African American grief vs Motherless mothers

African American grief

Paul C. Rosenblatt

2005

African American Grief is a unique contribution to the field, both as a professional resource for counselors, therapists, social workers, clergy, and nurses, and as a reference volume for thanatologists, academics, and researchers. The classic edition includes a new preface from the authors reflecting on their work and on the changes in society and the field since the book’s initial publication. This work considers the potential effects of slavery, racism, and white ignorance and oppression on the African American experience and conception of death and grief in America. Based on interviews with 26 African Americans who have faced the death of a significant person in their lives, the authors document, describe, and analyze key phenomena of the unique African American experience of grief. The book combines moving narratives from the interviewees with sound research, analysis, and theoretical discussion of important issues in thanatology, as well as topics such as the influence of the African American church, gospel music, family grief, medical racism as a cause of death, and discrimination during life and after death.

Motherless mothers

Hope Edelman

2006

"Edelman illuminates the transformative power of understanding mother loss [and] offers essential wisdom." — Library Journal When Hope Edelman, author of the New York Times bestseller Motherless Daughters, became a parent, she found herself revisiting the loss of her mother in ways she had never anticipated. Now the mother of two young girls, Edelman set out to learn how the loss of a mother to death or abandonment can affect the ways women raise their own children. In Motherless Mothers, Edelman uses her own story as a prism to reveal the unique anxieties and desires that these women experience as they raise their children without the help of a living maternal guide. In an impeccably researched, luminously written book enriched by the voices of the mothers themselves—and filled with practical insight and advice from experienced professionals—she examines their parenting choices, their triumphs, and their fears, and offers motherless mothers the guidance and support they want and need.