“It Just Kind of Like Falls in Your Hands”

Abstract

Using a modified grounded theory method and Black feminist theory, the author explored the factors that influence the decision-making processes of Black aunts parenting nieces and nephews. Analysis revealed six themes that facilitated beliefs in a lack of agency in the decision-making process: perceptions of a crisis, fulfillment of family obligations, personal identities, faith in God, gendered expectations, and the role of the Black aunt. Findings emphasized the impact of cultural traditions and gendered expectations on the meanings that Black aunts attach to familial roles and the influence of past and current racism on their definitions of the situation.

Keywords

Black aunts kinship care providers Black children child welfare system decision making

Research has documented the increasing numbers of Black children living in the homes of kinship care providers (Dressel & Barnhill, 1994; Gibson, 2005; Hegar & Scannapieco, 1995, 2000; Schwartz, 2002). Historically, Black aunts and uncles have, whether asked or appointed, accepted the responsibility for their nieces and nephews when the biological parents were unable to effectively care for them (Johnson-Garner & Meyers, 2003; Stack, 1974; Stack & Burton, 1998). In one such study of Black children in kinship care, Johnson-Garner and Meyers (2003) found seven aunts and three great-aunts, 19 grandmothers, and one uncle serving as kinship care providers in 30 families.

In the past two decades, studies have documented the reasons that Black grandmothers serve as kinship care providers and the consequences, sacrifices, and rewards of their decisions (Gibson, 2005; Henderson & Cook, 2005; Minkler & Roe, 1996; Murphy, Hunter, & Johnson 2008; Smith-Ruiz, 2008). Results demonstrate that the reasons that Black grandmothers agree to serve as kinship care providers for grandchildren include feeling obligation (Stack, 1974), acting as a mechanism for family survival (Burton & Devries, 1992), and providing a safe haven for children who have been abused or neglected by their parents (Minkler & Roe, 1996). Also, programs have been incorporated to “inform service professionals, decision makers and the general public on the unique social and health service issues confronted by grandparents and their grandchildren” (National Center on Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, 2010). Family scholars have not studied similar experiences for Black aunts and uncles. Although acknowledging the contributions of Black uncles as surrogate parents, this research focuses only on the experiences of Black aunts, as research consistently indicates that women are relegated as primary caregivers for children and as the keepers of family traditions in Black families (Collins, 2000; Dressel & Clark, 1990). Collins (2000) posits that organized, resilient, women-centered networks of grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and cousins acting as othermothers take on child responsibilities for each other’s children. She states, “Historically, when needed, temporary child-care arrangements often turned into long-term care or informal adoption” (Collins, 2000, p. 178). Family scholars have not studied the decision-making processes of Black aunts who accept responsibility for other’s women’s children or the consequences of their decisions for their lives and the lives of their nieces and nephews.

As Black aunts are generally younger than Black grandmothers, are in their initial parenting stages—if parenting at all—and are at the beginning of their work careers, their decisions to parent their nieces and nephews may vary significantly from those of Black grandmothers, with potential differences in the challenges, sacrifices, and rewards of kinship care provision among younger women. As exploratory research, this study extends the knowledge regarding kinship care providers by adding the voices of Black aunts.

It is important to the Black community and to society to understand the lives of Black aunts whose lives may be significantly altered by accepting responsibility for the youngest members of Black families because of the potential financial and social vulnerability of Black women and Black children in aunt-headed households. Brinich (1989) found that the assumption of care for the children in his study was usually costly for the primary caregivers, and in every case, it required major shifts in personal commitments and substantial financial sacrifices for the primary caregivers. One of the hopes of this research was that an understanding of the lives of Black aunts who serve as kinship care providers might facilitate the creation of interventions and practices to help Black aunts succeed in raising some of the most vulnerable children. I begin by summarizing key concepts associated with Black feminist theory as theoretical perspectives on the decision-making processes of Black women. Then, I offer a summary of the research on the role of aunts. Next, I describe the methodology of the study and the views of Black aunts on the factors that affect their decisions to parent nieces and nephews. Finally, I discuss the implications of the findings in regard to the needs of Black aunts parenting nieces and nephews.

