Women's Studies International Forum 34 (2011) 530–538

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Women's Studies International Forum

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Lone mothers of mixed racial and ethnic children in Britain: Comparingexperiences of social attitudes and support in the 1960s and 2000s

Rosalind Edwards a,⁎, Chamion Caballero b

a Sociology and Social Policy, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UKb Families & Social Capital Research Group, London South Bank University, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o

⁎ Corresponding author.

0277-5395/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2011.06.007

s y n o p s i s

Available online 9 September 2011

This article places side-by-side the views from lone mothers bringing up children from mixedracial and ethnic backgrounds in mid-1960s and early 2000s Britain, to consider whether thesorts of social attitudes and support these mothers experienced have changed or persisted overthe past half century. The analysis compares and contrasts the general social and officialattitudes that lonemothers of mixed children feel that they encounter, the support they receivefrom the fathers of their children, and their relationships with their own and the father's widerfamily, the neighbourhood and friendship networks they draw on, and the formal supportsavailable to them across time. The article concludes by considering some indicative trajectoriesof change and constancy that looking at these social attitudes and supports reveals, aroundnegative assessments and their social expression, expectations of fathers, the availability ofwider family, and the importance of informal daily support from other mothers in the samesituation.

© 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction

UK census data indicate that lone parents of children frommixed racial or ethnic backgrounds constitute one of thehighest family forms: 45% of dependent children in the 2001‘Mixed’ Census ethnic group category live in families that areheaded by a lone parent, compared with 25% of those in the‘White’ ethnic group. Like other lone parent families in Britainand elsewhere, these are overwhelmingly headedbymothers .1

Whilst the inclusion of the ‘Mixed’ category for the firsttime in the 2001 UK Census has highlighted the presence ofracially and ethnically mixed people and families, theirexistence is by no means a new phenomenon. Families frommixed racial and ethnic backgrounds, including those headedby lone mothers, have long been part of the social fabric ofBritain. What is new, however, is the way in which we arebeginning to understand these families and their experiences,in particular through drawing on firsthand accounts of mixing

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and mixedness. A growing body of literature is increasinglyidentifying the demographics and experiences of childrenand young people from mixed racial and ethnic backgroundsin Britain (Ali, 2003; Barrett, Eade, Cinnirella & Garbin, 2006;Song & Aspinall, forthcoming; Tikly et al., 2004; Tizard &Phoenix, 2002; Wilson, 1987); it is only recently howeverthat more detailed knowledge about their parents hasbecome known (Caballero et al., 2008). Such researchindicates that the demographics and experiences of contem-porary parents of children from mixed racial and ethnicbackgrounds form a varied and complex picture, butnonetheless confirms findings from earlier studies thatsuggest parents in such families – whether lone or couple –

are subject to enduring negative assumptions and stereotypesregarding their backgrounds, relationships and parentingskills (Alibhai-Brown, 2001; Tizard & Phoenix, 2002; Wilson,1987). Barn (1999), Twine (1999a, 1999b, 2004) and others,however, have indicated that lone mothers of children frommixed racial and ethnic backgrounds may be especiallyvulnerable to such stereotypes (Harman, 2010a; Harman &Barn, 2005; Katz, 1996; Olumide, 2002; Tyler, 2005).

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In this article, we place side-by-side, views from lonemothers bringing up children from mixed racial and ethnicbackgrounds inmid-1960s and early 2000s Britain, in order toconsiderwhether the sort of social attitudes they face, and thesupport that the lone mothers experience from the fathers oftheir children, their families, their local community, andofficials, have changed or persisted over the past half century.

The 1960s are often pointed to as a period when socialchanges took hold that we are still feeling the effects of today,including shifts in the family forms within which children arebrought up, and diversification of some communities withimmigration (Edwards, 2009). A number of research studieswere carried out during the 1960s as part of concerns aboutpost-war changes in Britain. One of these was a study of‘fatherless families’ that we draw on in this article, placing theaccounts of lone mothers of children from mixed racial andethnic backgrounds from that time alongside perspectives fromcontemporary counterparts. We begin by setting the widerscene for the historical comparison of lone mothers' accountsand the material that we draw upon to do this. We thencompare and contrast the general social and official attitudesthat lone mothers of mixed children feel they encounter, thesupport they receive fromthe fathers of their children, and theirrelationships with their own and the father's wider family, theneighbourhood and friendship networks they draw on, and theformal supports available to them, across time.We conclude byconsidering some of the indicative trajectories of change andconstancy that looking at these attitudes and supports reveals.

Lone mothers: 1960s and 2000s

Mothers bringing up children without a resident manhave long been seen as transgressing various boundaries anddenoting the state of the nation in some way. The history oflone motherhood in Britain during the twentieth century ischaracterised by pendulum swings between ‘solutions’ to thequestion of whether, in the absence of a resident malebreadwinner, these women should earn a living to supportthemselves and their children, or be supported by the State orby the ‘absent’ father of their children as homemakers(Duncan & Edwards, 1999; Kiernan et al., 1998).

