“These people have seen this in our cultures back home”: black mothers in the UK and Canada reclaim attachment parenting

TY - JOUR

T1 - “These people have seen this in our cultures back home”

T2 - black mothers in the UK and Canada reclaim attachment parenting

AU - Hamilton, Patricia

N1 - Funding Information: This research was funded by an Ontario Trillium Scholarship. Thank you to Ilana van Wyk, esethu monkali, and everyone who attended the Indexing Transformation seminar upon which this paper is based. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Attachment parenting (AP), coined by American paediatrician William Sears and his wife Martha, claims inspiration from the practices of “traditional” and “primitive” peoples. These peoples’ “instinctive” parenting behaviour forms the basis for AP’s seven tools, including breastfeeding, babywearing and bedsharing. As the AP phenomenon gathers momentum in the US, UK and Canada, this paper examines the raced, gendered and classed dimensions of its rise to popularity. Who is AP for? And to whom does it belong? Drawing from interviews with nineteen black mothers living in Canada and the UK, this paper captures efforts to “reclaim” attachment parenting, both against the Sears and for black communities.

AB - Attachment parenting (AP), coined by American paediatrician William Sears and his wife Martha, claims inspiration from the practices of “traditional” and “primitive” peoples. These peoples’ “instinctive” parenting behaviour forms the basis for AP’s seven tools, including breastfeeding, babywearing and bedsharing. As the AP phenomenon gathers momentum in the US, UK and Canada, this paper examines the raced, gendered and classed dimensions of its rise to popularity. Who is AP for? And to whom does it belong? Drawing from interviews with nineteen black mothers living in Canada and the UK, this paper captures efforts to “reclaim” attachment parenting, both against the Sears and for black communities.

KW - Attachment parenting

KW - black motherhood

KW - intensive mothering

KW - intersectionality

KW - parenting

KW - resistance

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092637832&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/01419870.2020.1828597

DO - 10.1080/01419870.2020.1828597

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85092637832

SN - 0141-9870

VL - 44

SP - 2595

EP - 2614

JO - ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES

JF - ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES

IS - 14

ER -