Using the work of Judith Butler on gender regulation, Black Feminist Thought (BFT), and autobiographic storytelling, this piece illustrates how essentialist notions of gender, and discourses related to gender create conflict in shaping identity construction for a Black woman academic and single mother (BWA/SM) in the United States. This piece reveals complex gendered and racialized tropes related to notions of motherhood and womanhood, particularly within the author's own family. Included here is how the author attempts to transcend these complexities in her quest for self-­definition and self-­actualization, unbridled by gender norms. Yet, race, gender and parental status are significant intersecting categories in identity construction, and inherent in the constructions are hegemonic discourses with which the author continues to grapple. Consequently, the struggle to transcend these forces is further complicated by the limited representation of Black women in the US academy, and by the types of academic work where they find themselves typically situated.