There are also moral concerns associated with lonemotherhood. During the 1960s, routes into the status of lonemotherhood were considered important: widowed motherswere seen as being in such a position through no fault of theirown, mothers who were divorced were regarded as moreculpable, but mothers who had children illegitimately (never-married) were immoral. Government assumed responsibilityfor supporting lone mothers as home-based carers while theirchildren were school-aged — albeit that ‘deserving’ widowsreceived higher level benefits, and ‘undeserving’ unmarriedmothers in particular could be subject to pressure to take upemployment.

By the twenty-first century there has been a rapid growthin lone mother families as a proportion of households withdependent children, especially divorced and never-marriedlone mothers. These developments are seen as resulting fromthese women's lifestyle choices rather than associated withunavoidable circumstances or mistakes (Kiernan et al., 1998).Lone mothers have been regarded as members of anunderclass, spawning anti-social children and corroding the

nation (e.g. Murray, 1994). The thrust of policy is now on lonemothers supporting themselves alongside enforcement ofbiological fathers' responsibility to maintain their children.

Lone mothers of mixed racial and ethnic children

For lone mothers bringing up children from mixed racialand ethnic backgrounds, moral concerns are compounded. Onthe one hand, racial and ethnic mixing has long been a part ofthe social fabric of Britain and, moreover, unlike in the UnitedStates has never been legislated against through an officialmarriage bar (Caballero, 2005). On the other hand, however,this is not to say that mixing and mixedness have beenviewed as unproblematic or desirable. In particular, relation-ships between white women and men from different racialbackgrounds have a lengthy history of provoking socialdisapproval. Although such concerns have a documentedpresence in British popular thought dating back to the 18thcentury (Caballero, in press), the 20th century saw theseconcerns justified by social science ‘fact’. From the late 1920sonwards, a number of methodologically dubious but influ-ential research studies on racial mixing in Liverpool andCardiff painted highly negative pictures of the familiesinvolved, stigmatising the parents as lacking in principlesand responsibility and their children as marginalised andconfused. Such conceptualisations were particularly vivid inthe case of whitemothers who had partnered blackmen, whowere generally assumed to be living at the edges of society,isolated and ignorant and with low social and sexual morals(Bland, 2007; Christian, 2008; Rich, 1986). Although thesefindings were furiously rejected by the communities them-selves and challenged by several social scientists (Christian,2008; Rich, 1986), by the time of mass immigration in the1950s, such attitudes were firmly established in Britishpopular and institutional thought (Caballero & Aspinall, inpreparation).

The contemporary constructions of lone mothers of mixedracial and ethnic children are thus rooted in a long history ofpathologising mixing and mixedness. For example, with inter-racial or inter-ethnic relationships posed as more difficult tomaintain because of an inherent ‘culture clash’, lone mothersmay face criticism for entering into relationships that are ‘set upto fail’ (Olumide, 2002). In particular, white lone mothers arefrequently questioned over their ability to raise their childrenwith a strong sense of cultural belonging or a capacity to dealwith racism (Harman&Barn, 2005; Katz, 1996; Olumide, 2002;Twine, 2004); a presumed lack ofwhat Twine (2004) has called‘racial literacy’. Furthermore, it has also been observed thatthrough entering into relationships with someone from aminority ethnic group, white mothers may also encounterhitherto unexperienced racism and prejudice — towardsthemselves, the child's father and the children (Harman,2010b), which may be difficult to manage without support(Banks, 1996; Barn, 1999).

It would thus appear that there are particular genderedand racialised assumptions that have long been articulatedfor mothers with mixed racial and ethnic children, particu-larly in terms of their racial and socio-economic profiles, thetypes of relationships they enter into and their motives fordoing so, and their ability to raise their children with healthyidentities (Harman & Barn, 2005; Olumide, 2002; Twine,

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2004; Tyler, 2005). But has there also been a trajectory ofsocial progress over the past 40 years for lone mothersbringing up children from mixed racial and ethnic back-grounds in Britain, concerning the social attitudes that theyface and the supports that they can draw on?

An historical comparison: The research studies

In order to explore whether and how things may havechanged, we draw on in-depth interviews with lone mothersof children from mixed racial and ethnic backgrounds fromtwo research projects carried out nearly half a century apart.2

The 1960s

The ‘Mothers Alone’ study by Dennis Marsden, carried outin 1965/66, examined the lives of lone mothers and theirchildren living on state benefits (then known as NationalAssistance), and is archived through ESDS Qualidata, EssexUniversity. 3 Of the 116 mothers interviewed, 11 were notedas having dependent children from mixed racial and ethnicbackgrounds.