Theoretical Perspective: Black Feminist Theory

Black feminist theory frames this examination of the decision-making processes of Black aunts who serve as kinship care providers for their nieces and nephews and provided sensitizing concepts that guided analysis (Collins, 2002). This perspective stresses socially constructed realities that influence definitions of situations and events. Black feminist theory provides a foundation for studying the decision-making processes of Black women. It recognizes that Black women construct social realities that are significantly different from those of Whites (and of members of other racial and ethnic groups) as well as those of Black men and that the realities of Black women’s lives often center on the needs and concerns of family rather than the needs of Black women (Collins, 1986, 2000; hooks, 1984). As Black women experience racial, gender, and class oppressions in this country, they know the risks that Black children experience by just being born Black in America. Their construction of the social realities of children’s needs may affect their decisions to parent their nieces and nephews. The proposition of Black feminist theory of the importance of motherhood and othermothering within Black communities facilitates understanding the influence of the historical and contemporary collective experiences of Black women on the decisions of Black aunts to parent their nieces and nephews (Collins, 2000; Rodgers-Rose, 1980).

Moreover, Black feminist theory aims to use research to better the lived experiences of Black women. It recognizes respondents as cocreators of knowledge and as experts in their own lives. Furthermore, it values the experiential versus the theoretical, meaning that it uses Black women’s lived experiences to validate research findings. This study recognized Black aunts serving as kinship care providers for their nieces and nephews as collaborators.

The Role of Aunts

Although most people have aunts, research on aunting has been overlooked or omitted, with the exception of some recent work focusing on aunts (Ellingson & Sotirin, 2006, 2010; Milardo, 2005, 2010; Sotirin & Ellingson, 2007). In his in-depth examination of the roles of aunts and uncles, Milardo (2010) refers to aunts and uncles as “forgotten kin.” He argues that by excluding aunts and uncles from family research, “we omit an important area of some people’s individual lives—one that influences their personal development and their understanding of themselves” (Milardo, 2010, p. xv). Studies indicate that aunts and uncles are valuable assets in the emotional, financial, educational, and social socialization of nieces and nephews (Doyle, 2001; Lamborn & Nguyen, 2004; Langer & Ribarich, 2007). In research on surviving and coping with emotional abuse in childhood, Doyle (2001) found aunts to be the most important figure for many of her participants; aunts gave support, served as role models by showing love to their own children, helped to provide positive experiences, and made the child feel valued (p. 393).

Research also indicates that, next to grandmothers, aunts are the second most likely caregivers for children removed from their parents’ custody (Ellingson & Sotirin, 2006). Pashos & McBurney (2008) argued that the maternal aunt tends to be the most caring of all aunts and uncles, followed by the paternal aunt. Sotirin and Ellingson (2007) state that aunting may include “daily caretaking or sporadic visits, intimate connections or estrangement, benevolence or neglect” (p. 442). Aunting is not a homogeneous activity, and how the role is enacted by women of various racial and ethnic groups depends on many factors, including the relationship between siblings, proximity in living spaces, siblings’ marital status, and social class.

Nearly all research on aunting to date has focused on Whites, however, without consideration for Black women’s experiences in aunting. Stanfield (1998) asserted that the experiences of White women and other racial and ethnic groups should not be imposed on Black women; the racialized ethnic differences among women must be taken into consideration. To understand the processes by which Black aunts become kinship care providers within Black families, it is important to include the voices of Black women in scholarship on aunting.

The lives of Black aunts, similar to those of Black grandmothers, may be significantly changed when they decide to parent their nieces and nephews. The present study sought to explore Black aunting as a source of strength for Black children and extended families. The research questions guiding this study were (a) How do Black aunts understand their decisions to parent their nieces and nephews? and (b) What factors affect the decisions of Black aunts who parent their nieces and nephews?

Method

Participant Selection

After human participants board approval, I used snowball sampling to recruit 35 Black aunts. To participate in the study, participants had to be older than 18 and have raised a nephew or a niece, or a great-nephew or a great-niece, continuously for at least 1 year. The 1-year time frame focused the study on long-term residence with aunts rather than persons who may have kept a niece or a nephew for a weekend or a few weeks. Participants could be blood kin, relatives by marriage or adoption, or fictive kin. Flyers with the author’s name, contact information, and the intent of the research were sent to predominantly Black churches, Black businesses, and Black college organizations and bookstores that catered to Black students at the historically Black colleges and universities in a southeastern metropolitan area as well as to assisted living facilities for Blacks in and around the metropolitan area. Also, information regarding the proposed research was publicized in a local Black newspaper for three consecutive weekends. See demographic information in Table 1.

