“I don't have the energy”: Racial stress, young Black motherhood, and Canadian social policies

Abstract

Significant socio-economic, health, and mental health disparities due to highly entrenched and systemic anti-Black racism in Canadian institutions, policies, and practices are now well documented in research and policy reports. Yet, few in-depth studies have addressed the mental health impacts of anti-Black racism on Canadian populations. This article is rooted in a community-based, qualitative research project with young first and second-generation Black Caribbean-Canadian mothers and is informed by Black Feminist epistemologies and intersectional theories and methodologies. Our research demonstrates how participants’ childhood experiences with xenophobic and racist immigration policies and educational, child welfare, and childcare systems caused their future mental health challenges as young Black mothers, and how these struggles were exacerbated by their encounters with the racist, ageist, xenophobic medical, social, and mental health services they had to access as young mothers. Based on these findings, we recommend enhancements to current social policies to minimize the differential mental health impacts on young Black Canadian mothers.