Six of the mothers were from white British backgroundsand had children with men from what are described in theinterview fieldnotes as West Indian, Pakistani, Italian andHungarian backgrounds. Another five mothers were fromWestern or Eastern European backgrounds and had childrenwith white British men. Mothers had between two to elevenchildren, whose ages ranged from newborns to 25 years old.In several cases, mothers had children from mixed racial andethnic as well as white backgrounds. All those interviewedlived either in Huddersfield, a large market and manufactur-ing town in the north of England, or in Colchester, a largemarket and military garrison town in the south east ofEngland.

The interviews focused on issues of poverty and theprovision of state benefits, but as part of the study's concernwith how this affected participation in society, discussioncovered the mothers' relationships with, variously, theirchildren, the father/s of their children and the widercommunity.

The 2000s

The contemporary case study was carried out by ChamionCaballero in 2008 in conjunction with Single Parent ActionNetwork (SPAN).4 It explores the experiences of 10 lonemothers of dependent children from mixed racial and ethnicbackgrounds who live, work, socialise or educate theirchildren in or around a multicultural ward in Bristol, a largecity and port in south west England.

Six of the mothers are from white British backgrounds,two from Black British backgrounds, one has a Mixed ethnicbackground and one a Latin American background. Thechildren's fathers are from Black African, African American,Black British, white British, white British/European, EasternEuropean, and British Asian backgrounds. Mothers identifiedtheir own and the children's fathers' racial or ethnicbackgrounds. The mothers have from one to four children,whose ages ranged at the time of interview from 4 to 17.

The interviews look at how the mothers seek to provide asense of belonging for their children and the opportunities orconstraints they encounter. In particular, they explore thenegotiations that mothers engage in with their children,families and, where relevant, the children's father andrelatives, as well as the local community and wider society.

Issues in historical comparison

We use an historical comparative thematic analysis toprovide descriptions of the mothers' lives. This analyticmethod involves, firstly, a data-led identification of keytopics and patterns, regularities and contrasts in the respec-tive sets of interview material that are subsequently broughtinto dialogue with each other; and secondly, placing thethematic analysis within the temporal and social context ofthe particular research study and of the wider society inwhich it took place (Gillies & Edwards, 2011). Such anhistorical comparative thematic analysis offers insights ratherthan generalisations. Indeed, although we are able to discussparallels or differences between the experiences of themothers on certain issues, we are aware of limitations tothe extent we are able to do so. Not least, with such smallspecific samples, the experiences of themothers in both of thestudies – although indicative – cannot be equated with thecircumstances of mothers of mixed children nationwide foreither time period.

Further, the presence or absence of certain information inmothers' accounts may just as well be shaped by therespective interview schedules, as by whether or not motherswere exercised or unconcerned about particular issues. Datacollection technologies also play their part. Interviews in thecontemporary study were digitally recorded, allowing fordirect transcription. The interview material from the mid-1960s study, however, comprised researcher fieldnotesinterspersed with quotes from the mothers.

Despite these caveats, we nevertheless believe that, withso little material available, the insights generated by thecomparison have a valuable part to play in developingknowledge about lone mothers bringing up children frommixed racial and ethnic backgrounds over the past halfcentury in Britain.

Social attitudes

Although mixing between different racial and ethnicgroups was common in the 1960s – as indeed it had beenthroughout and prior to the 20th century – for the most partsuch mixing was popularly thought of as being somethingundesirable, especially if it involved white women (Caballero& Aspinall, work-in-progress; Bland, 2005, 2007). The in-terviews from 1965/66 reveal how derogatory popular andinstitutional lines of thought resonated in the lives of themothers with mixed racial and ethnic children who Marsdenspoke to, especially those who had children from white andblack mixed backgrounds. Mrs Jagger, a divorced whiteBritish woman with three young children from her black‘West Indian’ boyfriend, living in Huddersfield, is a goodexample. She was aware of judgments made about her moralstandards, as demonstrated by her neighbours and others shecame across:

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“As soon as I came here, the people next door saw I'd gotcoloured children and they put a fence up, after that theywere alright and some other neighbour came on and saidthat at first when they saw the coloured children, theythought they'd get some right dirty people in this house … Ifyou've got coloured children, they'll class you as if you werea prostitute. In shops sometimes, when you go in and you'llsee the salesgirls all dolled up, well, they look at you as ifthough you were going to pinch summat, and I don't likethem to do that because I've been as good as them, and thenon the bus sometimes, you get these old women looking atyou from head to foot, but they stop looking when I startlooking back at them, and then one woman was walkingpast me on the bus, and I heard her say, ‘Disgusting’.”

Although thinking on race in Britain has shifted since MrsJagger's time, including towards racial mixing, neverthelessstereotypes about whitewomen and blackmen endure. In thecontemporary interviews, mothers who have children fromtheir relationships with former black partners discuss howthey feel they and their children are commonly seen. Lucy, awhite British woman, has a 14 year old daughter from herformer relationship with a British black Caribbean man. Sheremarks:

Society does portray such a bad image…that basically you'rea slag who went out one night and went with a black manbecause he had a big willy!

