No Raggedy Black Child: Attachment Parenting, Black Motherhood, and the Politics of Respectability

First described by historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, the politics of respectability captures the both ‘conservative and radical’ approach of black Baptist women of the early 20th century in their efforts to address racism in the United States. Respectability politics focused on altering individual behaviour as a strategy for achieving social change and have recently regained prominence, reflecting the contemporary neoliberal moment. In this article, I use the frame of respectability politics to examine the experiences of contemporary black mothers, particularly drawing a comparison between the politics of respectability and attachment parenting (AP), a popular childrearing philosophy. I argue that the appeal of respectability flows along classed lines with middle-class black mothers developing an AP-informed parenting practice that deploys respectability as a protective shield for their children. This finding suggests the importance of attending to intraracial class politics as we practice intersectionality and theorise about the new realities of black motherhood.