A PRODUCT OF MY ENVIRONMENT 2: The Least Married Racial Group in America
U.S. marriage rates have been on the decline since the latter half of the 20th century with both men and women marrying at a later age, but the decline and delay are even more dramatic among Black adults. In 2021, there were about 4.27 million Black families in the United States with single mothers. This is an increase from 1990 levels when there were about 3.4 million Black families with single mothers. Around the 1990s, Black households with single mothers began to slowly rise to the numbers we are seeing today. Let’s take a look at the decline in the number of African American marriages.
If you haven’t read Part 1 of this series A PRODUCT OF MY ENVIRONMENT 1: Drug Dealing and Drug Addiction be sure to check it out, as it lays the foundation for the rest of the blog series to follow. In Part 1, I spoke on the 1980s crack epidemic and how it brought on significant issues in the Black community. One of the major issues being the murder and mass incarceration of Black men.
THE BREAKDOWN OF THE BLACK WOMAN
Black women were forced to step up their positions to head of household in the absence of Black men. They were forced to work several jobs to make ends meet while being homemakers and primary caretakers for their children. Black women were also working with a system that was built against us. There has always been and still is a pay gap between men and women in America. That pay gap is even wider for Black men and women. There’s no consideration in the workforce for women’s health, or time needed off after giving birth. We also are subjected to dealing with sexist attitudes and unwarranted sexual advances from our male counterparts in the workplace.
Our ability to somehow make a way out of no way bought on the debilitating stereotype of the “Strong Black Woman”. With this stereotype came many negative assumptions. We were praised for being able to handle adversity at the expense of stripping away the reality that we need help as well. Everyone started to believe that we were built for this struggle lifestyle. Struggle love replaced healthy and happy marriages. Men were now expecting us to handle working full time, caring for the children full time, catering to them, dealing with their infidelity and unsupportive ways, and being able to please them sexually whenever they want it. Not to mention, they expect all of this before marriage or any kind of proper commitment from them.
TIMES HAVE CHANGED
The women and men of my generation (born in 1992), grew up during a shift in the Black family structure. This is the era where parenting started to look different for one reason or another. The women of my generation were left with the sons of drug addicts, drug dealers, and thugs to choose from in finding a husband. With many of their fathers dead or in jail, a lot of Black boys were raised by the streets. This meant they were missing the core characteristics that make up a husband; respect for women, integrity, humbleness, ambition, commitment, and loyalty. It was becoming a cool trend among young Black men to disrespect women, calling us out our names and becoming completely heartless toward us.
Marriage was starting to become a foreign thing in Black communities as a lot of us girls also lost our way. I watched my peers sell their souls for social media popularity. The girls that showed the most skin got the most attention from the men. The women of my generation began to over-sexualize themselves and felt the necessity to post videos of them fighting or any kind of ‘bad girl’ behavior for attention. In the hood, this kind of stuff is praised by men. Bad bitches are what they called them; a pretty girl who could dress, fight, and was about her money.
By the time we reached early adulthood, most of us were dealing with childhood traumas from growing up in the ghetto. Many of us did not have great communication skills as we were taught to solve issues with violence or cutting each other off. Men no longer see the value in having a wife. Sex, and all the perks that come with having a wife became too easily accessible as women began to give up too much too soon. Women became less aware of their power and lost the ability to uphold boundaries, standards, morals, and values.
THE MOST UNDESIRABLE WOMAN IN THE WORLD
Strong Black women evolved into independent women; a woman who was able to make a system built against us, work for us. Black women started putting their careers first; breaking records for attaining college degrees that were never meant for us. We were showing up in the political spaces our ancestors dreamed of being. Black men were unsure of how to handle independent women as we began to surpass them at being breadwinners and the primary caregivers of our families. They began to despise the image of the independent woman; which I find astounding. The independent woman was created as the result of the man’s inability to lead his family. Now, we are being bashed for stepping up when we had no other choice. Successful Black men would go on public platforms and begin to bash our headstrong personalities; deeming us difficult to deal with and using this as their excuse to marry outside of their race. The rest of the world, showing no sympathy, jumped on the ‘Black Woman’ hate train.
Single mothers receive the worse backlash. As a single mother, I have witnessed a lot of the backlash coming from other Black women who cannot relate. With all of the pressure we face every day, it is like committing blasphemy if we vent or voice our frustrations in any way. Society is persistent in putting the blame back on single mothers. We are told we should’ve waited for marriage to have children, we should’ve never chosen that man, get a better job, do better, be better. The bottom line is a woman could do all of these things and still end up a single mother because shit happens, things don’t work out and it’s okay.
Most people fail to consider the bigger picture when speaking about the single-mother issue in the Black community. There is not much emphasis put on the fact that Black girls also need a healthy portrayal of a male figure in their lives. We too lost our fathers to the streets and we are seeing the effects of that in women today. We could blame our mothers for pushing our fathers away during a tumultuous relationship, making it hard for them to be a father. We could blame our fathers for walking away, giving up too easily on being a parent. The bottom line is, we were not taught what to look for in a good man, what to accept from them, and how important it is to vet a man before starting a family. The single-mother issue is not a “women’s” issue, it is a family issue, a community issue; where all parties involved could be at fault.
THE BOTTOM LINE
- Statistics show an increase in African American single-mother households beginning in the 1990s. This can be directly contributed to the mass incarceration of Black men as a result of the 1980s crack epidemic which I discuss in Part 1 of this blog series.
- Black women had no other option but to become head of household to provide and care for their children in the absence of Black men. As a result, we developed leadership qualities that men became threatened by. The world started to use this against us; deeming us too masculine and not able to let a man be a man.
- The crabs in a barrel mentality have done the most damage in the area of the Black family unit. Men bash the women, and the women bash the men; neither party takes the time to try to communicate or understand the other.
- Growing up without fathers has damaged Black women just as badly as Black men. Broken and unaware of boundaries, many women let the men have their way. As a result, we now have; baby mama culture, side chick culture, high rates of STDs, and men like Kevin Samuels who spent his last days belittling Black women further driving the wedge between Black men and women.
I see better outcomes on the horizon for Black couples. Thank God, the bad bitch era has passed and men are starting to see value in the good girls again. The soft life era has come among women. We are learning to embrace our femininity and delicacy again. The bottom line is we do need men in one way or another, and they need us. More importantly for our future, Black men are beginning to appreciate everything that comes with being with a Black woman and vice versa. Both parties have to embrace the beauty in learning everything there is to know about a potential partner before sex, babies, and marriage. It is vital that we pass these values down to our children so they are properly equipped to find suitable partners for themselves; enabling them to continue the objective of what we call Black Love.
What was your experience in finding a partner in today’s dating climate? Can you relate to any of these points? As always, thank you for reading!
Citations
Washington, C., & Walker, L. (2022, July 19). District of columbia had lowest percentage of married black adults in 2015-2019. Census.gov. Retrieved December 9, 2022, from https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/07/marriage-prevalence-for-black-adults-varies-by-state.html
Duffin, E. (2022, October 5). Number of black single mothers U.S. 2021. Statista. Retrieved December 11, 2022, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/205106/number-of-black-families-with-a-female-householder-in-the-us/#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20there%20were%20about%204.27%20million%20Black,of%20two%20parents%20and%20at%20least%20one%20child.