Yet the contemporary lone mothers appear to experiencesuch social prejudice in different ways to their counterparts inthe mid-1960s. The twenty-first century mothers recountexamples of subtle, rather than more direct, negativeattitudes, especially in dealings with officials. Chloe, a whiteBritish woman who is separated from her 17 year old son'sBlack African father, recounts an incident when she soughthelp to deal with her son's disability:

I went to meet an educational psychologist once, it was oneof these like multidisciplinary type meetings and it wasbased in [my son's] school… because I've had problems withthem, I kind of play the game a little bit. So I don't go inlooking rough, I go in with my suit on, my handbag, mybriefcase, my overcoat, my leather gloves. And I walked intothis meeting, put my briefcase down, got my diary out, tookmy gloves off, my coat off, sat down and went ‘hello’ to thepeople that were already seated. And we were waiting forsome other people and the guy said, [hushed, patronisingvoice] “we're waiting for the mother. Late as per usual”. Isaid, “I am the mother”. And I know that he was working inan inner city school with a mixed race child who hadbehavioural difficulties and I am not what he was expecting.

In contrast, mothers in the mid-1960s study recountedmore overt institutional prejudice, especially from officials atthe National Assistance Board (NAB). The NAB was required tomaintain people who had no other source of income at a lowsubsistence level, taking into account people's different basicneeds. The officers who assessed these needs had discretionarypowers, and inconsistent and harsh decisions were said to becommonplace (Hill 1969). Lone mothers, or particular sorts of

lone mothers, could be subject to the prejudices of the NABofficers – a key finding of the 1965/66 study.5 For example,MrsWhiteman, a white British woman living in Huddersfield, whowas separated from her husband, and whose 3-year old son –

the youngest of her five children – had a ‘West Indian’ father,reported:

‘Miss Sawyers (National Assistance Board [illegible] Man-ager) says to me, “Don't come here with your colouredchildren and your half-caste children. You go back whereyou belong. What will the children think when they grow upand their brother's half-caste” … “They say at the NationalAssistance Board we shouldn't go out with coloured men, weshould go out with our own.’

Interestingly, few of the 1960s mothers who had childrenfrom ethnically, as opposed to racially, mixed backgroundscommented on prejudice. The most direct experience wasrelated by Mrs Douglas, a white German/Austrian womanwho lived in Colchester. She had become ‘naturalised’6 priorto having two children – aged 11 and 7 years at the time ofinterview – with her white British ex-husband. In part, shefelt the prejudice she faced was due to some bad publicity inthe local newspaper concerning her and her ex-husband, aswell as her German/Austrian background being targeted inthe post-war period:

“We wanted privacy and a garden, but every time, whenwe'd been there 2 years, the neighbours, because I was anAustrian, they pick on me, they call me Nazi, up at WilsonMarriage Rd., I get written in the snow, Mrs Douglas is aNazi, they say to me, we don't want you, that's an awfulthing to say, they say, you foreigners coming here and takingall the National Assistance, and we keeping you. I often thinkif it was only their own people, they would not talk likethat.”

It seemed that the focus of the prejudice was directedtowards the original nationality of the person concerned, ratherthan relating to themixed relationship. Then, as now, it appearsthat certain boundaries potentially aremore transgressive thanothers.

Support from fathers and families

Lone mothers of mixed racial and ethnic children are oftenassumed to have little social contact, with white mothers inparticular being abandoned by the children's father, isolatedfrom his family and ostracised by their own. Studies conductedin the 1950s and 1960s on black communities that discussedmixed marriages between West Indian men and white womensuggested that these relationships frequently led to theestrangement of thewomen from theirwhite family and friends(Banton, 1959; Richmond, 1961). Later evidence from studiesconducted in the 1990s and early 2000s indicate that whitefamilies may be hostile to or concerned about their whiterelatives having children with people from another ethnic orracial background (Tizard &Phoenix, 2002).Moreover,minorityethnic groups similarlymayview ‘partnering out’ as undesirableor problematic (Goulbourne et al., 2010; Okitikpi, 2009; Song &Edwards, 1997).

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The 1960s and contemporary studies, however, indicate adiversity of experiences concerning support from fathers andfamily for lone mothers of mixed racial and ethnic children.

Relationships with fathers

Contrary to assumptions about ‘absent’ fathers, mothers inboth studies tended to have contact with their children'sfathers, with several of the fathers contributing practical orfinancial support. In the contemporary study, seven of the tenmothers said that their children do see their fathers. Even inthe families where there is currently no contact with thefather, two fathers previously had seen their children and themothers are open to re-establishing relations in the future.

