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

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Description/Abstract

This article places side-by-side the views from lone mothers bringing up children from mixed
racial and ethnic backgrounds in mid-1960s and early 2000s Britain, to consider whether the
sorts of social attitudes and support these mothers experienced have changed or persisted over
the past half century. The analysis compares and contrasts the general social and official
attitudes that lone mothers of mixed children feel that they encounter, the support they receive
from the fathers of their children, and their relationships with their own and the father's wider
family, the neighbourhood and friendship networks they draw on, and the formal supports
available to them across time. The article concludes by considering some indicative trajectories
of change and constancy that looking at these social attitudes and supports reveals, around
negative assessments and their social expression, expectations of fathers, the availability of
wider family, and the importance of informal daily support from other mothers in the same
situation.