Table 1.

Demographics of Respondents

Characteristic	Frequency distribution
Marital status^a
Unmarried	23 (66%)
Married	12 (34%)
Number of biological children
0	13 (37%)
1	10 (29%)
2	8 (23%)
3	4 (11%)
Number of nieces and nephews in care
1	13 (37%)
2	14 (40%)
3	3 (9%)
4	2 (6%)
5	3 (9%)
Relationship to aunts^b
Sisters’ children	25 (35%)
Brothers’ children	30 (40%)
Nieces’ children	17 (24%)
Nephews’ children	1 (1 %)
Employment status
Employed	32 (91%)
Unemployed	3 (9%)
Education
<High school	3 (9%)
High school	6 (17%)
Some college	16 (46%)
College graduate	8 (23%)
Graduate degree	2 (6%)
Income
<$10,000:	8 (23%)
$10,000-$29,999	11 (31%)
$30,000-$49,999	10 (29%)
$50,000-$69,000	5 (14%)
>$70,000	1 (3%)

Note: Some percentages do not add up to 100% because of rounding.

Unmarried includes Black aunts who are divorced, widowed, and never married.

Indicates the percentage of children related to respondents through siblings, nieces, and nephews.

Data Collection

I conducted in-depth, tape-recorded interviews, and each respondent was interviewed only once. The majority of interviews (n = 31) were conducted in respondents’ homes at their request. One interview took place at a local eatery, two interviews were conducted in the author’s office, and one interview was conducted at the respondent’s workplace. After obtaining a grant, beginning with the sixth respondent, interviewees were paid $25 for their time and to cover travel expenses. All names of persons and places have been changed to pseudonyms to protect the confidentiality of the respondents.

Interviews were generally unstructured, with a loose schedule of topics, including the decision-making processes regarding becoming kinship care providers, challenges and rewards of becoming kinship care providers, and parenting practices used if different from parenting practices used for respondents’ own children. Each interview began with three basic questions. (a) “How many nieces or nephews did you care for or are you caring for now?” (b) “How did your nieces and/or nephews come to live with you?” (c) “How did you decide to accept responsibility for your nieces and nephews?” After answering the basic questions, respondents related their experiences. Also, each respondent completed a questionnaire regarding occupation, annual household income, marital status, and numbers of years caring for nieces and nephews.

Most of the interviews lasted approximately 90 minutes, with interviews ranging from 40 minutes to 6 hours. The longer interview times related to my tendency to tell respondents that I had adopted two nieces and two nephews, which led to lengthy conversations. Being audiotaped may have unnerved some respondents. There were some respondents who asked for the tape to be turned off at certain points, and valuable information was not recorded. These “off-the-record” comments were not used in the analysis of the data or reported in any in the finished report. Tapes were numbered to avoid placing personal identifiers on the tapes that could have breached respondents’ confidentiality. I transcribed all interviews. Also, field notes, written as soon as possible following each interview, described notable nonverbal communication of respondents, such as meaningful gestures, and my own feelings and perceptions of each interviewee.

In keeping with the Black feminist perspective described by Few, Stephens, and Rouse-Arnett (2003), I saw myself and the respondents as equals. This perspective influenced the interviews in a number of ways. I worked hard to minimize the hierarchical stance of researcher and researched, first by asking all respondents whether there were aspects of their experiences I failed to cover in the questions. Their suggestions were added to the interview guide and were asked of subsequent respondents.

Second, I monitored language throughout the interview process to avoid driving a wedge between researcher and informant. In the quotes, I use the language as spoken by the respondents as an act of validation. Third, I used multiple strategies to assist the informant in uncovering and confronting unarticulated meanings or subjugated knowledge, including asking the same question in multiple ways.

Third, the study examined the experiences of a small group of women in an urban metropolitan area in the Southeast, so the sample does not represent Black aunts across different regions of the country or in rural areas. This study explored Black aunts across social class, age, numbers of children accepted, and residential tenure. The study did not seek generalizable findings but sought to fill a gap in the research literature on the lives of Black women in families. Upcoming articles may examine Black aunts across regions and in rural areas.