The issue for the contemporary lone mothers is moreabout the form and quality of contact, rather than itsexistence. Some children see their fathers regularly, whilstfor others contact is more intermittent. Melanie, for example,a white British woman whose former partner is black British,discusses how involved her child's father is with their 8 yearold son:

His father lives locally and spends quite a bit of time withhim. When I was working over the summer for the last3 months he was picking him up daily from school andlooking after him until five o'clock.

Estelle, who is Latin American, is separated from herBritish Asian husband, with whom she has a 6 year old son.She also has quite regular contact with her child's father:

He comes up every two weekends … Yeah, there is contactand he does love his little boy.

Clare's situation is quite different. She is a white Britishwoman who has two children with former partners fromblack Caribbean backgrounds. She has no contact with her13 year old daughter's father and only occasional contactwith the father of her 7 year old son:

He came round a couple of weekends ago but that's the firsttime he's seen [his son] this year. I've seen him on one otheroccasion this year and we might have a conversation onceevery six weeks or so, you know. So he's still a friend, but afairly distant friend.

The UK Child Support Act, passed in 1991, established anobligation on contemporary non-resident parents, over-whelmingly fathers, to support their biological childrenfinancially. This material responsibility has been accompa-nied by expectations that fathers need to contribute to theirchildren's emotional well-being and development (Gillies,2009). Although such policy and social frameworks were notin place during the 1960s – as in the contemporary study –

contact with and contributions from fathers in the mid-1960sstudy varied. Some appeared to have no or intermittentcontact with the lone mothers and their children. Others,however, provided financial assistance and childcare. MissWigmore was a white single mother of two school-agechildren living in Huddersfield. She had one child from arelationship with a man of Pakistani origin, and another child

(Danny) and one to be born shortly with her non-residentblack ‘West Indian’ boyfriend. Marsden notes of her situation:

She has a voluntary agreement with Danny's father wherebyhe comes up once a week and pays her £1.

The ‘West Indian’ father of Mrs Whiteman's youngestchild (see above) had stepped in to care for her and all herchildren when required:

‘When I was having Stephen and I was poorly, Stephen'sfather had a couple of weeks off work, and he stopped hereto help me. He helped to get the children ready for schooland to cook the meals’.

Interestingly, the 1960s fathers who were most active inthe children's lives included those from what the study refersto as ‘West Indian’ backgrounds:

It seemed that themenmost likely to support their childrenwereolder men with local roots, or the West Indians, who were saidnot to object to other men's children. (Marsden, 1969, p. 118)

Similar comments about the presence of black, as well asotherminority ethnic fathers, in the lives ofmixed racial or ethnicfamilies canalsobe found in the accounts of other social scientistsduring the early and mid-20th century. For example, RachelFleming noted that the Chinese were ‘good husbands andespecially good fathers', whilst Sydney Collins reported thetendency of ‘coloured’ men to display noticeable and touchingfamilial devotion to their wives and children (Collins, 1957;Fleming, 1927). Such observations are of particular interest inlight of popular assumptions about the absenceof black fathers inboth black and mixed racial families (Reynolds, 2005).

Whilst the extent of contact with fathers varied betweenindividuals within the two studies, there is a difference in theexpectations of the 2000s and 1960s mothers. Even wherethere is regular contact, mothers in the contemporary studyfrequently talk of wanting more involvement from fathers, aswell as detailing the efforts that they make to sustain therelationship with the father. Like Zoe, a white British womanwho has an 8 year old daughter with her former British blackCaribbean partner, many see this relationship as a crucialissue for children from mixed racial and ethnic backgrounds:

I put in like 90%–95% of my efforts 100% of the time, I'm onlysupposed to put in 50 … I mean it wasn't roses at all, it wasjust — it was a lot of me investing and it got to the pointsometimes I would take [our daughter] to him, she wouldn'twant to go, he'd be fucking around with the arrangements,I'd be the only person consistent and trying the whole thingand I'm the one that shouldn't be doing it! … I think it'simportant enough for a child to have a father or a motherboth in their life or know who they are, especially whenthey're dual heritage. And I think that for me, I thought if Ican possibly, possibly do anything to keep that role in her lifein whatever way I will do it.

The 1960s mothers, however, did not discuss of the role offathers in their children's lives, whether in relation to being frommixed racial or ethnic backgrounds or just generally. At the time,

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social identities were regarded more as an ascribed produce ofbirth rather than as something that needed to be inculcatedthrough parenting practices (e.g. Savage, 2007). In other words,racial and ethnic identity was something one had rather thansomething to be achieved. Alongside this, understandings offathers' part in meeting children's needs have shifted consider-ably over the last half century, in terms of whether contact withtheir biological fathers is necessary to children's healthydevelopment (e.g. Ribbens McCarthy et al., 2003).

