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Acknowledgments

I did not write this book alone. An undeniable truth is that, although writing may, at times, be a solitary process, completing a project of this scope cannot be accomplished without the invisible labor of others. I sincerely appreciate the community of scholars, friends, and family who provided emotional, intellectual, and practical support throughout my research and writing. Without their assistance and belief in me, their respect for me as a scholar, and their appreciation of me as a person with non-academic demands in the larger world, this book would have been a much more difficult, if not impossible, task to complete.

I owe a special note of gratitude to every person who participated in this research. I thank them for taking time away from their families and jobs to open up to me about parts of their lives. They carved out time after bedtime, during outings to the park with their children, and during their lunchtime to share their beliefs and experiences about work, family, and parenting. Whenever I have given presentations about this research at conferences, African American women, men, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters have approached me to tell me how these findings resonate with their personal experiences. Daughters have told me how their mothers worked to cultivate their self-esteem and self-reliance. Sons have said, “My mother tells me to do the things you describe, but I still get hassled.” Some people have approached me to explain where they think they fit into the categories that emerged in this research. African American mothers have told me how they appreciated hearing a version of motherhood that more closely matched their own experiences. I feel privileged to be the person with whom my study participants shared their perspectives and, thus, enabled the individuals I described above to see versions of themselves in sociological research. I hope other scholars continue to examine the complexity of the experiences and perspectives of African American mothers and other mothers of color from a range of socioeconomic positions and determine how they may or may not fit into existing analytical boxes. As novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie asserts, there is danger in a single story.

Like many first-time academic book writers, I used my dissertation as the initial draft of this manuscript. At the University of California, Berkeley, Raka Ray was my dissertation chair, and from the beginning, she believed in this project. Raka encouraged me to show how my research not only diversified what we know about work, family, and parenting by giving voice to the experiences of African American middle-class mothers, but also how it challenged fundamental assumptions within family and work scholarship and demanded that we deconstruct and unmake the categories of mother and worker. Throughout this process, Raka showed me that she cared about my intellectual and professional development and my nonacademic life (knowing these parts of life can hardly be separated from each other). She also encouraged me to develop my voice as both an academic scholar and a public sociologist who shares her research with audiences outside of traditional academic circles.

Barrie Thorne and Evelyn Nakano Glenn also provided invaluable feedback that strengthened the analysis in this book. Barrie pushed me to explore the complexity of the lives of the mothers I studied. She also encouraged me to honor their shared and divergent experiences and to be precise in the concepts I was using to describe them. I thank Evelyn Nakano Glenn for her contributions to the intellectual foundations of this research. Her research on mothering greatly informs this work. Evelyn pushed me to consider how changing social constraints and opportunities shape the life trajectories and expectations of mothers.

In Raka Ray’s dissertation writing group I regularly circulated early- and later-stage parts of this research that were carefully read and critiqued by a group of intellectual powerhouses that included Nazanin Shahkokni, Sarah Anne Minkin, Jordana Matlon, Kate Mason, Kate Maich, Kimberley Kay Hoang, Katie Hasson, Jennifer Dawn Carlson, Oluwakemi Balogun, and Abigail Andrews. I owe a special debt of gratitude to these amazing women for the close attention they paid to my research, which enhanced my empirical and theoretical analysis.

While at the University of California, Berkeley, I was a graduate fellow at the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (ISSI). Through the Graduate Fellows Program, I had the opportunity to benefit from the wisdom and expertise of its three program directors, my cohort of fellows, and alumni from the program. David Minkus and Deborah Lustig deserve special thanks. They carefully read parts of this manuscript, provided critical feedback, and pushed me to sharpen my analysis and conceptual categories. Christine Trost read early versions of chapters and was extremely generous and honest with her feedback. I also thank my cohort of fellows: Willow Amam, Lindsey Dillon, Naomi Hsu, Nicole Lindahl, Karin Martin, Alina Polyakova, and Nu-Anh Tran. This interdisciplinary group of scholars helped to ensure that my findings remained clear and accessible to a broad range of academic and nonacademic audiences.

I benefited from workshopping parts of this manuscript in several formally organized groups. The research was enhanced by the feedback that I received from members of the Sociology Department’s Gender Workshop and the Interdisciplinary Family Working Group, both at the University of California, Berkeley. At Syracuse University, I gained valuable input from members of the Moynihan Faculty Workshop. In addition to these formal groups, I am grateful to have participated in several writing groups throughout the time I wrote this book. I am thankful to have been invited to participate in a writing and dissertation support group with Siri Colom, Sarah Gilman, Katie Hasson, Silvia Pasquetti, and Gretchen Purser. These scholars read over parts of the manuscript and provided me with constant encouragement and emotional support as we discussed our research late into the evening over cups of coffee or glasses of wine. The feedback I received from these formally and informally organized groups added layers of complexity to my research. Katie Hasson deserves special recognition. She has been a loyal friend, and I have benefitted enormously from her scholarly brilliance over the years. Our regular writing dates and writing retreats and our discussions about academia and life more generally have sustained me over the years. I will always be grateful for the gift of her friendship and her encouragement to celebrate the milestones and engage in radical self-care.

