Pittsburgh Brown Mamas is a social connector for moms-of-color that simultaneously diversifies what ‘effective mothering’ looks like and is defined as in the region. We would like to use Sprout’s catalytic funding to assist moms-of-color in developing a personal template for effective mothering within a socially supportive environment. This project is called the Diverse Mothering Initiative. Our initiative will host a series of seven events with the common thread of helping moms-of-color transform their ideas about effective parenting. We will tackle issues such as family planning, co-parenting, literacy and diversity.
The focus of the Diverse Mothering Initiative is to assist Pittsburgh’s minority mothers in developing their own personal template for effective parenting in the confines of a socially supportive community.
The issue at the center of this project is that poor, Black and Brown, mothers have long been the targets of a potent and centuries-long culturally hostile current that says we are not equipped to be effective parents. This current continues today in the stereotyping of Black mothers as financially, emotionally and intellectually unable to raise healthy, college-bound, responsible children. Because mothers are the backbone of minority families, when the Diverse Mothering Initiative gives moms the tools they need to develop effective parenting strategies and the social support necessary to apply those strategies to their everyday lives, these mothers have a real opportunity to change the way minority families function. Effective mothering has the potential to tremendously impact minority communities. Bottom-line, moms becoming better mothers make fathers better fathers, children better adults and communities’ better communities.