Raising a Son- With Men on the Fringes

摘要

Despite my best efforts, I am a single mother. It's a title I'm not too fond of, a repeat of my urban family's legacy of strong black women raising a black boy with men on the fringes. My grandmother eventually became a single mother, as did my mother and now me. My son, a gigantic 4-year-old with big, bright eyes, doesn't even yet realize that he's a future "black man" and, before that, a "black male teenager," but I do. I am so panicked at the thought that every single solitary thing has to be just so over these next 20 years in order for me to produce a solid, productive adult who understands the world in which he lives, both the realities and the possibilities.