![]() And while that traditional definition can explain inconsistency in family structure and children's outcomes, instability ought to have a functional definition, which would then require us to focus on whether a single-or two-parent family can meet its children's best interests and welfare. Traditionally, instability has meant that black families have only one parent, principally the mother. Traditionally, it has been de rigueur to point simply to slavery's soul-murdering practices and to Jim Crow's neo-slavery violence to explain such instability. Since slavery, most black families have suffered instability because, even if two parents were present, they relied on obedience training and rigid physical violence as an appropriate childrearing practice. ![]() Excerpted from: Reginald Leamon Robinson, Dark Secrets: Obedience Training, Rigid Physical Violence, Black Parenting, and Reassessing the Origins of Instability in the Black Family Through a Re-reading of Fox Butterfield's All God's Children, 55 Howard Law Journal 393 (Winter 2012) (365 footnotes omitted0 ![]()
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