Relationships with family

Despite research indicating that white families are oftenconcerned about their members having children with peoplefrom another ethnic or racial background, in both the 1960sand contemporary studies there was little indication ofhostility to racial mixing from white mothers' families tothe extent that they could not turn to them for support. Noneof the 1960s mothers spoke of experiencing rejection by theirfamily, although since race and racismwas not a specific focusof the interviews with these mothers it is difficult to drawconclusions. Like the contemporary mothers, most were incontact with their own families, although again, the level ofcontact and quality of interaction varied.

Some had consistent and dedicated support from familymembers. From the 1960s study, Mrs Caseywas a white Britishwoman, separated from her original husband, and with 11children in all from several different fathers, aged between 25and 2 years. The youngest was from a relationship with a‘coloured’ man, as described by Marsden. Mrs Casey and herresident children's accommodation was provided by hermother:

Her mother had seemed to have moved about a fair bit,possibly to be near her daughter. She's now moved fromright over the other side of town to just down the road …

[Mrs Casey's mother] ‘used all her savings to give me a placeof my own with the children so that we can have a freshstart. So that we can have a life, I've never had a life, I justdon't know what it's like outside’.

Christine, a British black Caribbean woman from thecontemporary study similarly feels well supported. She hastwo young children with her East European former partner,and a strong family support system:

I'm blessed with an extended family, my mum who lives notvery far and works in the same area that I live. I have twosisters as well and they again live within [the city] andthey're quite, you know, important, you know, in terms ofthey help with childcare and the raising of the children.

Others did not have the same level of practical input fromtheir families. Mrs Jagger from the 1960s study felt that shereceived little in the way of practical support for herself andher three mixed children (see above) from her mother andthe rest of her family:

Although she sees a lot of her family, quote, ‘My family'smore for their own selves’. Her mother has only baby sat forher once because she works.

From the contemporary study, Sara, who describes herselfas mixed race, recounts a similar situation. She has a 12 yearold son with her former partner who is white British/WestEuropean. Though many of her family live nearby she feelsthat practical support is often missing:

My mum never does any babysitting! She works full timeand basically she's married and she's got quite a possessivehusband and he kind of when she's not working, she's withhim so she's not really, I love her to bits but she's not how Ithought she was going to be.

There was a notable difference between the two studies,however, in relation contact with the father's family. Theassumption that lone mothers of mixed racial and ethnicchildren are isolated is further challenged by the contempo-rary study; the majority of the mothers have contact with thefather's family. Again, as with fathers, the type and quality ofthis contact varies between families. In Lucy's case (describedearlier), a good relationship had tailed off as the relationshipwith the children's father ended:

Well, I always got on with his mum. She always said, ‘I'm hergrandmother, whatever happens I want to be part of herlife’. She used to call me her daughter-in-law and I was veryproud that we had that kind of relationship … And then shestopped speaking to me and then she wrote me some nastyletters … So I kind of left it. Which is a shame. But shealways sends a birthday and Christmas card to [mydaughter].

In contrast, for Debbie, a black British woman who has 5and 6 year old sons with her former white British partner, therelationship with her children's grandmother is enhanced inresponse to lack of input from their father:

His mum's lovely and very good and very — and we go,every now and again, like we go, we invite her to come tothe zoo and stuff, so they've got that link. So if ever he doesget a bit of common sense into him, it's an easy way throughhis mum to get back to them, kind of thing … We're kind ofgetting to know each other more now actually since [thechildren's father] hasn't had anything to do with them.

Meanwhile, in Zoe's case (described earlier), her positiverelationship with her daughter's paternal grandparentscontinues:

My relationship with her and her husband … has beenconsistent. From then, she's always like, bought nappies,been in [my daughter's] life weekly, had her overnight, untilnow. So she's been consistent the whole time. And, youknow, my daughter has a good relationship with her andthat side of the family.

Mothers tend to value relationships with the child'sfather's family, feeling that they bring cultural and familialbenefits for their children, so they expend effort on main-taining these relationships, even where they are not neces-sarily easy.

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In the 1960s study, however, hardly anymention of contactwith the father's family was made. Patterns of migration andsettlement forminority ethnicmen at that time, particularly forthe West Indian or Pakistani fathers, mean they would mostlikely have travelled to England alone (Goulbourne, 1998). Yetthere is also little mention of their in-laws amongst theEuropean women who had relationships with British men.For example, the fieldnotes on Mrs Douglas, of German/Austrian origin (described earlier), state that she had:

… not much contact with her in-laws, her sister in law usedto give her a few clothes, but not lately.

Other forms of support could play an important part inmothers' lives, both in the 1960s and 2000s.