The Sociology Department of Syracuse University in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs was my first academic home after graduate school. I found a wonderful community of colleagues whose scholarly intellect and friendship I continue to benefit from to today. At the University of Maryland, College Park, I have been lucky to find colleagues who have offered essential pieces of advice, encouragement, and/ or support at critical points throughout this process.

At both Syracuse University and the University of Maryland, College Park I was a member of various regular writing boot camps. I also greatly appreciate being introduced to the Writers’ Colony in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, by Anastasia Boles and the opportunity to spend extended periods focusing on this book. These groups helped me to create protected time to focus on the work of revision. While the members of these groups were working on different projects, their camaraderie provided enormous psychic support and accountability.

My research has benefited from the financial support of several grants and fellowships, including the Center for Race and Gender and the Sociology Department at the University of California, Berkeley. At Syracuse University, I was awarded the Humanities Center Fellowship, which provided me with additional time to focus on revising portions of this manuscript. I also received a faculty seed grant from the Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity (CRGE) designed to support early-career faculty at the University of Maryland, College Park, who are engaged in research using qualitative and mixed methods.

Portions of this book have also appeared in Gender & Society, Sociological Perspectives, and the Sociology of Race & Ethnicity and thus have benefitted from feedback from the anonymous reviewers and editors of each of those journals. Lila Stromer was an expert editor and helped me achieve my goal of producing a text that will hopefully be accessible to a broad range of audiences while maintaining the theoretical and empirical nuances of my research. Melissa Brown, my research assistant at the University of Maryland, College Park, helped me format some citations and figures, and to create the map in the appendix of this book.

I am grateful to Naomi Schneider, my editor at the University of California Press, for her advice throughout this process, and to her assistant Benjy Malings, who facilitated the production process. Joya Misra, Mary Blair-Loy, and an anonymous reviewer provided incisive suggestions for revisions that have heightened the analytical rigor of the manuscript.

I am lucky to have Oluwakemi Balogun, Ruha Benjamin, Hana Brown, Jessica Cobb, Jennifer Jones, Margo Mahan, Tianna Paschel, Osagie Obasogie, C. J. Pascoe, Jennifer Randles, Rebecca Schewe, Jen Schradie and Rebecca Warne Peter, as part of my community of scholars and friends. At key moments, each has been an important source of support in this endeavor. I am also grateful for the friendship of Todd Jackson, Stefanianna Moore, Caitlyn Nye, Cristian Du Comb, Rex Giardine, Missy Giardine, Matthew Warne, Robinne Lee, Rebecca Schewe, and Jesse Nissim, who, while taking an interest in my work, provided much-needed balance and levity in life.

My parents, Vernette and Kenneth Dow, are among the most intelligent people that I know. I thank both of them for listening to me talk about my research and asking me, often straightforwardly, to explain why it was essential to folks outside of the academy. I also appreciated those moments when they told me how they saw this research as important outside of the academy. I am particularly grateful to my mother, who juggled career and family throughout her life and whose discussions with me about my own life always focused on strategizing about how to accomplish career goals and motherhood simultaneously, rather than questioning if that was possible. My sisters, Gay Webb and Vernette Dow, reminded me that what I was doing was relevant not just to academic audiences but also to African American mothers and families who are addressing these issues in the real world. Also, my parents-in-law, Yvonne Paterson and Milton Rossman, were advocates of this research with their friends, family, and colleagues.

Completing this book while raising twin toddlers, then school-aged children, and now tweens, at times, was challenging, but I would do it again in an instant. My daughters, Lillian and Lucy, have added additional layers of laughter, joy, and understanding to my life. I am privileged to be able to watch Lucy and Lillian as they learn about, observe, analyze, and participate in the world. From feeling a tiny hand on my shoulder signaling that my current writing session was concluding to having precocious tweens reading over my shoulder, asking questions, and occasionally catching typos, their presence has always been a source of inspiration.

Finally, Teague, my husband, has been an unending source of support. He read every chapter of this book, and his comments helped to add clarity, sharpen my language, and reduce unnecessary jargon. Teague has always valued my work equally to his own, even when the market disagreed. I know that it was challenging for him to balance his career with supporting mine. Teague is a true partner, specifically in parenting our incredible daughters. I’m glad we found each other early in life, and I look forward to the rest of our journey together. Writing this book would have been much more difficult without having him by my side as a supporter, champion, and friend.