Modern Day Mammy?

Fast forward to present day North Carolina. I have a sister-friend, who I’ll call Nicole, who is completing her last semester as an undergrad. Like many college students, Nicole needed a part time job to help her get by. Luckily her friend at school knew a woman who needed a babysitter for her children two days a week. The babysitting schedule meshed with her class schedule and Nicole took the job.

Now it’s worth noting that Nicole is a black woman, majoring in education with several nieces and nephews whom she’s had to raise on occasion- so she’s well equipped to handle the two children she’ll be watching until she graduates.

The mother is white and relatively privileged. She’s had babysitters in the past. They’ve all been enrolled in the local university, which is understandable. But despite the lack of diversity on campus, all of her babysitters have been black.

While it’s great that she’s giving young, black women a way to support themselves through school it’s also a little suspicious. Nevertheless my friend, Nicole, went into the position with an open mind.

It wasn’t until a month later that Nicole started feeling uncomfortable.

One morning, the boy was throwing a tantrum as his mother was leaving for work. He had thrown a stack of coloring books in her face and was in the process of coloring on the wall. In an attempt to calm him she said, “Nicole will hug and kiss you all day.”

Later as my friend relayed the story to me, she made her reservations quite clear.

“I’ve seen too many slave nurse, white baby pictures for me to feel comfortable cradling this white baby. I can’t… Maybe if I raised him.”

While her words seemed a little harsh at first, I understood her sentiment. At this point she’d seen the children less than eight times and the boy hadn’t exactly exhibited the type of behavior that would warrant such affection.