Back on 3/30/2011, I wrote a blog titled, "What's Wrong With Black Women?" It was based on data from National Geographic. The NG article pointed out that of all racial groups, males marry black women by the lowest percentage. White men who marry Asian women is much more common than White men who marry Black women, for example. Rather than continuing on this thread, I am going to switch to parenting. These are my own personal views and are based on my honest observations over more than 50 years. If I appear biased, it is unintentional.
First, a little story. As a kid and continuing into adulthood, I was very concerned about not living up to my mother's expectations of me. The worst thing that could happen to me would have been to have done something "bad" and my mother found out about it. It was not punishment that I was concerned about from my mother. It was that my mother would be "ashamed" of me and would "cry" in her own personal shame that her son had let her hopes down. This not a bunch of mush. This is what I felt. I do not know about you, but I think this is a lot more common feeling of those who do the responsible things in life. How about you?
Now, let's look at a typical Asian family. It has been my observation that the Asian family has one of the highest expectations of their children and themselves. To bring shame onto one's family is one of the worst possible things that an Asian person can do. It is like some kind of social law that Asian people follow. The result of this unique relationship within the Asian family is, to my way of thinking, the main cause of the success of Asians world wide. I think that you must agree. If this works positively in the Asian family, how about other racial groups and families?
Look at a Jewish family? In many ways, it is similar to the Asian family with a small difference. The Asian family tends to be male dominated while the Jewish family tends to be female dominated. The Jewish kids answer to their mothers more than to their fathers and the Jewish mother has similar expectations of their children like Asians. How that expectation is communicated to the children may be not be out spoke and direct. When the Jewish mother speaks, her children listen. She only need to tell her kids "once".
To keep this blog short, I am going to jump to the Black family and the role of the mother. Aside from the critical out of wedlock birth rate, they have additional problems. The Black mother does not seem to have the attention of her children like either Asians or the Jewish mother, nor do they take full responsibility for them. I think that you have noticed that many Black children are raised by their grandmothers rather than their real mother. Asians and Jewish mothers would not allow their children to be raised by someone else, even if it was their own mother. From birth to adulthood, no one has the influence over children as does their mothers. There are no substitutes and once this critical relationship is lost or broken, nothing can compensate for the loss. That is my opinion. The group of adults who get the most welfare are Black mothers. If that is the case, why is it that they can not do their "jobs" as mothers for their children? I don't know the answer, but I would suggest that we look at mothers of other races who are doing a good job and learn from them.
The bottom line is that many Black children do not appear to be concerned about "breaking the heart" of their mothers by they irresponsible conduct. The last thing that I would have done was to do anything that would "break her heart". How can the Black community get more of their children to feel this same way toward their mothers? How can we get Black mothers to communicate to their children the expectations that they have for their children. Every generation through out human history has worked for and have expected their children to do better in life than they have.
Hey, that's the bottom line.
PS----What about the curse of low expectations? We now have it in our public schools, we don't need it in our families too. We harvest what we plant. Don't let low expectations waste another child's life.
