On Single Mothers “Doing” Family

Ever since Carol Stack's influential study of low-income African American families in "The Flats" was published in 1974, the ethnographic literature on single mothers has focused on alliance and reciprocity: the ways in which single mothers build supportive linkages and maintain them (Stack, 1974). Stack conducted her study before West and Zimmerman (1987) made "doing" the favorite metaphor of sociologists of gender and family, but there is no doubt that she was describing how single mothers "do" family. Researchers have studied how common these networks are, the conditions under which they form, and the barriers to forming them. These questions all assume that single mothers seek to extend their networks by exchanging goods and services whenever possible. Margaret K. Nelson's thought-provoking and well-written article demonstrates, however, that creating ties also involves creating boundaries. In other words, the networks of single mothers are not seamless, free-flowing arrangements in which roles are interchangeable but rather partnerships with limits and tensions, at least among rural Whites. This may seem like an unremarkable statement once it is made, but it suggests a perspective that few sociologists have taken. Perhaps because the needs of many single mothers and their children are so great, sociologists have focused on how mothers solve the social problem of meeting those needs. Indeed, much of Nelson's (2005) book-length treatment of her Vermont ethnography addresses this problem. That the solutions may have their own problems has not been much remarked upon. The exception may be Stack herself, who described how participation in a sharing network made it difficult for mothers to amass enough resources-such as enough money for a security deposit or a second-hand car-to leave the network and set out on their own or with new partners. THE NORM OF NONINTERFERENCE But the idea of tension between mothers and grandmothers over issues of discipline and control-over who has the authority to say "no" to children-was absent in Stack's book and most of the ensuing literature. I wonder if that may be because much of that literature, including Stack's work, focused on African American families, whose ideas about who gets to say no may differ from European-American families. When Frank Furstenberg and I conducted a study of American grandparents in the 1980s, we found that Black grandparents were routinely assumed to have authority over their grandchildren in ways most White grandparents did not (Cherlin & Furstenberg, 1992). White grandparents and their adult children subscribed to what we called the "norm of noninterference." Over and over, White grandparents told us that they were loath to "interfere" with how their children were raising their grandchildren. One grandmother said: Quite often it is said that the mother and the father would still be together if the mother-in-law had not interfered. So I feel that situations between a mother and a father are very, very touchy situations. I feel that the mother-in-law has to be very careful, very tactful, how she gets in the picture, if she gets in the picture at all. I feel that unless it's ... a problem developing into a situation where the daughter or the granddaughter's life may be at stake, or something detrimental might be done to them, I think if possible the grandparent should stay out of it. (Cherlin & Furstenberg, 1992, p. 57) For these grandparents, a boundary around parental authority clearly existed, and the worst thing they could do was to cross it. Instead of playing the role of authority figures, White grandparents talked enthusiastically of being loving companions. They had raised their children, paid their dues, and now, they said, it was time to enjoy their grandchildren while leaving their upbringing to the parents. But this boundary was, if not absent, then at the least more permeable for Black grandparents, who rarely voiced fears of "interfering. …