Sociologist Dawn Marie Dow examines how middle-class African American mothers navigate the distinctive challenges of raising Black children in a society where racism threatens both their safety and their sense of authentic identity. Drawing on interviews with mothers in the San Francisco Bay Area, she shows how these women develop strategies that differ from those described in research focused on white middle-class families. Her subjects work to transmit class advantages while also preparing children to encounter racism, simultaneously trying to ensure their children are seen as 'authentically Black' by Black peers and as non-threatening by white institutions. Dow reveals the emotional labor required to manage these competing demands, labor that remains invisible in dominant frameworks of middle-class motherhood. The book examines how mothers navigate schools, neighborhoods, and activities, making choices that white parents rarely have to consider. Dow's analysis challenges both scholarship that treats middle-class motherhood as racially unmarked and research that focuses exclusively on poor Black mothers, showing how race shapes parenting across class lines. For anyone interested in race, class, gender, or the sociology of family, this work provides essential analysis of how intersecting social positions shape the experience of motherhood.