Chapter 22: She Ain’t Yo’ Average Chic: How a Single Mom Raised Above Average Children

African American children are raised in single-parent families, a rate higher than any other racial group. Historically, this single demographic has been used to describe rates of poverty, crime, and education completion levels. This chapter will discuss how communalism and spirituality (Boykin, 1994; Boykin & Noguera, 2011), as well as fictive kinship (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986) concepts were used to aid a widowed mother of four in her quest to successfully raise, educate, and prepare them to become productive citizens of society.

My parents were high school sweethearts. They started dating when my mother was 15 years old and I am almost positive that, at that time, my mother did not think that her boyfriend would become her husband. But, in 1970, five years after my father and four years after my mother graduated from high school, my parents became Mr. and Mrs. Michael Steven Frazier in front of God and a church full of witnesses. My mother and father had an agreement that she would work while he was in school and after he graduated and secured employment, she would continue to work if she desired to work.