African American Mothers and Their Mothers

Abstract

Based on spontaneous descriptions of their primary objects, ten African American mothers whose children had been returned to their care from kinship care, and ten African American mothers whose children remained in kinship care, were rated using the Concept of the Object Scale. That instrument identifies 14 personal variables that are rated on a seven-point scale. Although the findings revealed no significant statistical differences between the two groups of mothers, mothers whose children had been returned to their care had higher and more positive mean scores than mothers whose children had not been returned.

Key Words:

• African American mothers
• object relations
• mother-child relationship
• kinship care
• child welfare
• mothers' internal representations