Lexington Books
Pages: 146
Trim: 6½ x 9½
978-0-7391-2763-6 • Hardback • October 2008 • $113.00 • (£87.00)
978-0-7391-2764-3 • Paperback • October 2008 • $54.99 • (£42.00)
978-0-7391-3208-1 • eBook • October 2008 • $52.00 • (£40.00)
Marion Kilson is an anthropologist and the author of Claiming Place: Biracial Young Adults of the Post-Civil Rights Era (Bergin & Garvey 2000). Florence Ladd is a psychologist and won the Black Caucus of the American Library Association award for her novel, Sarah's Psalm (Scribner 1997).
Chapter 1 Foreword
Chapter 2
Chapter 1: The Back Story of Is That Your Child?
Chapter 3
Chapter 2: Challenges and Rewards for Mothers of Biracial Children
Chapter 4
Chapter 3: Profiles of Mothers of Biracial Children
Chapter 5
Chapter 4: Nurturing Biracial Children: Some Lessons Learned
Chapter 6 Appendix I: Interracial Marriages in the United States
Chapter 7 Appendix II: Some Sociological Attributes of Mothers
Chapter 8 Appendix III: Selected Multiracial Resources
Starting with the audacious question posed to these mothers by absolute strangers, Is that your child? Marion Kilson and Florence Ladd take us on a fascinating and informative journey into the social and psychological challenges of parenting biracial children in a society still wrestling with demons left over from our racial past. The authors' careful presentation of selected socialization themes in identity development?race and gender, sometimes distinct, at other times overlapping?provide a glimpse ofparenting strategies black and white mothers have discovered necessary to minimize the effects of race-based rejection and affirm healthy development in their biracial offspring. This is an important and valuable contribution to the emerging literature on biracial family life in the post civil rights era..
— Janie Victoria Ward
This timely book by Marion Kilson and Florence Ladd offers a provocative perspective on the challenges and rewards experienced by black and white mothers of biracial children. Through interviews with a diverse cross-generational group of urban and suburban mothers, the authors have identified significant social and psychological issues, various maternal child-rearing strategies, and patterns of adolescent and adult outcomes for the biracial offspring of these families. Kilson and Ladd, both social scientists and educators, also offer helpful guidelines for this growing demographic group in American society...
— Jewelle Taylor Gibbs