Neighbourhood and friendship networks

The area where lone mothers and their mixed racechildren live can have an important bearing on theirexperiences not only in terms of developing a sense ofidentity and belonging for their children, but also on theeveryday lives of the mothers themselves (Head, 2005;Caballero, work-in-progress). Certainly, in the contemporarystudy, mothers could choose to live in their multiculturalBristol neighbourhood where, as Chloe (described earlier)explains, their children will not ‘stand out’:

[It's] about him having a sense of identity, a healthy sense ofidentity, knowing who he is and where he's from and forthat reason I actually moved into [the area] when he wasyoung because I didn't want him to be brought up in an areawhere there weren't many people like him.

Further, being around other women with a similar familymake-up can be a strong support mechanism for mothers,particularly white women, as Zoe (described earlier)explains:

A lot of my friends have mixed race children … I think thereason why white women stick together with mixed racechildren is because they feel accepted. Because they don'thave to deal with the criticism and the racism.

Glimpses of these neighbourhood support networks of‘mixedness’ can also be seen in the 1960s research. Three ofthe four mothers who had children with ‘West Indian’ fathersspoke about friendships with mothers in similar situations.The fieldnotes on Mrs Jagger (discussed above) recountedhow she came to have relationships with ‘West Indian’ men:

“I started going [out] with a friend of mine, do you know, I'dnever been in a pub until then and this was a girl who livednearby and we started going off together, that was how itstarted really, that was how I started going with thecoloureds.” … She seems to know lots of coloured people,a coloured woman and her friend up the road is married to acoloured man, and her other little half-caste child wasplaying in the house. She reckons integration is proceedingquite fast, from her experience of the Fraternity Hall. Thereare more white people coming than ever before.

Similarly, the fieldnotes record that Mrs Whiteman (seeearlier) had developed a network of friends who also hadchildren with ‘West Indian’ men:

The interview took place under conditions of extreme difficulty.In addition to Mrs Whiteman and her son Stephen, three, whocaused a great deal of trouble, a very aggressive child — verywhiny, there was also her friend, a Scottish girl with threecoloured children who lives down Bankfield Road. She hadthree young children, the eldest one looked about four. Thenlater on, another friend turned up, a fat woman who waspossibly quite young who had lived with Mrs Whiteman for ashort time before she married a coloured man.

Formal support

In the period between the two studies, considerable shiftshave taken place in relation to the formal support available forlonemothers. In addition to changing policy contexts, there arenational and local specialist organisations that provide advice,information and support to lone mothers.7 For mothers in the1965/66 study, little specific formal support appears to havebeen available, and some said that they found the process ofclaiming help too confusing or bureaucratic. Some mothers,particularly thosewith larger families, said they often struggledwith their situations but had few alternatives other than tocarry on, as the fieldnotes report for Mrs Whiteman:

The gas has been cut off so she now uses electricity. She hadtried to gas herself once but the shilling ran out. A thing shelooks back on now with wry amusement. ‘Oh yes, many atime I wish I'd succeeded, and sometimes I feel I could justwalk away. You know what I mean? I once rang up InspectorHawk (of the NSPCC). I told him to come up because I wasgoing, I couldn't stand it any longer’.

In contrast, mothers in the contemporary study speak of anumber of resources that they can access for support,including the Single Parent Action Network (SPAN) throughwhich they had been recruited:

I did one of the life courses [at SPAN], which is more to dowith career but it kind of I suppose in a lot of ways it ties in[with parenting]. That was brilliant, that was really good.Really, really good. I did one course which is more to do withyour outlook on life. Which was brilliant.

Although some mothers note that the provision of free orlow-cost childcare when the children are small has been agreat help, for the most part they do not access formalsupport networks around parenting. Either they feel that theydo not need these forms of support or, like Estelle (discussedearlier), think that they are not for them:

Parenting groups are terrible places to go for mixed racekids. They're terrible places. [They're full of] the white middleclass from [names of neighbourhoods]. And they all knoweach other.

Further, some of the mothers are disappointed by the lackof information aboutmixed race families or the representation

537R. Edwards, C. Caballero / Women's Studies International Forum 34 (2011) 530–538

of family types in much of the parenting literature that isavailable. Melanie (see earlier) comments:

Very early on I bought a book on how to raise a boy andthere was a picture of a white boy on the front of the book!…When you say parents and you go into a shop and you seethese parenting magazines, you know, they're all very much,they don't seem to be catered to mothers like myself.

The contemporary mothers thus feel that there is a needfor more targeted and nuanced information about theexperiences of mixed racial and ethnic children and families.With little provision made for the emotional needs ofmothers and children generally in the 1960s, and against asocial climate in which essentialist understandings of racewere only slowly being challenged, the absence of suchexpressed needs amongst their counterparts 40 years previ-ously is not surprising.

Conclusion

In this conclusion we highlight some indicative trajecto-ries of change or constancy in circumstances for lonemothers of mixed racial and ethnic children over the pasthalf century. In doing so, we hope to provide a launch pointfor further discussion and research to develop understand-ings of the experiences and needs of this diverse andcomplex group.