Data Analysis

I employed a modified grounded theory approach derived from the work of Strauss and Corbin (1998), employing a social constructionist approach (Charmaz, 2000). I looked for instances in the transcripts that addressed one of the three research questions and used continuous coding to identify concepts. The codes were expanded and refined as I reviewed additional transcripts and new concepts became apparent. With each additional transcript coded, I noted recurrent themes, grouped quotations, and color-coded them into separate files for each theme. Subsequent interviews were analyzed using the same coding scheme, using the constant comparative method until no new information emerged about the theme, thus reaching theoretical saturation (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). When a fairly stable set of themes and categories was in place, I chose representative quotes to illustrate each. Final content themes included perception of a crisis, fulfillment of family obligations, faith in God, gendered expectations, personal identities, and the role of the Black aunt.

As I reread data and memos, many references emerged to having no other choices and inquiries as to what other options were available to respondents, despite the clear articulation of other decision-making factors. An underlying concept running through the findings—a root theme—emerged as a perceived lack of agency in the decision-making process. Perceived lack of agency underlies and connects all of the content themes by forming the broader mindset, or context, in which other themes should be understood. The root theme represents all the concepts generated during coding that, in addition to other qualities, is theoretically saturated and centrally relevant. It serves as the backbone of the researcher’s “story” (LaRossa, 2005).

Results

The analysis revealed one root theme that is foundational to understanding the remaining content themes. A very strong root theme of perceived lack of agency pervaded the data and clearly framed participants’ sense making regarding their decision-making process. Respondents reported that no conscious decisions were made to parent their nieces and nephews. Black aunts perceived that they had no other choices. One single great-aunt in her mid-40s who accepted her brother’s three young grandsons, all of whom were younger than 5, stated, “There were no decisions. I mean, what else was I going to do?” (A20) Another aunt who raised two nephews with her two daughters compared choosing to raise her nephews as similar to having a baby.

Yes, It just kind of like falls in your hands. You know it’s something, you know, that you don’t have time to say, well, I wonder if I want the red car or the blue car, or you know? It’s like, you don’t make the decision on, if I’m going to have a boy or a girl. You just get whatever God gives you. This is about the same way. You don’t make the decision on, well, I guess, I guess I’ll take my nephews and raise them. No, a friendly weekend turns into a lifetime. (A26)

The perception of lack of agency highlights individuals’ often-profound inability to see a multitude of choices when faced with family problems. The perceived lack of control coupled with the urgency to do something leads to an acceptance of the parenting responsibility without a conscious understanding of the magnitude of the decision for the aunt and for the nieces and nephews.

The content themes articulate the meanings that aunts attached to their decision-making processes. Six themes contribute to the perceived lack of agency in the decision-making process: perception of a crisis, fulfillment of family obligations, gendered expectations, faith in God, personal identities, and the role of the Black aunt. In the following sections, each theme is covered and illustrated with exemplars.

Perception of a Crisis

The theme of perception of a crisis refers to the belief by Black aunts of an immediate need to remove children from living situations that could impede their physical, emotional, or mental development. Respondents’ perceptions of a crisis stemmed from a number of conditions experienced by nieces and nephews, including parents’ drug addiction; children’s proximity to the possession and selling of illegal substances; abandonment; mothers’ prolonged and unexplained absences; neglect of basic needs, such as food and hygiene; child physical abuse; parental physical and mental illness; incarceration of one or both parents; teenage parents; and pending removal of children by child protective services.

One aunt, after finding that the mother of her three great-nephews had abandoned them in her home, immediately called the police for help in keeping the children so that child protective services would not remove them from her home. She believed that children often die in state custody, so for her, the chance that the young boys might be placed in child protective custody constituted a crisis. She stated passionately, “The one thing that I think is important and I will say this is that the child advocacy system is abysmal” (A20).

