Chapter 4: Personal Kindreds Summary and Analysis

One flaw in the approach of many who would study the black urban poor is to impose upon them the paradigms of family organization common in white communities, namely, the nuclear family. For various social and economic reasons, black communities often take on very different organizations. For example, many unmarried black women often become pregnant at a young age, a phenomenon which is generally not frowned upon by the community. In fact, when a black female becomes pregnant, it is considered a sign of maturity and womanhood by the community. However, often the biological mother does not possess the maturity or financial means to support a child, at which point another family member—the grandmother, an older sister, the father's mother—will step in and take over the responsibilities of raising the child, often, it...