In both sets of interviews, across time, mothers –

particularly white mothers whose children's fathers werefrom black African or African Caribbean (‘West Indian’)backgrounds – felt that negative assessments were made ofwomen who partnered outside of their own racial or ethnicgroup. Judgments about the mothers' morals in this respecthad changed little over the past half a century.

Nevertheless, the interviews indicate a change in the waysuch attitudes are expressed socially. Although overt forms ofracism and prejudice can still be faced by contemporary lonemothers of mixed racial and ethnic children (Harman,2010a), for the mothers in this study, this takes subtle andcovert forms – notably in their interactions with officials at aninstitutional level – rather than the direct form experiencedby the 1960s mothers, particularly in their dealings with NABofficials.

The presence of fathers in the lives of the 1960s andcontemporary lone mothers challenges assumptions. Bothsets of interviews show that the absence of fathers in the livesof mixed racial and ethnic lone mother families, while it maybe variable, is not inevitable. Indeed, the variability of fathers'involvement has not necessarily changed over time. Withinand across both studies, the level of contact and contributionsof fathers differed, with some a constant presence and othersmore intermittent or absent.

The social context, however, has shifted. The responsibilitythat most of the contemporary mothers expect the biologicalfathers of their children to take is echoed in government policy,which obliges the non-resident parent to contribute towardsmaintaining their child — at least in principle (Ridge, 2005).Such policy obligations are also accompanied by socialexpectations, which see the presence or absence of fathersin children's lives as playing an important role in shaping

children's identity and their general development. For the1960s mothers, such obligations and expectations were not apart of their lives, on personal, societal or policy levels.

The 1960s and the contemporary material also challengesassumptions about the type of relationship that lone mothersof mixed racial and ethnic children have with their ownfamilies. They suggest that rejection by family is not aninevitable aspect of mothers' experiences, though of coursethere is a continuation of variability in mothers' experiences.Some may have close and supportive relationships with theirfamilies, whilst others may have more strained or difficultinteractions and not necessarily because of having partneredoutside their racial or ethnic group.

A significant trajectory shift indicated, however, is therelationships that contemporarymothers may now have withtheir children's father's families, particularly if those familiesare from minority ethnic or racial backgrounds. The majorityof the contemporary mothers had contact with the father'sfamily, many on a regular basis. Again, although the type andquality of this contact varies amongst families, it appearspresent in a way that was almost unknown amongst the1960smothers, due no doubt to the patterns of migration andsettlement in Britain amongst minority ethnic families at thetime. Such a shift suggests an additional support source forlone mothers of mixed racial and ethnic children, one whichfurther challenges notions of them as inherently isolated,culturally and socially.

In the time period between the two studies, developmenthas taken place in the formal help available for lone mothers.In addition to the changing policy context, there are a numberof specialist organisations that provide advice, informationand support to contemporary lonemothers. Nonetheless, lonemothers of children frommixed racial and ethnic backgroundscan feel their particular circumstances are not catered for.

What appears to have remained constant, however, is thetype of informal daily support that lone mothers of mixedracial and ethnic children draw on. In addition to the rolesthat the children's father andmothers' own families may playin their lives, friendship networks feature strongly in both the1960s and contemporary mothers' accounts. In particular,though their importance is often overlooked in discussions oflone mothers of mixed racial and ethnic children, friendshipsin which mothers share commonality of experience appear tobe of great importance in providing everyday support.

These trajectories of continuity and change in experiencesof attitudes and support for lone mothers of mixed racial andethnic children in Britain across 40 years reveal not onlysimilarities and variabilities between the sets of mothersbetween the 1960s and 2000s, but also within each timeperiod. With the experiences and needs of this group ofmothers often assumed rather than explored, we feel thatsuch findings – small-scale as they may be – are important inhighlighting not only the commonalities but also, crucially,the complexity and diversity of the experiences and needs oflone mothers of mixed racial and ethnic children in Britain,both past and present.

End Notes

1 Source: UK Census 2001, Office for National Statistics.2 We are grateful to the Runnymede Trust for funding the comparative

538 R. Edwards, C. Caballero / Women's Studies International Forum 34 (2011) 530–538

analysis on which we draw in this article (see Caballero & Edwards 2010).3 The data set is available through the UK Data Archive: Marsden, D.

Mothers Alone: Poverty and the Fatherless Family, 1965–1966 [computer file].Colchester: Essex: UK Data Archive [distributor], February 2005. SN: 5072.

4 Caballero and Edwards (2010) Lone Mothers of Children from MixedRacial and Ethnic Backgrounds: A Case Study. http://www.onespace.org.uk/your-roots/lone-mothers-mixed-race-children

5 The study just preceded the disestablishment of the NAB and itsreplacement by the Supplementary Benefits Commission (Marsden 1969).

6 Taken British citizenship.7 For example, the national organisation Gingerbread/One Parent

Families, and the Single Parent Action Network that is based in Bristol.

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