Other aunts saw crisis situations in the lack of stability in the lives of their nieces and nephews. One young great-aunt in her late 30s who was caring for a 4-year-old great-nephew, an infant great-niece, and her own 5-year-old daughter, said,

She [the mother] was in rehab last November, and it’s been one thing after another since she’s been in there. She doesn’t get the fact that it’s not about what you want, it’s about number one, what’s best for the children, and it’s about stopping this, Lady. (A6)

Whether the experiences of some of the children actually denoted a crisis is irrelevant; what is important is that the aunts believed that the children were in danger. Aunts’ definitions of the situation impeded their abilities to see any other options but for them to accept parental responsibility for their nieces and nephews.

Fulfillment of Family Obligations

The theme of fulfillment of family obligations resulted from respondents’ beliefs that members of families have a duty to support and help other family members. Aunts stated that all adult members of families were especially obligated to meet the emotional, financial, and psychological needs of children within their families. They believed that Blacks differed from Whites in regard to not allowing children to be placed outside the family or community. An aunt who raised her sister’s daughter from infancy, in addition to being a single mother to her own two children, with no support from either biological parent stated,

See, so, we [Black families] didn’t do those kinds of things. If we had a retarded child, it was that we didn’t accept that it was retarded or it’s a special child. . . . We didn’t give our children away. Nobody would allow a Black child, mostly, to go into any kind of institution. An aunt would take them in, anybody would take them in, a neighbor, a god-mama, somebody would take them before then. But, I think we’ve become as modern or separate or whatever it is that the other race is. (A8)

Black aunts believed that if families are caring for their own, then there should not be increasing numbers of Black children being placed outside their families. Aunts found it incredulous that anyone in Black families would allow a child to be placed in the care of strangers. They held a firm opinion that children should be cared for within the bosom of the family. Several aunts expressed a lack of understanding of Blacks who failed to care for their own, calling their sisters who refused to parent nieces and nephews selfish. Two Black aunts compared the unwillingness of Blacks to help each other to blue crabs, which keep each other from succeeding.

You can visualize. You can see them [blue crabs] pulling each other back down into the bucket, you know. Yeah, so we just need to start, as a race of people, start doing better on a lot of things. (A21)

Their beliefs that all members of Black families have an obligation to care for the children within their families left them feeling that they had no other options but to parent their nieces and nephews.

Gendered Expectations

Respondents also attributed their decision to parent their nieces and nephews as meeting the historical expectations of Black women caring for each other’s children. They reported remembering that when any neighborhood children were in jeopardy, Black women, more so than Black men, would accept responsibility for both kin and nonkin without any expectation of payment and regardless of the financial hardship the caregiver experienced. One single mother of one son in her late 30s who accepted responsibility for two teenage nieces to prevent her mother from having to take them referred to it as a sisterhood of othermothering and comothering. She stated that historically, all Black children belonged to all Black women.

It’s comothering and if you regard all Black women as your sisters, until they prove otherwise, then you are going to regard the children of other Black women as your children. And I think that when you find a Black woman who doesn’t feel that way about other Black women, she might not also feel obligated or moved to take care of their children when they can’t do it. (A7)

Black aunts also reported that men in their families requested that their sisters, mothers, aunts, or other female relatives take responsibility for children, as the men felt that they were not equipped to raise the children, or they wanted to retain relationships with their children, particularly if they were incarcerated. More than one third of the children in the care of aunts were the children of brothers or nephews. These cultural norms of Black women caring for family members and their children weighed heavily on Black aunts’ abilities or inclination to see other alternatives to becoming kinship care providers to their nieces and nephews.

Faith in God

Faith in God refers to respondents’ beliefs that the decisions to raise their nieces and nephews demonstrated faith in God. They viewed their decisions as performing God’s will, fulfilling part of God’s plan, and as a move of God. One childless and unmarried aunt in her 20s and in a new job, who adopted her infant nephew after he was abandoned at the hospital by her sister, stated, “So I think God was basically saying, well here’s something for you to do. He said, you ain’t doing anything and I got something. And you know, you certainly won’t be bored when you take up this one” (A12).

