Not Our Kind of Girl: Unravelling the Myths of Black Teenage Motherhood [Paperback]

Elaine Bell Kaplan (Author), Arlie Russell Hochschild (Preface)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0520208587 | ISBN-13: 978-0520208582 | Edition: 1

One of the most worrisome images in America today is that of the teenage mother. For the African-American community, that image is especially troubling: All the problems of the welfare system seem to spotlight the black teenage mom. Elaine Bell Kaplan's affecting and insightful book dispels common perceptions of these young women. Her interviews with the women themselves, and with their mothers and grandmothers, provide a vivid picture of lives caught in the intersection of race, class, and gender.
Kaplan challenges the assumption conveyed in the popular media that the African-American community condones teen pregnancy, single parenting, and reliance on welfare. Especially telling are the feelings of frustration, anger, and disappointment expressed by the mothers and grandmothers Kaplan interviewed. And in listening to teenage mothers discuss their problems, Kaplan hears first-hand of their misunderstandings regarding sex, their fraught relationships with men, and their difficulties with the educational system--all factors that bear heavily on their status as young parents.
Kaplan's own experience as an African-American teenage mother adds a personal dimension to this book, and she offers substantial proposals for rethinking and reassessing the class factors, gender relations, and racism that influence black teenagers to become mothers.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Sociologist Kaplan (Univ. of Southern California) spent over three years interviewing black teenage mothers (and their mothers) in East Oakland, California. Using an ethnographic approach, she considers the teens' choice of motherhood in the light of gender, race, class relations, and socioeconomic conditions, within the context of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's culture of poverty, W.J. Wilson's economic determinism, and C. Stark's cultural strategies theories. She finds female black teenagers insecure, seeking an idealized relationship through motherhood, longing in vain for a male-headed, Brady Bunch-like model family. A reversal in the rising numbers of these welfare-dependent single mothers depends, says Kaplan, upon a different environment than now exists. She urges proactive support for young back women from feminist and community-oriented groups and financial, educational, and political sources. Well argued and readable, this is highly recommended for academics, professionals, and educated lay readers.?Suzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Alfred
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Because Kaplan employs the tools of her ethnographic trade so well, [this] book allows us to venture beneath stories told by studies based on large nationally representative surveys . . . and enriches our understanding of what the experience of teenage childbearing means in the lives of a small group of girls and women in one American community. . . . Kaplan is extremely responsible in how she presents the data, both those that fit and those that do not fit her overall theme. She is courageous enough to tell a story in which her characters' behaviors are at times heroic and at other times disturbing."--Kathryn Edin, "American Journal of Sociology

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Product Details

• Paperback: 265 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (August 25, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520208587
• ISBN-13: 978-0520208582
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #943,184 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent look at black teen mothers, August 30, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Not Our Kind of Girl: Unravelling the Myths of Black Teenage Motherhood (Paperback)

I read this years ago, but I remember it being okay. The author observes black teen mothers and their struggles and puts a human face on conservatives' favorite scapegoat. In our days of "Maury Povich" where baby daddy and baby grandmas call these young girls "sluts" in front of all America, the author notes that many grandmothers force their sons to accept paternity as soon as they see how much the new babies look like the fathers did when they were younger. The author's style is observational and may not be methodologically-sound for many. And sometimes, the conversation does get too internal. Still, I wish the author a good academic career and I thank her for increasing the scholarship on black women, particularly young and poor ones.