American writer Kathryn Harrison (b. 1961) was raised in the kinship care of her grandparents from the age of 6.

Harrison was born in Los Angeles, California. Her young parents divorced when Kathryn was 6 months old. At the time, Kathryn and her mother were living with the maternal grandparents and they stayed there until, when Kathyn was 6 years old, her mother left home.

As Harrison tells the story, her mother didn’t move far away but she never gave her parents, nor her daughter, her address or her phone number. Harrison interprets her mother’s behaviour as evidence of her needing to be independent but not being able to achieve that while caring daily for her daughter.

The young Kathryn saw her mother often, including at church on Sundays. But she never had a room for her daughter at her house until Kathryn went to college.