Aunts reported the importance of prayer in the decision making, and they believed that anyone considering raising nieces and nephews needed to first pray to God about it. One aunt stated,

The advice I think that I would give them would be first and foremost, pray. Talk to God first. Pray and talk to the Lord about it. Let God lead you, because it’s not an easy job. (A26)

The Bible was used as an instructional tool on how to respond to the request to take responsibility for children as well as a means of knowing that becoming a kinship care provider is the right and moral thing to do. Respondents also spoke of spiritual teachers, mainly mothers, grandparents, and aunts, who taught them to trust in God, to read the Bible, the power of prayer, and caring for others as a sign of faith. Their faith in God and the conviction that accepting responsibility for their nieces and nephews was orchestrated by God limited aunts’ ability to envision any other viable options.

Personal Identities

Respondents described being caring, loving, giving, and unselfish as central to their identities. They also reported possessing “helping spirits.” Respondents’ personal identities as caregivers led them to believe that they had responsibility not just for family members but also to all humanity. One aunt, who was in her 20s at the time she accepted her nephew after her sister died, explained,

I think you have, not only to nieces and nephews, I think we have an obligation to everybody we can come in contact with. I’m even obligated to you. I am because you are supposed to reach out to whomever. (A4)

Respondents viewed themselves as the kin keepers in their families, meaning they considered themselves the one person in the family who took care of everything and everybody within their families, being called on continuously any time someone was in trouble, and being the base of the family (Stack, 1974). Personal identities as loving and caring people affected how aunts viewed their connections to other people. Their beliefs in their obligations to help everyone they meet had a profound impact on their decisions to parent their nieces and nephews. Because they understood themselves to be natural kin keepers, the option to refuse responsibility for the children seemed inconceivable to them.

The Role of the Black Aunt

Respondents viewed Black aunts as different from White aunts, as they perceived White aunts as mostly gift-giving aunts. They defined the role of the Black aunt as the same as mothers, second mothers, and extensions of parents. Being the same as mothers meant a responsibility to make sure that children receive the love and support that parents were not able to give. Aunts learned the role of the Black aunt from earlier generations of Black women, which reinforced for them the belief that they were meant to take responsibility for their nieces and nephews. They spoke of good and bad experiences with their own aunts that crystallized in their minds the expected behaviors of a Black aunt. A married aunt who, against her husband wishes, accepted her teenage niece who had been traumatized by her mother’s murder asserted,

What is an aunt? I honestly believe that an aunt’s the same as a mother. An aunt doesn’t have to be because I have a sister and brother who have children. An aunt is someone who stands in the gap and sometimes has to play the role of Mama, sometimes have to be the disciplinarian, and sometimes they just have to be . . . the big cheerleader. (A18)

The young great-aunt in her late 30s who was singlehandedly caring for a 4-year-old great-nephew, an infant grand-niece, and her own 5-year-old daughter offered the following definition:

An aunt . . . is close enough to act as a mother and distant enough to love you without the knowledge of why she might not like you. Mothers know everything, and they know enough not to like you sometimes, and I think an aunt may not be privy to certain of those unattractive qualities, and she is one person who unconditionally loves you despite yourself. (A7)

The way that aunts defined the role of Black aunting affected their decision-making processes. Therefore, when nieces and nephews needed help, these Black aunts stood in the gap and provided the parenting that they perceived was needed.

Discussion and Implications

This study sought to explore the factors that influence the decisions of Black aunts to parent nieces and nephews. The findings indicated that Black aunts’ understanding of their decisions centers on their beliefs that they did not make deliberate decisions to become kinship care providers because they did not perceive that other options were available to them. The root theme for this analysis is the perceived lack of agency in Black aunts’ decisions to parent nieces and nephews. Although they clearly and adamantly expressed a lack of choices, they nonetheless did have at least some choices. A choice made from limited numbers of options is still a choice, even though it may leave one feeling powerless (Wheeler-Brooks, 2009).

The six content themes that contributed to the perceived lack of agency included perception of a crisis, fulfillment of family obligations, gendered expectations, faith in God, personal identities, and the role of the Black aunt. A number of important implications of this analysis include the impact of a collective memory of cultural traditions and gendered expectations on the decision-making processes of Black women, the role of religion in the lived experiences of Black women, the centrality of personal identities in the construction of familial roles, the misconception of Black women’s motivations for becoming kinship care providers, and the continued invisibility of aunting as kin work.

