Black women give up having children for fear of racism and mental health protection

“What if that happens to my child?”

That’s what Lorena Vitória, a 21-year-old black woman asked herself, after seeing her boyfriends, all black, being violently approached by the Military Police.

The fear that future children will be victims of racism makes the fashion design student question whether it is worth giving in to the desire to be a mother, or if it is better not to put another black child in a racist world.

“We see things that happen these days, both of approach and death, and I always feel very bad and I end up imagining: if with someone else’s child it already hurts me so much, what would it be like if that happened to my child? “, it says.

Lorena’s indecision is common among black women. The fear that their children will suffer racism —which is manifested in police and obstetric violence, prejudice and discrimination— makes many of them give up motherhood. The decision also serves as protection for their own mental health.

This is because racism is an engine of psychological suffering, says Marizete Gouveia, a doctor in psychology from the University of Brasília and author of the thesis “Where is racism hidden in clinical psychology?”.

According to the specialist, the suffering caused by racial prejudice makes black women create mechanisms to protect their mental health. Not having children is one of them, since they would not have to worry about the violence they would suffer.

“It can be a self-protection measure, in the sense of not having to worry about the child, but it goes beyond that. It’s also not bringing a child into this violent world. I’ll spare myself not having that worry, but it’s also a relief not to experience this child being exposed to this world.”

According to the Atlas of Violence 2021, carried out by the Brazilian Public Security Forum, since the 1980s, when homicide rates in Brazil began to grow, the increase has been more pronounced among the black population, especially among the youngest.

And the fear becomes even greater if the child is a man. A survey carried out by the Forum with microdata from the Anuário de Segurança Pública shows that blacks account for 78.7% of all intentional violent deaths among men. This means that a black man is 3.7 times more likely to die than a non-black man.

This is the case of the nanny Gisele (fictitious name, by request), whose decision was based on the growing violence among black people and on her professional experience. She realized that the idea of ​​leaving her children at home to care for other women’s children was a constant worry.

“How am I going to subject myself to having a child and spending the week away from home?” she says. “That’s the problem, taking away from the child the right to have the mother around, because this work consumes.”

She, who avoids walking in spaces where she can suffer racism, feels that it is not worth having a child who will have his freedom pruned so that he does not go through situations of prejudice and discrimination.

“Many times you have the dream of this realization in your life, but due to lack of options, failure of the state and racism, you have to take other paths.”

Evelyn Daisy de Carvalho de Sousa, 39, on the other hand, never had a strong desire to be a mother due to an inherited health condition. As she became an adult, the fear that her children would experience violence was what it took for her to confirm her decision. She also realized that she needed to protect her mental health. She knew that having a black child would be a constant concern.

His decision accumulates still other variants. Founder of Traçamor, a project that assists women in a period of hair transition, Evelyn is also responsible for raising two black nephews, which makes her constantly think about how to keep them alive and safe.

“Imagine me having generated, put a child into the world to have this concern? Because nephew and husband are not exactly a choice. Getting pregnant, no. You put a person in the world to suffer these consequences.”

In addition, she saw her sister suffer from obstetric violence in her four pregnancies, being poorly attended by doctors in two deliveries. “In gynecology, we went through a lot of humiliation. I went through a lot of humiliation with the gynecologist at the health center in my neighborhood. Can you imagine if I were pregnant?”

The study “The color of pain: racial inequities in prenatal care and childbirth in Brazil”, published in Cadernos de Saúde Pública in 2017, shows that black women are more likely than white women to have inadequate prenatal care, absence of companions during childbirth and less local anesthesia when performing episiotomy, which consists of a cut in the vagina region to facilitate the baby’s exit.

For Janete Santos Ribeiro, a master in education at UFF (Universidade Federal Fluminense) and former pedagogical coordinator of the Black Intellectual Studies and Research Group at UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), racism has defined the needs and choices of the black population. . The researcher says she is divided as to what she thinks about the decision of black women who choose not to have children.

On the one hand, he believes that the black population should not base their choices solely on the violence they suffer. On the other hand, he believes it is important that these women find mechanisms that help them protect their well-being and mental health.

“I welcome both perspectives, but I believe that the important thing is that the agenda, the agency is ours. Not starting from the violence historically imposed on our bodies. Otherwise, you go from one illness to another”, says Ribeiro, who is also a professor of basic education.

The researcher considers, however, that the decision must take into account whether there is a desire for motherhood and think in which ways this will be remedied so as not to become a factor of suffering. “Black women’s loneliness has been an imposition of patriarchal, elitist and racist culture. We no longer want this loneliness guiding our decisions and choices.”