are valued by, and central to African American culture. Secondly, it is recognized that mothers and mothering are what make possible the physical and psychological well-being and empowerment of African American people and the larger African American culture. Black women raise children in a society that is at best indifferent to the needs of black children and the concerns of black mothers. The focus of black motherhood, in both practice and thought, is how to preserve, protect, and more generally empower black children so that they may resist racist practices that seek to harm them and grow into adulthood whole and complete. For the purpose of this discussion, I employ African Canadian theorists Wanda Thomas Bernard and Candace Bernard’s definition of empowerment: “empowerment is naming, analyzing, and challenging oppression on an individual, collective, and/or structural level. Empowerment, which occurs through the development of critical consciousness, is gaining control, exercising choices, and engaging in collective social action” (46). To fulfill the task of empowering children, mothers must hold power in African American culture, and mothering likewise must be valued and supported. In turn, African American culture, understanding the importance of mothering for individual and cultural well-being and empowerment, gives power to mothers and prominence to the work of mothering. In other words, black mothers require power to do the important work of mothering and are accorded power because of the importance of mothering.

The African American tradition of motherhood centers upon the recognition that mothering, in its concern with the physical and psychological well-being of children and its focus upon the empowerment of children, has cultural and political import, value, and prominence, and that motherhood, as a consequence, is a site of power for black women. This section will examine this tradition of African American mothering under five interrelated topics: “Othermothering and Community Mothering,” “Motherhood as Social Activism and as a Site of Power,” “Matrifocality,” “Nurturance as Resistance: Providing a Homeplace,” and “The Motherline: Mothers as Cultural Bearers.” Next it will examine this tradition in the context of mothers’ relationships with their children. Specifically, this section will consider how daughters seek identification or connection with their mothers due to the cultural centrality and significance of the mother role and how this connection gives rise to the daughters’ empowerment in African American culture. Finally, the section will explore how African American mothers remain, contrary to the normative scripts of mother-son relation, involved in their sons’ lives and how this involvement fosters physical survival, psychological well-being, and overall empowerment.

OTHERMOTHERING AND COMMUNITY MOTHERING

Stanlie James, in “Mothering: A Possible Black Feminist Link to Social Transformations” defines othermothering “as acceptance of responsibility for a child not one’s own, in an arrangement that may or may not be formal” (45). Othermothers usually care for children. In contrast, community mothers, as Njoki Nathani Wane explains, “take care of the community. These women are typically past their childbearing years” (112). “The role of community mothers,” as Arlene Edwards notes, “often evolved from that of being othermothers” (88). James argues that othermothering and community mothering developed from, in Arlene Edwards’s words, “West African practices of communal lifestyles and interdependence of communities” (88). Consequently, as Patricia Hill Collins has observed, “[m]othering [in West Africa] was not a privatized nurturing ‘occupation’ reserved for biological mothers, and the economic support of children was not the exclusive responsibility of men” (1993: 45). Rather, mothering expressed itself as both nurturance and work, and care of children was viewed as the duty of the larger community. Collins argues that these complementary dimensions of mothering and the practice of communal mothering/othermothering give women great influence and status in West African societies. She elaborates:

First, since they are not dependent on males for economic support and provide much of their own and their children’s economic support, women are structurally central to families. Second, the image of the mother is culturally elaborated and valued across diverse West African societies. . . . Finally, while the biological mother-child bond is valued, childcare was a collective responsibility, a situation fostering cooperative, age-stratified, woman centered “mothering” networks. (45)

These West African cultural practices, Collins argues, were retained by enslaved African Americans and gave rise to a distinct tradition of African American motherhood in which the custom of othermothering and community mothering was emphasized and elaborated. Arlene Edwards, in her article “Community Mothering: The Relationship Between Mothering and the Community Work of Black Women,” explains:

The experience of slavery saw the translation of othermothering to new settings, since the care of children was an expected task of enslaved Black women in addition to the field or house duties. . . . [T]he familial instability of slavery engendered the adaptation of communality in the form of fostering children whose parents, particularly mothers, had been sold. This tradition of communality gave rise to the practice of othermothering. The survival of the concept is inherent to the survival of Black people as a whole . . . since it allowed for the provision of care to extended family and non blood relations. (80)

The practice of othermothering remains central to the African American tradition of motherhood and is regarded as essential for the survival of black people. Bell hooks, in her article “Revolutionary Parenting” (1984), comments:

Child care is a responsibility that can be shared with other childrearers, with people who do not live with children. This form of parenting is revolutionary in this society because it takes place in opposition to the idea that parents, especially mothers, should be the only childrearers. Many people raised in black communities experienced this type of community-based child care. Black women who had to leave the home and work to help provide for families could not afford to send children to day care centers and such centers did not always exist. They relied on people in their communities to help. Even in families where the mother stayed home, she could also rely on people in the community to help. . . . People who did not have children often took responsibility for sharing in childrearing. (144)

“The centrality of women in African-American extended families,” as Nina Jenkins concludes in “Black Women and the Meaning of Motherhood,” “is well known” (Abbey and O’Reilly 1998: 206).

The practice of othermothering, as it developed from West African traditions, became in African American culture a strategy of survival in that it ensured that all children, regardless of whether the biological mother was present or available, would receive the mothering that delivers psychological and physical well-being and makes empowerment possible. Collins concludes:

Biological mothers or bloodmothers are expected to care for their children. But African and African-American communities have also recognized that vesting one person with full responsibility for mothering a child may not be wise or possible. As a result, “othermothers,” women who assist bloodmothers by sharing mothering responsibilities, traditionally have been central to the institution of Black motherhood. (1993: 47)

Community mothering and othermothering also emerged in response to black mothers’ needs and served to empower black women and enrich their lives. “Historically and presently community mothering practices,” Erica Lawson writes, “was and is a central experience in the lives of many Black women and participation in mothering is a form of emotional and spiritual expression in societies that marginalize Black women” (26). The self-defined and created role and identity of community mother also, as Lawson explains, “enabled African Black women to use African derived conceptions of self and community to resist negative evaluations of Black women” (26).

The practice of othermothering/community mothering as a cultural sustaining mechanism and as a mode of empowerment for black mothers has been documented in numerous studies. Carol Stack’s early but important book All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community (1974) emphasizes how crucial and central extended kin and community are for poor urban blacks. “Black families in The Flats and the non-kin they regard as kin,” Stack writes in her conclusion, “have evolved patterns of co-residence, kinship-based exchange networks linking multiple domestic units, elastic household boundaries, lifelong bonds to three-generation households, social controls against the formation of marriages that could endanger the network of kin, the domestic authority of women, and limitations on the role of the husband or male friend within a woman’s kin network” (124).² Priscilla Gibson’s recent article, “Developmental Mothering in an African American Community: From Grandmothers to New Mothers Again” (2000), provides a study of grandmothers and great-grandmothers who assumed the caregiving responsibilities of their (great) grandchildren as a result of the parent being unable or unwilling to provide that care. Gibson argues that “[in] creasingly grandmothers, especially African American grandmothers, are becoming kinship providers for grandchildren with absent parents. This absent middle generation occurs because of social problems such as drug abuse, incarceration, domestic violence, and divorce, just to name a few” (33). In “Reflections on the Mutuality of Mothering: Women, Children, and Othermothering,” Njoki Nathani Wane explores in her research study of women in Kenya how precolonial African beliefs and customs gave rise to a communal practice of childrearing and an understanding that “parenting, especially mothering, was an integral component of African traditions and cultures” (111). “Most of pre-colonial Africa,” explains Wane, “was founded upon and sustained by collectivism. . . . Labour was organized along parallel rather than hierarchical lines, thus giving equal value to male and female labour. Social organization was based on the principle of patrilineal or matrilineal descent, or a combination of both. Mothering practices were organized as a collective activity” (108). Today, the practice of othermothering, as Wane notes, “serves[s] to relieve some of the stresses that can develop between children and paren...