I Am Not Your Baby Mother summary

Growing up as the eldest child of a single mother of three, Candice Brathwaite saw just how difficult it was for her mother to raise children alone. Struggling with depression and overwork, her mother wasn’t always available for her children. So, at just 11 years old, Candice had to pick up the slack, caring for her younger siblings and helping to run the household. 

That experience, coupled with countless negative stereotypes she’d grown up with about Black mothers in Britain, made Candice decide not to have children of her own.

At a time usually filled with anticipation and excitement, one of Candice’s first check-ups was soured by a racist microaggression. The doctor asked skeptically where the baby’s father was – the implication being that, clearly, he didn’t believe the father would have an active role in the child’s life.

Candice boiled with rage. She knew for certain that the doctor would never have asked a white woman that question. He was echoing all the racist stereotypes she had feared – the “baby mother” with a partner who absconded from his responsibilities as a father. 

As soon as she decided to have a baby, Candice became fixated on just one thing: acquiring a Bugaboo pushchair. Bugaboos were sleek and beautifully designed. They were the Rolls Royce of pushchairs.

The problem? All that style didn't come cheap. With all the accessories, a Bugaboo pushchair cost over a thousand pounds – money that Candice and Bode definitely didn't have. They were just making rent and often subsisted on meals of canned salmon and rice to cut costs. 

One of Candice's earliest memories is of watching with her father the movie Roots about the life of Kunta Kinte, a Gambian boy who was captured and enslaved. In one particularly distressing scene, Kunta is repeatedly whipped by the plantation owner because he won't accept the new name he’s been assigned. As he nears death after being brutally beaten, he finally accepts the name “Toby.” It's the ultimate loss of his identity. 

Even then, Candice knew that Kunta's transformation into “Toby” had some relation to her own white-sounding name. Being Black meant assimilating into white society, taking on names that blend in with those who are oppressing you.

After giving birth to her daughter, Candice knew that something was wrong. She was sweating through the sheets every night, felt very dizzy, and couldn't even walk up a flight of stairs. What's more, an ominous lump swelled below the scar of her caesarean.

She told the midwives who came to check on her, but they insisted that everything was normal. According to them, her body was simply recovering from childbirth. The lump was nothing more than scar tissue.

If the glossy magazines and cheerful Instagram photos are to be believed, motherhood is a joyful honeymoon. You get to stare into your baby's eyes, breastfeed in flowing smocks, and craft organic baby foods for your little one. 

The reality for many women is jarringly different. Candice was overcome by a dark depression on her return from the hospital. She'd been through an extremely traumatic medical crisis and was still physically recovering. She also felt completely alienated from her tiny daughter, Esmé. After all, she had missed out on the first month of her life – a vital time for bonding between mother and child. 

Candice is a city girl. She knows London like the back of her hand. Her history is etched into the city streets. She can tell you exactly how to flag down a cab and where to find the most delectable foods. 

London has always been her home, but when she became pregnant with her son in 2017, she realized that it could no longer be her family’s home. Austerity measures, or government cutbacks, meant that community centers and youth programs were being shuttered, and school budgets were being cut. These changes disproportionately affected Black families, who plunged further into poverty. 

Social media is supposed to be a democratic space for everyone to freely share their stories. But as she browsed through forums like Mumsnet or saw artfully staged Instagram photos, Candice became sick of seeing one-dimensional representations of motherhood. There were plenty of skinny white women doing yoga, but where were the women of color? 

Seeing the need to fill a gap, Candice decided that she didn’t want to wait for those stories to come along. Instead, she would use her own voice to challenge the media’s lack of representation for diverse mothers – starting a new, empowering journey of her own.