First, decisions to parent nieces and nephews are grounded in cultural traditions and gendered expectations of the roles within Black families that are intergenerationally transmitted through women-centered networks. St. Jean and Feagin (1998) define collective memory as the means by which people experience their present in light of the past. They note that memories are shaped by this collective memory and that for Blacks, the physical presence and spirituality of relatives, such as grandparents, aunts, and uncles, facilitate the development of a strong collective memory of the family. In research on caregiver motivations, in which 89% of respondents were Black, Gleeson et al. (2009) found a sense of obligation to care for families or a legacy of shared caregiving.

Extended family networks within Black families have been socially constructed on the premise that Blacks take care of their own and do not ask for or expect outside help to resolve issues within their families. Black families as a social institution with such a strong collective conscience may limit the possible responses individuals can make regarding requests for help, using stigma and sanctions against individuals who do not buy into the creed (Stack & Burton, 1998). This research extends the findings by Black feminists on female relatives in women-centered networks by emphasizing that Black women also care for the children of male relatives. Future research on Black aunts should include questions regarding whether nieces and nephews are sisters’ or brothers’ children or grandchildren.

This analysis also pointed to the role of religion in the decision-making processes for Black women and Black families. The belief that becoming a kinship care provider is part of “God’s will” constrains the perceived options for women who are raised with a strong religious orientation. Gibson (2002) asserts that many Black families believe that faith in a higher power may improve conditions for them. Furthermore, Hill (1999) argues that the two attributes that were most often cited as common strengths by Blacks, regardless of family structure, were family unity and religious orientation. Faith in God plays an important role in the lived experiences of Black women, often constraining their abilities to see other possible options or choices.

In addition, respondents’ personal identities exerted a powerful and positive effect on their willingness to parent their nieces and nephews. It is within the reciprocal relationships that respondents had with family members and strangers that their self-definitions formed and influenced respondents’ perceptions and actions. The personal identities of Black aunts also represented a strong sense of self-efficacy and the conviction that they were capable of making a difference in the lives of nieces and nephews. These beliefs hindered aunts’ perceptions of other options.

This study further underscored the fact that Black aunts accept responsibility for their nieces and nephews for reasons articulated herein that do not pertain to obtaining money. Research indicates that stigmatization and images of “welfare queens” are traditionally associated with Black women seeking state assistance (Collins, 2000). This research highlighted the need for policies by state child protective services that are culturally competent, so that caseworkers learn to appreciate the historical bases of families and the strengths and resilience of families of all races and ethnicities. Black families have been judged according to White models and norms, even as they faced the “daunting tasks of raising their children and ensuring the survival of the family in the hostile and racist environment of the United States” (Crawley, 1996, p. 113). Henderson and Cook (2005) found that foster care policies penalize relative caregivers by giving them smaller amounts of cash assistance and fewer social support services and, thus, fail to support these families. Yet kinship care minimizes the disruption youths feel when removed from their parents’ care because of the familiarity with kin caregivers whom children know as family (Brown, Cohon, & Wheeler, 2002). Consequently, aunting strengthens families, keeping Black children within their families and thereby preserving another generation and maintaining the resiliency of Black families.

Yet it is only within the past few years that research has examined aunting as kin work (Ellingson & Sotirin, 2006, 2010; Milardo, 2005, 2010); therefore, the work traditionally performed by Black aunts has been largely unacknowledged. More research is needed on the topic of Black aunt-headed households, as this study shows that the implications of Black aunts’ raising nieces and nephews remain invisible to social science researchers. The findings of this study suggest that children ceased to be considered nieces and nephews and, for the aunts, became their children. A need exists for more studies regarding the challenges, sacrifices, rewards, and parenting practices of Black aunts who parent their nieces and nephews.

In conclusion, women as aunts are relegated as primary caregivers for children and as the keeper of family traditions in Black families (Collins, 2000). Therefore, aunting is gendered work, carried out by Black women within Black families. The work that Black aunts undertake on behalf of their nieces and nephews emphasizes that the extended family is still one of the strengths of Black families that contributes to their continuance and stability across generations (Hill, 1999), yet it also constrains the choices that Black women make for their own lives.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ralph LaRossa, Robert Milardo, and Laura Nichols for their assistance and advice on earlier drafts of this article. I would like to extend many thanks to Laura Ellingson for her patience and invaluable help in the completion of this manuscript.

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

This research was supported by a dissertation grant from Georgia State University.

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