Mothering Black Adolescents: Personal and Adolescent-Experienced Racial Discrimination, Superwoman Schema, and Black American Mothers’ Mental Health

Racial discrimination affects individuals and families, especially Black American mothers, who often rely on coping strategies like the Superwoman Schema—reflecting stress, resilience, and societal expectations shaped by racism and sexism. This study examines how personal and vicarious racial discrimination (experienced through their adolescent children) relate to depressive symptoms, perceived stress, and anxiety among 319 Black American mothers. It also explores whether dimensions of the Superwoman Schema mediate these effects. Confirmatory factor analyses identified two key dimensions: the obligation to manifest strength and the obligation to help others at the expense of self-care. Only the latter mediated the relationship between both forms of racial discrimination and mental health outcomes. No mediation was found for the obligation to manifest strength. These findings underscore the need to address culturally relevant stressors and coping mechanisms in understanding the mental health of Black American mothers.