“You Have to Be Real Strong”

SUMMARY

This study explored the range of parenting goals and strategies in a sample of resilient, urban, poor, African American, single mothers. Transcripts of semi-structured interviews with 10 mothers were analyzed using a standard qualitative data analysis technique. Contrary to the negative stereotypes held about the parenting skills of poor, single mothers, these resilient mothers described a range of plan-fully implemented parenting strategies designed to respond to a variety of parenting goals, including protecting their children, instilling values, and disciplining misbehavior. Mothers used parenting strategies that were congruent with their goals, the neighborhood context, and particular child behaviors. Mothers primarily used verbal instruction to instill values, but utilized a wider range of strategies, including instruction, loss of privileges, and physical punishment to correct misbehavior and protect their children.

Key Words:

• Risk
• resilience
• single mothers
• parenting practices
• qualitative