You know her. She’s was solemn dark face that stared back at you in those black and white photographs, she was the bandana clad woman in “Gone With the Wind,” and she was your Aunt Jemima before she got that make over. She was the mammy and you know her well.
The mammy is a morphing figure; but, in the context of slavery the mammy was the designated childcare provider times a thousand as she virtually served as a surrogate mother for master’s children: babysitting, nurturing and even breastfeeding them in some cases. In theory the mammy is a thing of the past, no one would ask you to breastfeed their children today; yet, just like so many practices from slavery, there are remnants.
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.
The liberties the mother took didn’t end there. Later when she was leaving the house for work, again the boy was throwing a tantrum.
“Go sit on the couch with Aunt Nicole.”
My friend just looked at her, hoping to illustrate her irritation. Not only had the mother not asked her permission to give her this title, she’d only seen the children eight times at this point.
Again Nicole expressed her frustrations.
“Do you tell him to call your next door neighbor Uncle Peter? And they’ve known them all their lives. But I’m Aunt Nicole.”
Not only was the title unwanted, my friend recognized it would eventually cause problems for the son.
“You’re telling this boy to call me Aunt Nicole and I’m about to be gone. And he’s going to be like where did my aunt go?”
While the mother expects Nicole to have an intimate relationship with her son, she doesn’t want any of her input or suggestions, she ignored her suggestions on how to remedy his cold (which he had for weeks), what he might like for lunch (because he doesn’t eat what she leaves him) and why he acts out every morning.
“You know your child’s needs, you know I’m in education. Why aren’t you focusing on what I could be teaching your child as opposed to showing him affection?”
It doesn’t seem to be top priority for her.
To top everything off, the mother is consistently late coming home from work, even though she works the next exit over from her home. While Nicole arrives fifteen minutes early to work in the morning, the mother frequently comes home forty minutes late.
Her behavior led my friend to this conclusion: “I’m a service to you but you want the baby to be family to me.”
